Ring Mountain
Climb Review
Louie is really good at smiling while climbing.
Both Turtle and Split Rock are made of schist rock. What this means is that the crimps are surprisingly good, but the feet are unsurprisingly bad—its just so slippery!
The hike to Turtle Rock is about a third of a mile from plentiful street parking on Taylor Rd. The hike to Split Rock is about a few football fields.
At both places, there were broken bottle fragments. At Split Rock, there were lots of poison oak.
There are no restrooms nor water available at the park.
Around mid-afternoon, the wind picked up quite a bit at Split Rock; maybe around 10 mph sustained?
There was plenty of bars on every network at both rocks.
Unnamed Flake (V0; Turtle Rock)—We kept joking that this was a V2 (as due the picture in my guide book that I think is slightly misplaced), but am 90% certain that this was a V0. It’s a good intro climb to Turtle Rock, as even though it’s a V0, it has the same qualities as the other climbs—good hands, slippery feet.
Turtle Toe (V0; Turtle Rock)—This is the crack route and although I did this one last year, I did it differently this year. I used a hand jam and an arm bar to make the problem way easy for myself and am quite happy that I can see a clear growth from last year.
Unnamed Bulge (VB; Turtle Rock)—I had a fun time helping Kaylee and others on this route as unlike the rest, it actually has decent feet.
The Flake (V2; Turtle Rock)—I don’t think I could do this one last year, but I was able to send it after more than a few mis-starts. But once I got on the crack, the rest of it came naturally... even if the top out took me a full minute as I emulated a beached whale.
Turtle Rock Roof (V0; Turtle Rock)—I wasn’t sure if I should attempt this one, as this one was a highball, but both Louie and Javan did it, and I really did want to do it, so I went for it. As they pointed out, the holds were absolutely bomber and this route had great feet, so the route itself felt really good. Still, up high, I was pretty scared (as I should be).
Split Rock Chimney (5.6; Split Rock)—I wanted to do this one last year, but I was too afraid to. Not this year. With having done an easier chimney at Indian Joe Caves, I felt confident that I could get up the chimney without any issues, and I didn’t. I did get scared though, since I solo-ed this short route, but I calmed myself down and just focused on one move at a time.
Split Rock Slot (5.4; Split Rock)—I down-climbed this solo-style after I had climbed the chimney and boy was it scary. Mostly because I couldn’t see my feet, and so I just went super slow—finding all the best hands that I could. It was good practice down-climbing... but yeah, if I keep doing stuff like this, I should really rope up.
Slippery Crack (5.8; Split Rock)—I top roped this route like a normal person and I didn’t like the route. Mostly because I found three different flakes and rocks that moved with my weight. That really messed with my head and it made me go up this route super duper slowly. I was very thankful that Mike was super patient.
What I Learned
I set one of the anchors at Split Rock and oversaw Louie with another. On the anchor I set, I made it with just a short accessory cord through a drilled hole and I don’t think I could improve that anchor (maybe a nut I could place on cracks leading up to the anchor point?). On the one that Louie set, I think we could have made it redundant by looping the long 30’ cord around two drilled holes instead of just one. I mean, I don’t think it’s the biggest deal as I was taught that with natural anchors, if it’s bomber, non-redundant is okay, but in this case, I really think we could have made it redundant easily. Something to improve on next time!
Friends
Picture taken by Marina
A lot of friends came to this climbing meet—Louie, Jo, Scarlett, Marina, Sarah, Meera, Mike, Javan, Amanda, and Aubrey. It was really nice having everyone there, especially Mike and Meera. Mike because I hadn’t seen him in forever and it was great catching up about life stuff (and finally delivering the PAS that I promised to sell him back in May). Meera because it was her first time joining us and it’s always fun to make new friends. And everyone else—Louie, Jo, Scarlett, Marina, Sarah, Javan, Amanda, and Aubrey—are some of my favorite people, so I just enjoy spending time with them.
What Happened?
Ever since we visited this place in 2022, the girls and I talk about this place every few months as one of the prettiest climbing spots we’ve been to, and that we should go back someday. So, we went back.
One of the coolest things about my girls is that once they’re signed up to something (like this climbing trip), they don’t complain much. Which is nice, since I had to wake them up at 6AM in the morning. We ate breakfast, and headed off to Ring Mountain (picking Louie up along the way).
When we arrived, we saw that Jo, Scarlett, Marina, and Sarah were already waiting for us even though we got there two minutes early! What a group of people that are respectful of other’s time! Meera joined us soon after and we walked over to Turtle Rock.
I think one of the things I love about our group is that when we boulder, we do it in a way where people are intense about the climb and care and people are extremely supportive, but at the same time, we also meander and low-key climb when we want to. Usually, that is decided by if someone calls for the crash pad, as that means someone is trying something they’re scared of. But then when you look around, there are a few people who climb without as the route they’re on is way easy for them, they’re not climbing high at all and just checking out a few low holds, or they’re doing a highball where the pad won’t matter (if we had multiple pads, we would, but we just had mine). I don’t think it’s the best practice to boulder without pads at all (even on small or high-consequence highballs), but we had a single pad to share, so we made it work. It was especially cool to see Marina top out on her first outdoor boulder and to see Louie top out a V2 highball—just inspiring to see my friends push their personal envelopes and hit their goals!
We then headed off to lunch for my favorite—Amy’s Drive Thru! I had my usual (The Amy with spicy sauce + lemonade), Anna got a kid’s burger, and Kaylee got a Margherita pizza (she liked it). I think others had a good time too!
Afterwards, we headed back and went to Split Rock, where we setup anchors and climbed until 4PM! I thought we’d need to move the anchor to different spots, but because the routes were so close together, people just ended up climbing multiple routes with the same anchor. For Javan, Louie, and me, we also soloed a few routes, which was also fun in a more thrilling way. For the reader concerned, Split Rock sits so low that these solos are the same as highball boulder problems. They’re actually easier as the routes I soloed were 5.6, which is a V0 or V0- rating for boulders.
At the end, it just got really windy and people were tired. Still, people were sending routes right up until the end, at which point Louie and I cleaned up the anchors. We headed back to our cars, gave each other hugs like usual, and headed back to our homes.
