The crux is getting both hands into the crack. 

Crack the Sky

The Lemon Squeeze

Hermit's Arete

Hermit's Cave

Graffiti Scrambled

Hermit's Lunge

Hermit's Hug

Hermit's Journey

Hermit's Crack?

Hermit's Basement

Start standing with your hands on the lower of the 2 upward and right-trending seams and decent feet. Work up and through the vertical crack to the top.

The Lemon Squeeze is a fun squeeze problem to practice chimney moves. You can make it a classic chimney V0 or a tighter squeeze V1 depending on how far back you tunnel.

This ascends the arete to the left of Hermit’s Cave. Stand start with hands matched on a not-so-good crimp block with your feet in the steep overhang. Dyno out right (a toe hook on the lip would help here), and go up the arete/face. Awesome. 3.5 stars.

Start back in the cave on fantastic juggy underclings with decent feet on the wall. Power out of the cave using roof beta to a hard cross move on the small arete feature. Once gaining the seam, traverse left to a very tricky mantle topout for the grade. Thank goodness it isn't highball! 

  Starting further back in the cave may add a grade.  

  This is a super classic climb that gives us in Boston a little taste of roof climbing, and is totally uncharacteristic for Hammond Pond and a very worthy tick for being so close to the city. Any visit to the Temple Overhangs or Pusherman Wall should include a stop here. 

  Boston Rocks Ed. 2 gives this a classically sandbagged 5.10/V1 rating.

Stand-start on the right side, low and just after the 1-2' foot dropoff. There are a couple cracks to choose from for the hands, whatever's comfortable, and the feet are terrible throughout. Trend up and left following thin, horizontal seams, and top out above the middle of the green lettering.

Sit start on two decent crimps and whichever footholds that work. Make a big move to the lip, match hands, and top out using the right arete.

Start sitting at the arete, and slap for a sloper on the arete. Match your hands (the hug) on the sloper, then go up and left for the topout.

Cross your hands, and move from the Hermit's Lunge into Hermit's Hug with a really reachy, gaston move into a crimp. There is an annoying rock below the start, which doesn't need any special protection.

So you have flown up Hermit's Cave with ease and consider yourself a cave dominator? Well, let me tell you, all the local Massachusetts caves don't even consider Hermit's Cave a real cave. The real cave they all admire is the buried "adventure" corridor higher up on the same hill. Overall, this "cave" is about 10 feet long (horizontally) with a head-high (6 foot) exit that you have to climb through. If the exit was on a Yosemite Wall, its corkscrew maneuver would probably be given the fearsome rating of 5.9+. My 7 year-old moved through it easily and said it was tons of fun. My much heavier and more portly self crawled through the exit move with alarm and uncertainty - but also thought it was tons of fun. Note: like many "squeeze hole" caves, not everyone can fit through this cave. There is an actual upper size limit for doing this route. The author is 5' 8" and 190 lbs. and could barely squeeze through the exit on this route. Your results may vary. The four-star rating is for the great adventure aspect of the route.

Hermit's Cave has a couple problems on the boulder itself, along with a few routes that follow the cracks up to the boulder on the left of Hermit's Cave.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Hermit's Cave