Top 10 Best US Large Cities For Climbing

Not to nitpick, but

Downtown LA to Downtown SD is less, about 100 miles, and Pendleton does thankfully interrupt the megalopolis, but North County San Diego to South LA is less than an hour drive.

Josh is @ 3hrs from SD, Tahquitz/Suicide less than 2 hrs

Reno and Sacramento are the same distance apart as LA/SD

sandiego wrote:

Edit Reply since I'm out of posts: Vegas has lots of higher altitude/shady stuff in Red Rocks and Mt Charleston where its pretty east to beat the heat.  Vegas summer is no more limiting then Denver or Salt Lake's winters, hence why it isn't as limiting as you would think.  You're not climbing on the strip. 

Kevin Worrall wrote:

Not to nitpick, but

Downtown LA to Downtown SD is less, about 100 miles, and Pendleton does thankfully interrupt the megalopolis, but North County San Diego to South LA is less than an hour drive.

Josh is @ 3hrs from SD, Tahquitz/Suicide less than 2 hrs

Reno and Sacramento are the same distance apart as LA/SD

It’s 100 by air, 120 miles by car but with traffic it seems even farther! Each city has its own distinct good quality local crags as well as access to tons of great climbing within 2-7 hour range. No reason to lump them together other than to limit the number of California cities. Reno isn’t even among the top 100 MA so I think it got added as a tag along to Sacramento since it doesn’t qualify on its own.

Jordan Wilson wrote:

I agree putting San Diego with LA togather seems a bit wild as going north to south would be a 6-8 hour commute, and cover an usburd ammount of land.  Vegas is a pretty hard to beat as a climbing city though seeing as it has a lot of variety in climbing others lack, as well as being in striking distance to Cali, Colorado, and Utah. Summer isn't as limiting as one would think. Not sure it deseves #1 though. 

Would you please explain how the summer isn’t limiting living in Las Vegas?

I figured Mt Charleston on my own. One limestone spot is what I consider limiting so maybe you could give us some more insight as to options other than Mt Charleston.

sandiego wrote:

Would you please explain how the summer isn’t limiting living in Las Vegas?

Mount Charleston for one. 

As far as LA vs SD, Tahquitz/Suicide, Black Mountain/Tramway and JTNM are basically a wash as far as driving goes. 

Bishop is about 90 miles closer to downtown LA, than downtown SD, Yosemite about the same, but those are long drives and the extra hour and a half is pretty minor. Also if you live in North County SD or South “LA” the difference can be a lot less, basically a wash.

LA has the Riverside Quarry, Frustration Creek, Horse Flats, Stoney Point, a little closer to Margaritaville, it’s closer to Holcomb, but that’s kind of a wash too. Tell me what else? Never lived in LA

San Diego, on the other hand, has Trono, Azteca, Valley of the Moon, Corte Madera, El Cajon Mountain, Eagle Peak, Mission Gorge, Woodson, Descanso Wall, Stonewall Peak, Deerhorn Valley, Culp Valley and The Jasper boulders, the Rainbow Boulders and the Temecula Domes, 2 extensive “secret spots”, one of which, even though it’s only partially developed, has been called “world class granite sport climbing” by several well traveled climbers, and the other a vast area of mostly moderate climbing with high quality routes up to 400 ft, plus dozens of lesser areas with routes in the 50 - 100’ range, and an insane amount of bouldering all over the county, mostly unexplored.

I’m saying SD rules over LA climbing decisively, if you don’t lump them together, and SD is not LA

Los Angeles has the areas you mentioned though the Quarry I think is essentially gone now.  It also has the Santa Monica Mountains with tons of areas, Angeles Crest holds good climbing with routes up to 3 pitches, zero crowds and nice summer temps.  Texas Canyon is popular I hear, only been there once about 8 years ago.  The draw for me is the striking distance to the high desert and the endless new routing potential there.  And of course the Sierra is only a short drive to either the east or west side.   

I can leave my house in Burbank and be climbing 3 pitch routes at 7000 feet in exactly one hour.  

sandiego wrote:

Would you please explain how the summer isn’t limiting living in Las Vegas?

We literally tied our hottest ever official temperature recorded in Vegas on Saturday ... and we were up climbing perfect limestone on the Imagination wall in very comfortable temps alongside a nice breeze during that.  It's an easy 40 minute drive to Charleston from Vegas and you rarely have to do an approach longer than 20 minutes to any crag there.  There's over 100 pages in the new Mojave limestone guidebook just for Mount Charleston and there are several other impeccable quality limestone cliffs within an hour of Vegas that you can climb in summer as well.

But nah Vegas is a total unlivable pit that's always a million degrees.  Honnold and Jstar only moved here for the gambling anyways.  No one should ever come here, most especially anyone from the paradise known as California for which we are not worthy of their presence.  

Bryan K wrote:

Honnold and Jstar only moved here for the gambling anyways.  

he, he, he.

I would consider adding into the debate (probably only going to make it to honorable mention) San Juan, Puerto Rico, which has over 2 million people. There is a massive amount of cool limestone nearby, including stuff you could realistically go climb on your lunch break. And that's before getting into the other benefits like cheap cost of living, beaches, surfing, nightlife, cool culture, and most importantly: no federal income or capital gains taxes!

Also, if San Diego gets to claim the northern Baja crags as their own, then El Paso would similarly be worth taking a look at because there is a LOT of good climbing across the border from El Paso, in addition to Hueco and a lot of other climbing close by in the Las Cruces area.

Lastly, I think grouping Reno and Sacramento together is a cop-out and defeats the purpose of this type of list.

Kevin Kent wrote:

I would consider adding into the debate (probably only going to make it to honorable mention) San Juan, Puerto Rico, which has over 2 million people. There is a massive amount of cool limestone nearby, including stuff you could realistically go climb on your lunch break. And that's before getting into the other benefits like cheap cost of living, beaches, surfing, nightlife, cool culture, and most importantly: no federal income or capital gains taxes!

Also, if San Diego gets to claim the northern Baja crags as their own, then El Paso would similarly be worth taking a look at because there is a LOT of good climbing across the border from El Paso, in addition to Hueco and a lot of other climbing close by in the Las Cruces area.

Lastly, I think grouping Reno and Sacramento together is a cop-out and defeats the purpose of this type of list.

Great input!  I added San Juan and El Paso as runners-up.  San Juan hadn't been on my radar for this list at all; great addition. As to El Paso, the summer heat is a major detractor and keeps it at a runner-up. While there are other hot desert cities on the list (Tucson, Vegas, the CA cities), they all have the advantage of nearby convenient high-elevation climbing for the summer, allowing for a very nice year round season. Does El Paso have that? There's the Organs, but there nothing convenient about the Organs. Any summer areas in Mexico?

Re: Borders: Cross-border crags definitely count if it is part of a city's set of accessible climbing. But they do get dinged somewhat for the hassle and uncertainty of crossing a border. FOr instance, Squamish access is a major part of Seattle's climbing resource and should be counted...until there is a pandemic and the border closers for over a year (and counting).

Re: Reno: Definitely a cop-out combining Sac and Reno, since they are so far apart and not really one contiguous urbanized area like the Wasatch Front. Reno on its own is not big enough to make the list, but a lot of people still really wanted it on the list. Having it as a tag-along to Sac was a way to appease these demands. Still, you are right. Reno has been removed and demoted to an honorable mention since it is not big enough. Now that Sac has to stand on its own, it drops a few slots down the ranking.

Now we have Sac, LA, and SD listed separately as rank 6, 7, and 8 respectively. Thoughts on the ordering of the CA cities? I put Sac on top since (A) I'm biased having just moved here and (B) it is closer to "the good stuff" in Tahoe, Sonora, Yosemite, etc. Sac has day trip access to Tahoe and reasonable 2-day weekend access to Yosemite, as compared to a much longer drive from Socal to Yosemite. I've lived in Socal and generally find the NorCal climbing to be more appealing (for me). But I never got much into the J-Tree style blobby desert domes. Similarly, I much prefer Tahoe to Idyllwild (and I lived in Idyllwild for a year!). In short, I'm prioritizing Sac's situation of being 1.5 hours from top-destination Tahoe climbing over the SoCal situation of having a bunch of lesser local crags and a longer drive to the major destination areas.  This is all based on my biases though, and I could see others arguing differently. Thoughts...?

Also no one seems to be recognizing wildfire problems and seattle is also plagued by wildfires during the best part of climbing year.

I don’t think it’s “fair” to include the Inland Empire with LA either. By google’s definition the eastern edge of the IE is around 200 miles from LA.

Not much different than including the IE with Las Vegas, or with SD for that matter.

Kevin Worrall wrote:

I don’t think it’s “fair” to include the Inland Empire with LA either. By google’s definition the eastern edge of the IE is around 200 miles from LA.

Not much different than including the IE with Las Vegas, or with SD for that matter.

I agree. I say remove it form LA and make proximity to IE part of why San Diego, LA and Vegas are top.  Which for me would swap LA and San Diego in list of what is better. 

Look, Boise simply is NOT a big city in the way these other places are. That statistical area is about six counties worth of population and throws a bit of Oregon in, too, lol! That includes a hefty percent of the population for the entire state. It is also the most remote urban area in the lower 48. Boise is all there is, this size, for hundreds of miles. 

Truly large cities have airports that get you most places easily. Boise does not. It also doesn't have the jobs or wages large urban areas have.

I also would keep places like Boulder and Boise on separate lists, because Boulder has that truly large city nearby. Same with Logan, etc. 

I think, for your thread here, the real consideration for a large city, is simply how much of an effort is required to escape it, and get to reasonable climbing. For a truly large city, that might mean you have weekend access to a huge amount of climbing....once you factor in a big airport. 

Sorry, Deven, the Black Cliffs are merely convenient, and Tablerock isn't friendly to roped climbing. 

Best, Helen

Re: IE Lumped with LA: I think this comes down to defining IE. Does it refer just to the urbanized zone adjacent to LA, or all of the eastern Socal desert?. I was using "IE" as a shorthand for just the urbanized western edge of the IE; the cities of  Riverside and San Bernardino. Perhaps this is incorrect shorthand?.  But LA to Riverside is only 50 miles, and is one contiguous urbanized area, so this is a reasonable grouping. Plus they share basically the same set of climbing resources. I can rephrase the grouping from "LA + IE" to "LA ( + Riverside - San Bernardino MSA) " based on this comment and to clarify any confusion over IE definition. 

Side note: I lived in rural Riverside County (Idyllwild) for a year, and am accustomed to saying "Riverside" as referring to the city, not the vast desert to the east.

[Edit: Ok the San Diegans don't like that either.  I have changed this to just say LA. It will be implicitly assumed that any nearby contiguous sprawl is grouped in. In the same way the the Snohomish County sprawl is assumed to be included with Seattle, and Placer County sprawl is grouped with Sacramento. Better now?]

Re: Trevor's note on wildfires. I think the big issue there for Seattle is that the "good" rock season is already pretty short, and you can't afford to lose any of it. Many of the other places on the list (CA, CO, AZ, etc.) also get summer fire/smoke issues. The difference though is that the summer fire season in CA is somewhat the climbing off-season. So if you lose August to heat and smoke, it sucks but at least you have great Fall-Winter-Spring climbing options coming up. Whereas in Seattle the summer is your peak season for climbing and you are really relying on it. But if you lose a summer month in Seattle, that is a major portion of your annual climbing opportunities (at least in local WestWa areas), so it is a bigger blow. 

This loops back to the big problem with Seattle-adjacent climbing (such as Index): it is either too wet or too hot most of the time. The wet-rock issue is expected (it is WestWa, after all), but the heat is more of a surprise for a lot of people. Index gets described as a summer crag, which is true in that it is often wet most of the non-summer times, but summer kind of sucks there also due to heat. Compare this to Squamish, which has the same winter rain issues, but at least has generally good summer conditions (due to more shade and wind), and as such has a lot more good-conditions days per year. Basically, the climate sucks for climbing in Western WA, and especially sucks at Index.

JCM wrote:

Great input!  I added San Juan and El Paso as runners-up.  San Juan hadn't been on my radar for this list at all; great addition. As to El Paso, the summer heat is a major detractor and keeps it at a runner-up. While there are other hot desert cities on the list (Tucson, Vegas, the CA cities), they all have the advantage of nearby convenient high-elevation climbing for the summer, allowing for a very nice year round season. Does El Paso have that? There's the Organs, but there nothing convenient about the Organs. Any summer areas in Mexico?

I lived in El Paso for a year and have visited numerous other times. It's not like Tucson or Vegas where it has a concentration of really good climbing that's high elevation and close to the city, but you can get out all summer even on day trips with a patchwork approach - the Tunnel is about an hour and a half away, Rough and Readies in the afternoon, some shady stuff in the Organs with an early start if you're into backcountry, the Hueco North Mt. roped climbing is actually quite nice in the morning, and there's some other random scrappy stuff. None of this is particularly high quality, when compared to the desert cities that are already on your top ten. There's reasonable weekend trips to central/northern NM and to Mt. Lemmon, though. I'm not sure if the stuff Kevin mentioned in Mexico can be climbed in the summer. Honorable mention sounds about right. 

ETA: As a city, El Paso gets kind of a bad rap, but I thought it was an interesting place to live (and despite the violence across the border, it's quite safe). However, it's a relatively poor city and I'm not sure about job opportunities compared to the other places on the list. With the exception of Hueco bouldering in the winter, the crags sure aren't crowded though. 

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I noticed the OP changed LA/IE to LA, San Bernardino/ Riverside

Same difference!

It would make more sense to include Kern County with LA, which would add The Needles, Dome Rock, and all the other crags around the Kern River.

I’m also curious as to which climbing areas in “Riverside” the OP is including with LA. Are we talking the city of Riverside or the County? Big difference. I don’t see Riverside County as being any closer to LA than SD, San Bernardino maybe.

Old lady H wrote:

Look, Boise simply is NOT a big city in the way these other places are. That statistical area is about six counties worth of population and throws a bit of Oregon in, too, lol! That includes a hefty percent of the population for the entire state. It is also the most remote urban area in the lower 48. Boise is all there is, this size, for hundreds of miles. 

Truly large cities have airports that get you most places easily. Boise does not.

Boise has a larger city population than Salt Lake City.  Also has an airport that serves all major carriers, and, around 2 million passengers last year, and, 4 million in 2019.

Job growth, population growth, average price of a home...yeah, Boise is a "large" city.  And, getting larger.

Old lady H wrote:

I think, for your thread here, the real consideration for a large city, is simply how much of an effort is required to escape it, and get to reasonable climbing. For a truly large city, that might mean you have weekend access to a huge amount of climbing....once you factor in a big airport. 

Sorry, Deven, the Black Cliffs are merely convenient, and Tablerock isn't friendly to roped climbing. 

Best, Helen

The boise metropolitan area accounts for about half the population of Idaho. Boise is a fairly large city. Mine and your argument of not being on the list is because it’s quite far from really good climbing it’s about 5 hours to smith or 3.5 hours to the COR I’d have Knoxville TN or Asheville NC before I had Boise on the list.

I think going to one of the three gyms you guys have is convenient. black cliffs  has 200+ routes and has better quality basalt then vantage and folk in Seattle drive 2 hours to climb there. Maybe not as bulletproof  as the lower gorge at smith but pretty good. Basalt climbing is never on anyone’s list but it’ll humble you and make you a better climber.

Edit I still think it’s silly to have both LA and San Diego on the list and not another east coast city as the vast majority of the us population is east of the Mississippi.