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No 186, June 15, 1999
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Rock Craft | Bouldering | Destinations | Training
Recommended Reading | Gear | Higher Education | Ratings

U.S. bouldering hot spots

America is blessed with outstanding bouldering. Close to 1000 locations have been developed so far, with more being discovered weekly. American bouldering is also blessed with great geologic and geographic diversity. Whether it's granite in the mountains, sandstone on the beach, or syenite in the desert, America's got it.

Hueco Tanks State Historic Park, Texas
Hueco Tanks deserves to be in a category of its own. It has often been called the world's best bouldering area. Without a doubt it is America's most extensive. Hundreds of syenite boulders host thousands of problems in this two-square-mile park just east of El Paso. There is climbing at all levels. The problems tend to be powerful, so expect to leave buffed. The best time to visit is from November through March. Recent regulations have restricted the daily number of visitors to the park. Reservations are hugely recommended: call 915-857-1135.

Other Southwest areas
In New Mexico, City of Rocks offers piranha-toothed pocket pulling on surreal pinnacles in the windswept high desert; Socorro has friendlier pockets, edges, and cobbles in a box canyon worthy of a Lone Ranger movie. In Arizona, Queen Creek is the tip-terrorizing home to many Phoenix bouldering contests and Flagstaff is centrally located between numerous basalt, dacite, and limestone areas of the nearby high country. Nevada has Red Rocks, where thousands of sandstone blocks bake in the desert near Sin City — Kraft Rocks and Willow Springs being the most developed.

Northern Rocky Mountain States
Wyoming and Montana are chock full of bouldering. In deference to local wishes, Montana bouldering will not be hyped here other than to say it's worth the trip. In Wyoming are Whiterock — mostly short sandstone problems with an emphasis on fun and dynamics — and Sinks Canyon, where most of the hardcore problems are on limestone, although granite and sandstone bouldering is also found in the same canyon.

The Colorado Front Range
The Front Range is one of the most heavily bouldered regions in the country, steeped in history and rife with classic problems. Here we find Horsetooth, on the western edge of Fort Collins, where hard, high-friction Dakota Sandstone hogbacks overlook Horsetooth Reservoir. The hundreds of problems here include the classics John Gill climbed in the 1960s on the famed Mental
Block and Eliminator Boulders. Good year-round, but best in spring and fall. A little to the south is Carter Lake, another area with outstanding Dakota sandstone bouldering.

The pebbly sandstone walls of Flagstaff Mountain outside Boulder, Colorado, see traffic almost every day of the year. They have been the stomping
ground of such luminaries as Bob Williams, Pat Ament, and Jim Holloway. Morrison, a small town west of Denver and south of Golden, is known
for its overhanging west-facing walls that usually stay dry and temperate
even in winter.

Western Colorado
West of the Great Divide, the crowds shrink, but the amount of bouldering does not. Unaweep Canyon has hundreds of soft sand-stone boulders, though tragically, much of the high end potential has been chiseled away. Independence Pass offers an escape from summer heat, but not always from scary landings. There is conglomerate bouldering on knobby maroon rock at Redstone, and, in the Telluride area, sandstone at Ilium and Society Turn, and volcanic conglomerate at the Mine Boulders. Skyland, a small area outside Crested Butte, has some outstanding highballs. Turtle Lake in Durango is a pleasant sandstone area tucked in the oaks — loads of moderates — while The Boxcar, at the north end of Durango, is the expert's delight.

Utah
Off US50 at the desolate western edge of Utah lies the radical group of quartzite blocks known as Ibex. Little Cottonwood Canyon is Salt Lake City's granite playground — look for old-time classics under Gate Buttress and many new-wave testpieces elsewhere. To the south is Joe's Valley, not one but two valleys of sandstone bouldering.

Sierra East Side, California
Across the Sierras, far from the urban hordes, the East Side is a year-round bouldering paradise. Tall problems with good landings and stunning scenery worthy of an Ansel Adams print are Buttermilk Country trademarks. Included within this category are several granite areas in the mountains west of Bishop. In cold spells and winter the Volcanic Tablelands north of Bishop are superb. The Happy Boulders is only one of many developed areas. In summer check out the volcanic pocket-pulling of Deadmans Summit an hour and a half to the north of Bishop. Supersoft landings often lead to highball bravado.

Central and Northern California
Yosemite Valley doesn't only have big walls, it has some of the best granite bouldering in the world. Most famous are the rocks in and around Yosemite Valley's Camp 4, home of Midnight Lightning. The combination of fine line, difficulty, and "location, location, location" has earned this the title of "world's most famous boulder problem." Tuolumne Meadows is worth checking out in summer, for the bouldering at The Knobs and The Gunks areas in the high country. In the Lake Tahoe area are many granite boulder gardens including the Pie Shop, Bliss State Park, and Donner Summit areas.

Within the Bay Area, Berkeley's Indian Rock is the best-known — a dinky area with hundreds of eliminate problems and a very loyal following. In the oak-forested hills west of San Jose lies Castle Rock, a sandstone boulder garden where such talents as Ron Kauk and Chris Sharma have honed their technique and open-hand power.

Southern California
Stoney Point is Los Angeles' home area, where the soft sandstone boulders have their own rush hour every afternoon. Such climbers as Royal Robbins, Yvon Chouinard, and John Bachar cut their teeth here. Poking above the smog of Riverside is Mount Rubidoux, the So Cal capital of granite microedging. Mount Woodson, not far from San Diego, has perhaps the nation's best crack bouldering, with granite splitters the name of the game. Horse Flats is a cool escape from the Los Angeles heat to granite boulders in the pines above Pasadena. Snow Valley has extensive high-elevation granite bouldering in the

San Bernadino Mountains.
The San Jacinto Mountains offer various areas with more granite boulders than you can shake a crash pad at. Near Idyllwild, Black Mountain is home to many famed John Long highballs, and much more besides. South Ridge has good landings and hot sun, and The Relativity Boulders feature one of America's most notorious dynos — the Speed of Light. Atop the east side of the San Jacintos is The Tramway, an apparently endless boulder garden approached by cable car from near Palm Springs.

Sandstone bouldering is found at Pine Mountain off highway 33 north of
Ojai as well as throughout the hills east of Santa Barbara, and Joshua
Tree has grainy monzonite galore amid the "Lost in Space" scenery of the Mojave Desert.

The Northeast
Bouldering along the East Coast is mind-blowing in the fall when the leaves are nuking and crisp temperatures aid in gripping the holds. Lincoln Woods in Rhode Island is one of the country's best granite areas. Loads of boulders, most of moderate height, lie hidden in the trees. Hammond Pond has cobble-pulling action in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. The Shawangunks, 80 miles north of New York City, has experienced a bouldering renaissance. The oft-maligned, yet much-travelled chuck of schist Rat Rock is in the middle of the Big Apple itself.

In New Hampshire, Rumney has great schist bouldering at the Town Pound and Blackjack Boulders. For granite, check out the numerous areas near North Conway or slip across the border into Maine and enjoy Jockey's Cap.

Hundreds of limestone boulders are found at the Niagara Escarpment, three minutes from Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Carderock, Maryland, has numerous schist slabs slicing into the banks of the Potomac near our nation's capital, and Livezey Rock is a schist area in urban Philadelphia where boulderer Bob Murray first climbed.

The South
Phenomenal gneiss boulders are rife in the mountains of North Carolina. It's amazing anybody ever leaves. Still, the same could be said of the bullet-hard sandstone areas in Tennessee, Alabama, West Viginia, and Georgia.
In North Carolina, Boone is the promised land of Southern bouldering. The gneiss boulders are very spread out and access issues abound — it pays to have a local guide. Blowing Rock is one of the best developed legal areas. Beneath Moore's Wall are the hardcore highballs of the Zschiesche Corridor, while above are the big roof linkups at Howie's Roof.

Boat Rock, Georgia, offers unforgiving eggs of technique-dependent cheesegrater granite in the suburbs of Atlanta. Sandrock, 20 miles
northeast of Gadsden, Alabama, has lots of corridors between hotel-
sized blocks making this a fun place to explore. Cooper's Rock, West Virginia, near Morgantown, is "Sloper City" — America's answer to UK's famous gritstone. Recently, the extensive Red River Gorge in Kentucky has seen bouldering development.

The Midwest
The Midwest is known for its dearth of tall cliffs. Fortunately, it suffers no dearth of boulders. Spring and fall are best.

Awesome sandstone bouldering is found in Southern Illinois, the most developed areas, such as Giant City State Park, near Carbondale. John Gill left his mark here, most noticeably at the diminutive Dixon Springs State Park. Elephant Rocks, Missouri, has coarse pink granite blocks that look blank, but hide many gems. Twin City climbers have the river-polished basalt of Taylor Falls to keep them happy. Overlooking Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the conglomeration of giant limestone blocks at Chandler Park — the most traverse-intensive bouldering area in the country.

The Northwest
The bouldering in the Northwest tends to be spread out in small areas. Coastal areas are plagued by rain, while on the east side of the Cascades drier conditions prevail.

A good beginner and intermediate granite area in Spokane, Washington, is Minnehaha. Hardcore boulderers will want to check out the numerous basalt areas surrounding Bend, Oregon. Some of these feature cave bouldering at the mouths of lava tubes. At the base of the famous Squamish Chief big wall in British Columbia is a rainforest full of boulders with frequently dicey landings, and at Dierke's Lake, near Twin Falls, Idaho, is a great combination of basalt moderates and beat-the-heat swimming.

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Rock Craft | Bouldering | Destinations | Training
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