I am in zone 6 in the Midwest as well.
I grow New Dawn which is a huge growing monster blooming climber that can get to 14' in a years time.
I also grow these other climbers:
Roberta Bondar-yellow 6'-8' tall.
Harlekin-pink blend 10'-12' tall.
Salita-orange/red 6'-8' tall and super vigorous blooming.
Butterscotch-lovely cafe au lait blooms 6'-8' tall.
I would recommend any of these for good climbing roses.
John

High Country Roses still has ownroot roses for you, including William Baffin, New Dawn, and Ramblin' Red. William Baffin would definitely fit the bill size wise. New Dawn also! I am in Ohio too, but near Lake Erie so I also am struggling to find extra hardy roses. I have John Cabot planted and Ramblin' Red.

Climber is a loose description for any rose in 5a. I've tried many and few get bigger than a shrub. New Dawn, or rather Dr. W. VanFleet which I have but was supposed to be ND, nearly died this past winter. My really biggest rose is the old rambler, Baltimore Belle. Tip hardy and about 10x10'. BVery fragrant but only once blooming but worth it. Illusion a nice red finally got to be about 7' after that many years. Those others you mention like Baffin is just a big shrub here. Doesn't even repeat for me. Blaze is a distant memory. Ilse Krohn Sup. is rather weird, it is my only climber that reaches the top of my pergola but a skinny and infrequent bloomer. After this winter I thought it was dead but finally it showed up with some growth. Dortmund the same and also Sympathie and Leverkusen.

I've tried a number of Explorer roses and Baffin it the ony one left. Those I remember, Henry Kelsey, John Cabot died somewhere along the way. Quadra I hear good things about. Rhode Island Red, a Brownell, barely reachs 6'. Not vigorous for me.

Roses do best with at least 6 hours of sunlight. Two hours will give you disappointing results--a scraggly rose that blooms poorly. Do you want to put two strikes against it: a difficult winter of frost/thaw cycles AND insufficient sunlight?

There are many plants that will be happier in that spot, why not keep looking?

Dublin Bay is a nice red with a mild fragrance. In earlier years I attempted to grow Don Juan many times but always lost it in it's first or second winter. I tried every winter protection I could to no avail.
I like Dublin Bay. It has well formed flowers and even if the bush gets severe winter dieback it come out of it nicely and grows tall by mid summer. Most springs it has lots of surviving cane.
Berlin is also a hardy red but the flowers are single although it blooms well. From severe spring pruning to August, I get 8-10 foot canes.

uh, Jeffcat if you are at all like me (someone who only wants fragrant roses-- I noted that you felt disappointed that Blaze improved had very little fragrance) so I would stick instead with Zephirine Drouhin. Problem with New Dawn is that it has very! little or no scent... If you want to replace the New Dawn with the same color but wonderful scent, I would almost leap to say get Pearly Gates as its substitue... It is recommended by my nursery for Kansas being in zones 5/6.... Most sites list the Pearly Gates as being very fragrant, and when I smelled it at the nursery it was the best! most sweet smelling climbing rose out of their selection. It had a gorgeous classical hybrid tea shape, except smaller in size, very delicate and breathtaking petal formations... It even outdid Don Juan's fragrance in my opinion... However there is only one thing that disturbed me-- Pearly Gates was listed as only slightly fragrant by Dave's Garden, which is usually very! accurate, but my nose and the nursery descriptor classify it as strong fragrance, just like the majority of sites other than Dave's Garden... Check at your own nursery just to see if you smell what I smell... To me the Pearly Gates grown at my nursery smelled like Tiffany, absolutely "heavenly"...If I were stuck with New Dawn, I'd be donating it right away and getting Pearly Gates instead LOL! I do not! like unscented roses, no matter how hardy they are...

As for deeper hues, I say Zephy, Zephy, Zephy! It is a beauty climber too and famous for hardiness, repeat vigorous blooming and fragrance....

I would not recommend Golden Showers, event though I've been growing one for 10 years. Even in the sun, it has lots of blackspot problems. Maybe it will grow in a shadier spot, but I would think BS would nearly destroy it there.

Every year I say I'm getting rid of it, but then visitors come by and pick it out as particularly pleasing to them. So I go on spraying the danged thing. While it has fairly consistent blooming going on most of the time, it is never what I would call a heavy bloomer. The blooms are also kinda skimpy and floppy and short-lived. The wonder is that so many people find them charming anyway. Maybe it is the shade of yellow they like. Mine is set back farther in the garden, so I guess they don't get close enough to see the BS.

A lot of roses will grow in part shade, but they will usually suffer more diseases and fewer blooms, so it is best to stick with the 6 hours of sunlight rule.

Don't know about Dublin Bay in Zone 5, but here in Zone 6, it is a winner. I like it very much--as you can tell from my user name. LOL

Kate

My Zephy is not hardy here in my Z5 yard, although it is only a couple years old. I got it as a band from RU a couple years ago. I think this past winter was it's third winter. It is planted on the east end of my front porch. It is in a protected location recieving the least amount of wind/weather and yet it still completely dies down to the ground each year and blooms very sporadically for me. Maybe it will improve as it matures a bit but so far it has not been hardy for me. Mine is an own root, so it comes back pretty strong each spring, but has never gotten over about 6 foot tall. It gets about 4 hours of direct sunlight per day plus another couple hours of indirect sunlight, so maybe that is part of the problem with mine.

My Awakening climber, which is supposed to be a better/improved version of New Dawn has been much more hardy for me, although the bunnies did it in this past winter. They ate everything they could reach from the ground/snow so I was left with a detached 15' tall tangled thorny mess to remove from the side of my chimney. Next winter I will put up some kind of bunny proof barrier around it's feet to keep the bunnies away. :I also planted a Dublin Bay climber late last year. It was just a small own root band, so it didn't do much in the short time it was in the ground. Since it was so new and small, I did winter protect it with a rose cone. So far this spring it seems to be doing nicely. I have been training it on the lattice along the side of my deck. Hopefully that one will prove hardy for me also.

1) I grow 3 Dublin Bay and they perform well in our zone 6a area. They are very robust and the flowers live very long. One think though - I don't think it can rival Don Juan in a fragrance competition. Dublin Bay has little fragrance, but resists our cold winters with very little dieback.
2) Pearly Gates doesn't resemble New Dawn at all. I have (and love) both but they are quite different roses.
3) I also wanted to mention Westerland as another cold weather possibility. Nice fragrance and an unique color.

Another choice if you don't mind once-blooming (although I have yet to find a north-hardy climber that really reblooms anyways) is Chianti, a very early David Austin. It is wine red, fragrant (although not as much as most DAs) and hardy to the tips for me. Readily available through DA and Pickering I think. Very nice form too, with a little bit of training has nice arching canes vs. stiff uprights.

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I am in zone5b and yes there are cold hardy climbers that survive our winters but I do not know of a good red. Blaze did not live,Zephy spindly, ND stand back- her canes are so strong she will whip you when you pass thru but the Canadians do well here. John Davis and John Cabot are show stoppers for me. This is my John Cabot.

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This is Quadra about an hour ago. It's really just getting going, which isn't surprising considering it is very early in the year for main season roses.

There is an arbor in there somewhere. Once I get caught up on my pruning, I'll have to do something about this mess.

How about Sombreuil (aka Colonial White aka "The Imposter"). It is NOT a tea rose, it is thought to be a wichurana hybrid introduced in the late 1950s. It is a climber, and as a winchurana hybrid it should be pretty cold hardy. In my zone 9 climate I let it get as tall (on an arch and then on our house) as it wants to, and it reached the roof (3 1/2 stories up). However, I am told that in colder climates it does not get anything as large, so perhaps it would stay a medium sized climber. It has the most lovely blossoms - similar to Mdme Hardy, and blooms here all summer. Nice scent too.

Jackie

Thanks for the all the suggestions guys! Do you guys know how much of a difference there is in between New Dawn and White Dawn? I already put in my order for a Ramblin Red from High Country, but it's not due to ship until July 27th so I could always rescind that order if I find something more adequate. In my perfect world, I would LOVE to have a white and red eden growing on my arbor, but I don't think they will make it through Columbus winters.

I'm still leaning towards my nursery's choices of New Dawn/White Dawn for one side of the arbor as it seems to grow fast giving some immediate results I suppose. I have heard numerous good things about Dublin Bay and Quadra as well, but I don't know if they would be as vigorous of growers and my nursery unfortunately doesn't carry them. The Columbus Park of Roses has a couple Quadras, and a special section devoted to Texas A&M research where they put roses in a full sun environment and give them very limited irrigation and no additional care to test how hardy of a rose they are. Knockouts were in there obviously, and so was William Baffin, John Cabot, Quadra. Hopefully, I can get a digital camera and take about a thousand(literally) pictures to share with everybody on here from the Park of Roses.

I am growing Ramblin' Red. I do not like the horizontal canes it tends to throw out, so I have to prune it aggresively to try to shape it upward.

We have what I think is an old Dr. Huey which is spectacular in June. I care for it like any of the other roses.

I have a neighbor growing Don Juan. It does not grow as a climber, but he has kept them alive along a southside wall.

If you have a protected area you can grow a large flowered climber that ordinarily will only grow in a warmer zone. I am growing Spectra, which has hybrid tea style blooms. But it is in a location with a southern exposure protected from winds by buildings to the east and west.

I put other specimenes of Spectra in an open space and those were gone after 1 or 2 winters despite good winter protection.

Don't get White Dawn, it has nothing in common with New Dawn other than the name. A total dud in my garden, behaved like a fussy HT and only grew about 1 foot tall.