As another warm March week comes to a close, I drove down the road to Washington DC after work to meet up with Brian for a little Rock Creek Park bouldering. Brian, who has been climbing everything he can get his hands on within an hour's drive of the city, was more than thrilled to find out he had such good boulders only ten minutes from home!
Starting at the smaller boulder near the large slab, we warmed up on a few easier variations before making several attempts at the center line. Although we came close a few times, it remains a project for another day.
Moving over to the larger boulder, we did a couple runs up the slab itself, including a variation I had been wanting to do since last time. It started sitting under the overhang on holds in the notch, and finished directly up the slab. Very fun, and I'm looking forward to trying it from further back.
Brian also did several easier problems on the back side of the boulder, and a really cool line up the corner, which involved a crazy combination of slab, overhang, laybacks, kneebars, and a fun but scary move rocking around the arete on a small crystal. Although that was the hardest move, I was glad for the solid stance to shake out before the slabby topout.
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| Photo: Brian Spiering |
After packing up and getting our pads back to the cars past some nervous horses, I made one more brief stop to check out another boulder I'd seen from the road a few times.
Walking to the boulder, it looked to be maybe 15 feet tall, and had a fun looking arete facing the river. It also had visible chalk on it, so obviously someone has climbed there recently. Anyone know anything about it? Excited to get back for a closer look!
4 comments:
Good stuff. I'm looking forward to checking this place out in a couple of months.
Hey, thanks for the visuals Robin.
Climbing's illegal in RCP. I've been hassled before by the police. Your videos aren't going to help the situation. How 'bout keeping a lower profile. Nice vids
Thanks for the heads up. I really did check the park rules before I decided to climb there and post about it, and somehow missed the part about it being illegal. Added notes to the top of all of Rock Creek posts and videos letting people know not to climb there, but still keeping them online for now just for historical purposes. Will remove them if they become too much of a problem. As for keeping a lower profile, now that I know climbing isn't allowed there, I just won't do it at all!
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