The Long Wall - The Worlds Longest Rock Climb

A short documentary about an unusual local extreme: the Great Wall of China traverse on the Shawangunk Ridge. The film follows two climbers as they attempt to link a continuous line across more than 9,000 ft of Gunks quartzite — a horizontal, multi-route traverse the producers credit to Dan Rosanstein and Ken Nichols (1987). Rather than a single graded pitch, the Great Wall is a linked sequence of classic single-pitch Gunks climbs; the film treats the project as a logistical and endurance puzzle and calls out the mundane cruxes you don’t see in most climbing cinema — jug rash, insect swarms and passing dog walkers. Shot around Mohonk Preserve, the piece works as a compact record of place and process: close-up on-the-rope footage and aerial shots combine to show how frictiony quartzite and short, technical trad moves add up over distance. The filmmakers keep the focus practical — route finding, pace, and the small comforts and irritations that define a long day on the Gunks — so the value here is in the scene-level portrait of a local obsession rather than in a single heroic moment.