1996 Snow Valley Boulderfest

Boulderfest!

The Snow Valley Bouldering Guide

Matt Artz

The History of Snow Valley Bouldering

The rough granite boulders surrounding the Snow Valley Ski Resort in the San BernardinoMountains began to attract the attention of local climbers in the early 1990’s. Before long,Brad Singer, Mike Rigney, and other members of the Rim of the World Climbing Club(ROWCC) had established more than seventy-five boulder problems and the ROWCC heldthe first Snow Valley Boulderfest in 1996. The combination bouldering contest and trashcleanup was attended by a approximately 40 club members, and was a huge success. 1997 brought more contestants--and more boulder problems. By 1998, about 130 people sharedalmost 500 boulder problems.Today, the Snow Valley Boulderfest is no more--the ROWCC can no longer afford the timeor money to subsidize the event. But the roots of the Boulderfest run deep. Among the 1,000or more established boulder problems, a high percentage are VB to V0+--testament to theSnow Valley philosophy of establishing an extensive bouldering playground for climbers of all abilities, not just the mega-hard. At an elevation of 6,700 feet with a short approach for many of the problems, it’s one of the nicest summer bouldering areas you’ll find in So Cal.Singer and Rigney are still active at Snow Valley, and many others have also contributed tothe continued development of Snow Valley, including Lisa Rands, Travis McElvaney, Zack Shields, Aaron Rough, Matt Hock, Rob Stauder, Enrique Yaptenco, James March, PatBrennan, Ken Kennega, and Matt Artz.

Conversion Chart

Snow Valley "Points"YDS V

1 5.6 -5 5.7 -10 5.8 -20 5.9 -30 5.10a V0-40 5.10b/c V050 5.10d V0+60 5.11a V180 5.11b/c V2100 5.11d V3150 5.12a V4200 5.12b/c V5250 5.12d V6300 5.13a V7400 5.13b/c V8500 5.13d V9

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1996 Snow Valley Boulderfest

In the “good old days,” Southern California could boast of the annual California BoulderingContest at Mt. Rubidoux, but since the mid-80’s comps have been few and far between...unlessyou count indoor comps. Indoor climbing is bad enough, but indoor

comps

can really bite, or soI’ve heard. So news of an actual outdoor bouldering competition in our own backyard got manya local climber excited.

Climber at Jalapeno Cracks on “Ken’s Arete,” the hardest route to date(150 points or 5.12-something) at Snow Valley West.

A core group of Rim of the World Climbing Club (ROWCC) locals has been developing theSnow Valley area in the San Bernardino Mountains for the last two or three years, and finallyshowed it off. Well, at least part of it. The “Snow Valley West” area as they call it features81 fine routes in the 5.4 to 5.12 range, about 20 of them toprope routes and the rest boulder problems. I can’t wait to see “Snow Valley East”...It was a cool autumn morning as we met in the parking lot at the Snow Valley Ski Resort onSaturday, October 19th, 1996. A fair number of the 70 or so pre-registered club membersdidn’t show, probably because of the blustery weather, but it was their loss. The low cloudslooked threatening, but the borderline warm-in-the-sun, cool-in-the-shade weather was tailor made for perfect climbing. Travis “The Prez” McElvany assembled everyone in the parkingPage 113

lot for a brief pep talk and an overview of the rules. He stressed the basic theme of the“comp”: to have fun and not take it too seriously. After a few questions, we were off.A 20 minute hike led us to Snow Valley West, where Pat “Trash Man” Brennan organizedthe clean-up crew. Car bumpers, bottles, Styrofoam cups, and almost everything elseimaginable littered the area. The place started out looking pretty crappy, but the crew pickedit virtually spotless in a few short hours (the only things remaining were a few untouchableobjects like soiled underwear and used toilet paper...yes, people are truly pigs). Pat ticked off the number of bags each person collected, the winner getting a nice new rope for their effort.In the afternoon, the much appreciative Forest Service came by with a truck to move themountain of trash bags and larger pieces of junk off to a landfill.Then there was the climbing. From the easy 1 to 3 point slabby problems on the ABCBoulder, to the classic vertical problems on Orca Boulder; from the variety-pack selection of finger and off-width cracks on the Jalapeno Cracks Boulder, to the wicked 100-pointoverhanging traverse-to-mantel on the Burnt Log Boulder; there were excellent problemseverywhere, and still potential for many more problems and countless variations. Wewandered between the boulders for hours, still only seeing less than half of the routes. Howdid the contest point system match up to the 5.x Yosemite Decimal System or other ratingsystems? “We’re not telling,” Travis told me. By the end of the day, I knew why: because itdidn’t matter. The point ratings helped competitors to roughly place the relative difficulty of the routes, and did give the contest organizers a method to quantify the “winners” of thecomp. But I saw more people caught up in challenging themselves to break through their ownlimitations, and nobody with any real interest whatsoever in “beat the other guy” cumulative point totals.The whole affair was very well organized. Mike Rigney, Jeff Rigney, Brad Singer, TonyGough, and other club officials, with all the beta in their brains and connected by radios,were stationed at each clump of boulders. There was a detailed 13-page problem list, a porta- potty, two water stations, a big box of apples, about two dozen topropes already in place, andall the free gymnastic chalk you could cram into your bag. Best of all, although this wastechnically a competition, everyone seemed to leave their egos in the parking lot. It was likespending a relaxing day climbing with 50 of your closest friends.So who won the comp? Frankly, who cares? There were no losers. Everyone who participated was a winner, from the relatively new climbers trying their best on 1 and 2 point problems, to Matt Hock, who flashed the second ascent of “Ken’s Arete,” the hardest route todate in the area at 150 points or 5.12-something. And the entire climbing population of Southern California was a big winner as well, as we now have another major boulderingdestination to boast of, along with promises of a much larger So Cal bouldering contest to behosted by the ROWCC at Snow Valley in June of 1997. Stay tuned!Page 114