Flagstaff Bouldering

Flagstaff Mountain is the local bouldering area. This place has quite a history, and despite the fact that it is no Hueco Tanks, there are many historical and classic "moderate" problems. Flagstaff Mountain is a unique area in that the bouldering does not involve pushing yourself on the latest V9, but attempting moderate and historical problems that are sometimes a little scary and sandbagged. There are few beginner problems, and not a whole lot of world class problems, but tons to pander to the intermediate climber. There is quite a lot of climbing at Flagstaff. There are the central popular areas like the Monkey Traverse, Beer Barrel, Red Wall, Capstan, and Cloud Shadow areas, but also many outlying areas that give some relief from the afterwork crowds, these are the Candle area, Pumpkin Rock, and Upper area. Climbing at Flag has several prerequisites. The climbing tends to be powerful, and quite bold sometimes. The rock will quickly tear up your fingers because of its sandpaper consistency, yet feel greasy at the same time. I have always found the place particularly conductive to circuits, starting at the Upper area and working down to Pumpkin Rock, one can do around 100 problems in the V0-V5 range. One can conduct innumerable ciruits from these problems. Some good problems at Flag include Cloud Shadow Traverse (V2-V6), Hagan's Wall (V5), Consideration (V3), Monkey Traverse (V3, greasy and often too crowded), Pratts Mantle (V2), south arete of Beer Barrel (V0), Polling Pebble (V5), Tree Slab Traverse (V1), right side of Redwall (V4 very height dependant), King Conquerer (V2 scary!). Harder problems too, such as Just Right (V7), Undercling Traverse (V9), Hollow's Way (V8), Mongolian Cosmonaut (V8), Over Yourself (V10), Ooze Pig (V7), and Trice (V12).