/climbing
Joshua Tree
desert · bouldering · 3d map
Winter climbing trips to Joshua Tree, with the desert's classic boulder problems on a 3D map, from Hidden Valley to Geology Tour Road.
Above is the bouldering heart of Joshua Tree, about fifteen miles of high desert from the West Entrance to Geology Tour Road, with Indian Cove tucked over the Wonderland of Rocks to the north. Every dot is a classic problem. Click one to see the boulder and, over time, photos from my sessions. The lines are the short walks that string boulders together and the drives between areas; select one to trace it across the terrain.
Where the classics live#
Almost everything worth pulling on sits within a few minutes of Park Boulevard. Hidden Valley Campground is the center of it: Stem Gem's no-hands groove, the Caveman roof, Pigpen's steep edges, and the JBMF Boulders across from Intersection Rock, where the John Bachar Memorial Face Problem draws a crowd onto tiny crimps. Wander north from the campsites and the Outback has White Rastafarian, the tall white arete on every Joshua Tree postcard.
The Barker Dam wash is the best classics-per-minute walk in the park: Streetcar Named Desire's holdless scoop, the Chube, the 80-foot Gunsmoke traverse, and the Iron Resolution block, which fell out of the cliff behind it only months before Chris Sharma climbed its arete at V13 on New Year's Day 2006.
South and east it thins out but stays good. Cap Rock has White Crack for a first problem and Pumping Monzonite for a project. The Planet X corridors and the Hang hide a ten-minute walk east of the road, and the Meadows Boulder sits alone in the grass at the Hall of Horrors. Slashface is the far-flung one, a tall slashed wall down the dirt Geology Tour Road, worth the drive.
Indian Cove is its own trip, reached from the highway side of the Wonderland, and noticeably warmer when a cold snap hits the high desert.
The grades are stiff, the landings are sandy, and the coarse quartz monzonite eats skin. Two days on, one day off is a schedule your fingertips will negotiate for you.