Nature Nazi Boulders
Photo by Pranay Pareek.
Climb Review:
We arrived around 1pm and was lucky in finding a parking spot right across the street from these boulders.
As usual to this area, the boulders were pristine, with no trash in sight.
Knob Face (V0-; Funky Face Boulder)—I flashed this route and it was a good first climb for Jo. The knobs on the rock make the hand and feet placements bomber.
Funky Chimney (V-easy; Funky Face Boulder)—This was an easy chimney climb. Flashed.
Funky Face (V1; Funky Face Boulder)—I didn’t flash this one, but I ended up getting it with a few tries. Near the top, it’s just slopers, so that didn’t feel great, but hey, it worked out.
Mantle (V0; Funky Face Boulder)—Really easy. Great holds and foot placements. Flashed it.
Minimalism (V1; Funky Face Boulder)—I don’t remember too much from this climb, but I don’t remember it being particularly hard either.
Lieback Flake (V0; Nature Nazi Traverse Boulder)—So, this took me two tries, and maybe it’s because I pulled up too quickly, but I thought this was definitely a PG climb. Near the end, I was a tiny bit scared of falling as I traversed right and I also thought it was harder than a V0... which probably means I went the wrong way :)
What I Learned:
These boulders are home to tons of mosquitos and fire ants. We were only able to boulder for about an hour before I had to throw up my white flag and go home because I was getting bitten everywhere.
Friends Made:
I climbed with Jo and it was her first time climbing ever. She did an awesome job completing a few V0 routes and I couldn’t be more proud of her.
What Happened?
I had a free afternoon, so I asked Jo if she wanted to go bouldering. She was up for it, so we headed off to Castle Rock State Park. I ended up choosing the Nature Nazi Boulders because it was the only one I saw on the Mountain Project app that had a V-easy route.
When we got there, I saw that there were a bunch of fire ants, but I didn’t mind them too much. However, after about 10 minutes, I realized that there were tons of mosquitos and they were biting my face and my leg as I climbed! I just tried to keep moving so that I would be bitten less.
It was pretty fun helping Jo boulder for the first time and I was really proud of her for not being too scared and just going for it.
After about an hour, I couldn’t stand the mosquitos anymore and we got out of there even though I wasn’t tired of bouldering yet.