I'm going to recommend that y'all think about doing something that very, very few people do. I am going suggest and discuss the value of walking across vast mountains and valleys to boulder and explain why doing that also makes sense. Yeah, millions of people climb boulders. It's a competitive thing, even though some say it shouldn't be. However, almost all bouldering occurs within a mile of the car and I am guessing this is a very different experience than hiking a long way. I have never hiked a long way for bouldering. I have bouldered in Juneau,Utah, and California and every time I was a short walk from the car. There are a thousand boulders that can be climbed near Bishop, California but I wager than nobody has carried their crash pad for more than two hours from road access. I love Bishop and all my climbs were quite close to the car. They really do have a thousand boulders in Bishop. Whether you are in Bishop, Moab, Juneau, or somewhere else, the short access is GREAT because you can spend your time climbing a boulder and not spend most of your time walking. However, lots of people write about bouldering near the road. What could I add to that? However, I have spent considerable time wandering the mountains way out past nil and yon and there are a lot of boulders out there.
Buttermilks, Bishop, California
It’s the dead of winter, it’s raining anvils and cannonballs, skiing sucks right now, climbing sucks even worse, and I couldn't climb if conditions were good. I fell off a fake wall at the climbing gym two weeks ago and messed up my shoulder so I can't lift my left arm more than 45 degrees. Adding to that, there is a national craziness that worms its way into my stress level. I am not alone here. Right now all of us have to deal with a narcissistic mental midget with a twitter account bragging about the size of his nuclear button.
Happy Boulders, Bishop, CA
Set aside doom and gloom realities for a moment as I distract you from the madhouse world and encourage y’all to put a crash pad on your back as soon as you can and walk miles and miles to find boulders that are strewn nil and yon in the Alaskan backcountry. This amount of walking may seem like torture but there is a logic to doing this or at least I think there is.
Big Bend Boulders Moab, Utah
Boulderer is not just a word but a word to describe a person. One who boulders. In addition to being a largish rock, boulder is a verb describing the act of climbing boulders. Eg. The boulderer boulders over the boulders. Notably boulders large enough to climb but small enough that you wouldn’t hurt yourself badly if you fell off. Some are the size of houses, hopefully single-story houses. Occasionally boulderers stretch the limits of safety. I love and fear these folks. I hope to become more of a boulderer when the weather clears up.
Joshua Tree, California
Each boulder has a geologic backstory. Juneau has boulders that are fairly close to the road system that are in the process of being cleaned and developed. Juneau’s easily accessible boulders are concentrated around areas at the base of escarpments that landslid sometime in geological time. If you see a rocky cliff, chances are there are boulders the size of houses strewn in the forest at the base.
Skagway Boulder
For example, eons ago a huge chunk of Mount Anderson in North Douglas cracked away and thousands of boulders shot downhill at 9.8 m/s^2 and eventually came to rest. Most of the boulders shattered to gravel in that short trip but those made of extremely hard stone remained and came to rest in the woods uphill from the Bonnie Brae neighborhood. This is geology’s version of natural selection. Survival of the fittest rock. As it turns out the cliff on Mount Anderson is a dangerous mix of good stone and crumbly rock but good stone survives while choss breaks to gravel so the boulders at the bottom are quite solid.
Ptarmigan Moraine
There are fields of boulders beneath the Tee Harbor Wall, beneath Fish Creek Knob, and beneath the cliff near Fred Meyer. There are also boulders strewn throughout glacial moraines. Geologists call these erratics. They are called erratics because they are quite distant and foreign to the underlying bedrock strata so they are thought to exhibit erratic behavior. Massive rocks can be carried a LONG way from their origins. There are granite erratics in Central Park carried to Manhattan from upstate New York during the Pleistocene. Erratics are common in Juneau and most are granitic. The dictionary doesn’t allow for the word erratic as plural. Geologists know better. Narcissist, tyrant, and boulderer are dictionary sanctioned words but landslid and erratics are not. That’s a public service announcement.
Ptarmigan Moraine
Erratics are also part of the boulder story in Juneau. Most erratics that boulderers climb in Juneau are in the Mendenhall Valley, chunks of granite carried down from the Juneau Icefield by the Mendenhall Glacier and left behind as it receded. The Valley is the only place in Juneau with erratics that don’t require a substantial hike time. There are some nice erratics along the Under Thunder Trail and out in Dredge Lakes area. There are similar fields of erratics in the moraines of Eagle, Nugget, and Ptarmigan Glaciers but these moraines require a long hike, long enough that you likely will need to camp out. The fact that the nunataks and bedrock beneath the icefield are granite is important because if you are willing to pull out a map and find a moraine at the base of a receding glacier, you are most likely going to find boulders strewn about the moraine. They will likely be clean even if they have never been climbed. Part of the beauty and reason for hiking a ways to climb is that you can explore landscapes that have never been truly explored. Some erratics have only recently escaped the glaciers that carried them there. Glaciers are shrinking fast and land and rock exposed in their wake isn't on any map.
Brett Collins, Stowaway Boulder, Pirate Shore
Let’s talk statistics because we all plan our lives based on probabilities, even those that hate math. Say we see a cloud with lightning, we put away our kites because the human brain evolved to instinctively estimate risk. I like math. If you want to find boulders that challenge and those you can work on regularly, your best probability is near the road system. On a summer evening after work, you can climb for hours and still have time to sip a beer before sunset.
Ptarmigan Moraine
Alaskan summer evenings were not created by God; they are God! Attending church can be perversion of religion because the concept of an all-knowing creator stands between us and the true divine. God is found in the mountains and seas and pastors and bishops hijack the feelings of awe we feel in nature to gain our money, obedience, and mental servitude.
In my quest to get people to pack a crash pad up the mountains I am not discouraging folks from climbing the boulders near town. In Juneau the downside most of the easy access bouldering is they are under forest canopy. This means these boulders are in the shade, covered in moss and somebody must clean them first. Furthermore, it’s emotionally taxing in Juneau to be in the shade on a sunny day and that makes a difference to my outlook sometimes.
Near Ptarmigan Moraine, Juneau in the distance
There is a difference between bouldering locally in an established area near the road and walking hiking into the hinterlands and that difference is pretty fundamental.
On an Alaskan summer evening, sunshine = God; not sunshine ~God. I made that point already but it's more of an opinion than a fact. Conversely, if you put a crash pad on your back and wander the mountains looking for boulders to boulder and camp out with your crash pad, you aren’t going to be able to return near as often. You won’t have time after work and it will take a longer weather window.
Mountain Goats, Ptarmigan Basin
That’s the downside to big hikes to access climbing. If you hike to the Ptarmigan Glacier with a crash pad once a year, you are doing well. It takes all day to walk up there and you can’t make a project out of a climb unless you don’t have a job and want to camp for days out past nil and yon. The upshot to walking a long way to climb is some of the locations are cool beyond words. Some of the moraines don’t get more than ten or so hikers a year and they are in hanging valleys above or near treeline. They are all in the sun and the boulders are clean. Walking for hours to find a boulder might sound like torture and maybe it is.
Climbing is torture, at least some of the time. It’s supposed be. I plan on hiking my crash pad a lot next summer and hope my shoulder is healed enough to climb provided the human race is still around. If we get into a nuclear war because going bouldering isn't going to stop it. It's also true that the Icefield is probably the last place stubby fingers would think to drop a bomb.
Five Boulders Beach, Pirate Shore North, this has a 30 minute walk to access. Not all climbing is hard to reach
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