There’s a lakefront path bathroom around Roscoe. Traversing the West facing wall felt like 5.11- from left to right (I haven’t been in 6 years). A bit crimpy. There are a couple of short & crimpy lines that go straight up, too. V-easy/V-moderate.

There’s also the Grant Monument in Lincoln Park (around Armitage for North/South) by Cannon Dr. for some traversing/scary highball.

I’ve another friend that was buildering in the burbs, but the “holds” broke and he fell 10’ and broke his ankles. I’m hesitant to climb on anything in the city, given how brick/terracotta/facade stuff breaks somewhat easily (look at all of the facade re-work done in the city the last few years!)

I’ve a friend that was ticketed when topping out at Jackson Harbor Wall and had to go to court. He got the ticket dismissed but he did have to prepare a defense and bring materials with him to do so.

Many of the older churches around town have good faces for climbing. University of Chicago has some good stuff too. Night time is your best bet.

On late evening dog walks whenever I lock myself out of my third floor condo I builder the decorative embroidery of the backdoor to a mantel ledge above the awning where I can stand fairly safely and then grip the stone ledge of a second floor stairwell window which is always unlocked (not too many burglars entering that way) and a sharp undercling hoists the window up and I am IN! The dog understands, but I can’t seem to teach her the buildering start move.

Oh, forgot to mention. Cemeteries! Potentially nice mausoleum problems abound! Not that I condone it. Just a viewer.

HAHAHA Nice Tom!

Zac—

Depending on your concept of “buildering”, here’s another potential candidate: railway supporting wall structure located in the vicinity of Labagh Woods’ mountain bike trail heading NW side of Chicago. PM me in LS or g-mail me (I think you got our e-mail address), if you want more details. As an aside, we have not done much “buildering” at this spot in awhile. But I figured, why not.

J

Churches seem to work well

I found a potentially nice “sculpture problem” outside the Field Museum over the weekend. Wow, talk about crimpy! About 500 feet S. of the SE corner of the building, it appears as a perfectly round 7’ generic globe with a tunnel running thru it. The surface is covered with 1/16th inch deep canals. Taller people might be able to reach to what would be the 30th parallel (as far “north as St. Louis is on the globe of Earth), find footing in the canals, and start pulling to a topout at the north pole. My guess is it would be V5 or harder! Be discreet, if that is possible.

There is also a kid’s play area built a couple hundred feet farther to the SE that seems to have been intended primarily as a climbing playground (about 750 feet SE of the SE corner of the museum)—which seems to have been deliberately “hidden” from random rampant skateboarders, in a raised bunker. In that playground you can make up all sorts of fun jungly moves, and there is another smaller globe than the one described above, that my almost-3-year-old Yudora is projecting at V0-minus-squared or thereabouts.