I am prone to reminisce more with encroaching old age and find pleasure in dusting off digital archives from past adventures. Please indulge this flashback then to our prime California climbing years in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Of course, most people associate Santa Monica with the ritzy beach community flanked by Venice Beach and Malibu. These prime locations, like Santa Barbara, lie along the SoCal housing bubble fault line. For us however the name is indelibly associated with fantastic sport climbing in the golden Boney Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Armed with Louie Anderson's definitive 2003 guidebook we worked through the middle grades on occasional day trips based out of Santa Barbara from 2003 through 2005. We visited the established areas Echo Cliffs, Mount Olympus, Paleface, Top Hat, Pico Raquelita, Hueco Wall, Boney Bluff, The Lookout and Malibu Canyon. In all we did about 100 climbs, most on sight, spanning the grades from 5.6 to 5.11b.
I uploaded a personal climbing website on the Santa Monicas in July 2004 but later closed the online account and never reposted. Back then digital imaging was not mature and most images from compact point-and-shoots suffered noise, low contrast, saturation, resolution, poor color balance and dynamic range. Fortunately modern software can compensate for some of these deficiencies and encouraged me to revisit and resurrect some old images and memories here.
The Santa Monicas are formed from an interesting volcanic conglomerate called brecchia that provided a welcome challenge after a surfeit of monotonous Santa Barbara sandstone. Some call the Santa Monica rock "choss" as new areas are incredibly loose and require lots of cleaning, with key holds even being reinforced with epoxy glue! The results are well worth the effort so hats off to the pioneers for their work opening the area.
Each area has its own distinct personality, from granite-like crimps on Echo Cliffs, finger pockets on Hueco Wall and Boney Bluff, scary cobblestones on Paleface and Mount Olympus and jam cracks on Pico Raquelita. Something for everyone!
Our Sunday routine would be to drive south on the Ventura Fwy. (101) to Oxnard where we could either continue to exit through Westlake Village or take the Pacific Coast Hwy. (1), depending on our trailhead choice for the day. The Mishe Mokwe trail is more convenient for Echo Cliffs and the Backbone / Sandstone Peak trail is better for the backcountry crags. Sometimes traffic forced the decision as the Conejo Grade on 101 could get awfully congested by the consumer feeding frenzy in Camarillo outlet malls.
Either approach trail provided a good workout and led through some magnificent scenery favored by hikers, bikers and cross-country runners. We always enjoyed the slog uphill with heavy packs in weather conditions that varied incredibly by season and day. Our starts were early enough we would often pass hikers and more mellow climber dudes approaching as we were on our way out!
Climbing has always been central to my life and the Santa Monicas provided a final challenge as age eroded ability. Most climbs there are sport bolted, meaning a fall is never that serious, so the area resembles a huge outdoor climbing gym and is safe for aging "has beens" like me.
The linked album will give some impression of our adventures and here is a brief commentary on some highlights.
Balanced Rock: A really cool formation with a dangerous original route marred by bad start, suspect vintage bolts and loose rock. In other words, a true "old school" adventure!
The Grotto: One has to pass through this shady area, replete with poison oak, on the way to Echo. The climbs here are nothing special but two stand out in memory. Miss Pacman is a delightful 5.9 up a steep slab that distinguished itself by hosting nasty stinging ants during our ascent. These aggressive blighters swarmed up the rope leaving a formic acid stench and certainly motivated us to finish quickly. Then Nimrod at 5.10d proved a Jekyll and Hyde climb after a mellow start led to a brutal finish up an overhanging headwall that spat me off first try. My hurtling bulk jerked Chel , who allowed too much slack in the belay, up against the wall and brought much chastisement for my rude decision to fall. Well, ex-cuse me!
Echo Cliffs: Too much variety to stereotype; Blackjack is one of the best experiences etched in my memory after committing to sustained crimps up an incredible golden wall. Superb is an understatement! Farther down on the Black Wall we got stymied by the powerful start to Persona Non Grata and realized not all 10.d's were to our taste.
Mount Olympus: I loved this curious cobblestone tower for its unique climbing on suspect holds. The original summit route B.E.M. was a sobering, runout experience and after that I lusted after the challenge of John Long's route Hercules that was just out of reach. It haunts me still.
Paleface: For some reason I became obsessed with this obscure wall after making an early repeat of the signature route. Paleface itself is a lonely voyage up a sustained sea of cobblestones and a tribute to Louie's vision. We later added 7 previously unrecorded routes at much easier grades on the undeveloped wall to the right. They are (left to right) the chimney Squeasy 5.3, Captain Cobble 5.7, Crackster 5.5, Knobster 5.6, Mad Dogs 5.5, Broiled Hogs 5.7 and Solarium 5.6.
Others: Nothing matched the intensity of experiences we had above. The awesome Boney Bluff far exceeded our technical capabilities so by then we mellowed into extreme off-trail exploration more suited to the adventure hiker. These exploits are chronicled elsewhere.
Climbing taught me skills in reading difficult terrain and the art of making choices in extremis. California chaparral provided the perfect followup medium and we instinctively found routes through dense brush based on climbing principles with an eye for the line of least resistance (rarely straight). Hopefully our adventure hiking posts reflect this philosophy.
and here is the link to some climbing in Malibu Creek State Park =>
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