Climbing Near Timber Cove, California

Excellent, hard beach bouldering on a calm beach in Sonoma? Nah! Welcome to Fort Ross Bouldering, on a soft small pebbled and sand beach just South of the town of Fort Ross, and just north of Fort Ross Historical Park. While the Quantity of bouldering isn't great, the QUALITY and 3 minute approach makes this a great stop (if not entire day) for a Sonoma County rampage. Climbing is varied on solid sandstone: There are excellent routes for beginners with many uncrowded rocks and problems with V0 or simpler climbing on them. Intermediates will find fewer choices. Experts will love the main boulder, which has problems from V0+ to V9. There are also a few top rope (5.11-5.12) options, though most people avoid them due to their proxminity to other climbing in the area, and also to the loose quality of the rock. All routes walk off the backside of the boulders. Sand level can play a major factor into the difficulty of the climbing here. Living a Dream (V5) which ascends the right arete of the main rock simply cannot be done as the 5 in the winter. Climbing the HARD "sit start" Living La Vida Loca (V8) is the only option, as the step into Living a Dream is well overhead. The other difficulty about sand level is that in the winter most of the soft sand goes away, leaving a rocky often jagged beach for highball landings. There are no access fees. Check the Fort Ross State Historic Park website for more and current information. To reach Fort Ross , head north on 101 from essentially anywhere in the Bay Area. Upon reaching the town of Petaluma, take the East Washington exit. Go left and drive west, over the freeway. When Washington intersects Highway 116, it turns into Bodega Avenue. Keep on Bodega for about 25 miles, and it will become highway 1 - Northbound. Keep on Highway 1, through Bodega Bay, and into Jenner. At the intersection of hwy 116 (same highway as in Petaluma, it just winds a LOT) and hwy 1, you have 14 miles until one 4 - 6 car pullout on your left, right next to mileage sign 34.20. This is where you should park. The trail to most of the climbing heads down to the beach from the North end of the pullout. See the pictures for some views.

The warmup wall is a small section good sandstone on the otherwise dirty cliff between the beach and PCH. Its about 30 feet across and most of the better climbing is on the bottom 10 feet. Usually the bottom is traversed as a good warmup before heading over to the main boulder. To approach walk down the path from the parking lot and head left when you get to the beach. The wall is on the left on the way to the main boulder.

Does a 20' high boulder with rough starts and highball finishes sound interesting to you? Welcome to the main boulder at Fort Ross. Climbing is either easy (V0 - V1) or HARD (V4 - V9ish). Nothin' in between. Easy bouldering (on the right side) entails an excellent but challenging start up to a slab that has excellent feet, and commiting hands. Strangely enough, the same can be said about the harder bouldering! Except that the harder section is entirely overhung (instead of the slab), and contains jugs and not at all jugs on highball solid sandstone over soft sand in the summer. No access issues. Bring pad(s). The Main boulder will see sun from about noon to late afternoon in the summer, but you're right on the beach, so if you overheat, go for a swim in the relatively gentle surf. All hard stuff on the overhung section is a classic. All easy stuff is fun, but not so good to call a classic. Approah time: 4 minutes. From the parking lot, head down the path to the beach. Head a left once you get to the beach, and continue on the sand past the Welcome Wall until you get to the large, prominent boulder on the far end of the sand. This is the Main Boulder, distinguished by the large sideway half moon shaped seam on the slab side of the rock and the large, yet strangely far apart jugs on the overhung section.