Snake Den State Park

Directions
Snake Den State Park is located in Johnston off Route 6 (Hartford Ave). It is 8.4 miles/16min from Providence. From Providence and points east follow Rte 6 west. Two miles west of Rte 295 take a right at light on Brown Ave. After about one and a quarter miles there is a small parking area on the right. Do not park here. Go for another three quarters of a mile and there is second parking area on the right. Park here. Follow the trail past a small pond (dry in summer) for a few hundred yards. You will go down a steep hill and will see the first set of cliffs (crags 1,2,3,4 in the guidebook) immediately on the left. To get to crags 5,6,7 keep following the trail for a hundred or so yards. You will see a stone wall that use to cross the road and was dismantled. There is a trail a short ways after that on the left where it starts to get swampy. I put a cairn there but it may or may not be there. Follow the trail to a bunch a rocks that apparently use to be a bridge. Cross the little brook there. The crag is visible slightly to your right.

Description
Snake Den is included as a recommended area because it has a variety of routes, is close to population centers like Providence, and has a long Rhode Island climbing history.  A guidebook entitled Rock Climbs of Snake Den State Park Johnston, Rhode Island was written by Ed Sewall and published in 1991. Hard copies are available from Ed Sewall by emailing him at: kell@foxinternet.net. A scanned copy is republished here with the permission of the author. There is also an article which lists and describes Snake Den routes that was published in the 1989 June/July issue of Climbing (No 114, pp 26-27).

There are seven cliffs at Snake Den State Park which range from 15 to 35 feet in height. The rock is granite with loose rock on some of the cliffs. The routes range from 5.2 to 5.12+ with the majority of established routes being in the double digit range. Some of the hardest established routes in RI are at Snake Den. These are some of the more popular routes.


Crag 3: Red - No Name 5.8, Green - The Rattlesnake 5.12+


Crag 3: Yellow - No Name 5.9+, Blue - The Fang 5.10-


Crag 4: Various easy routes ranging from 5.4 to 5.8 on this low angle face.


Crag 6: Yellow - No Name 5.10+, Red - Battle of the Bulge 5.11-, Blue - Toastmaster 5.11+
There is a single bolt someone placed here. Unfinished bolting job?