Urban climbing in Stapleton...

Has anyone checked out the wall in Stapleton's Central Park

denver.yourhub.com/DenverNo…

I went there yesterday, climbed a few things, has some nice edges, quite a few pockets (too many for my taste but I'm not a hueco guy). The "cracks" inbetween the boulders were full of wood chips. Who'd of thunk I would need to bring a brush to clean on this new thing. All in all, fun for something so close to home.

I wrote that blog to a general, non-climbing audience, but I'll tell you what I think, as a climber/crappy boulderer. Those guys at Monolithic know what they're doing -- they also did the wall at the Denver REI store and the boulder outside the store. It's fun to walk around these things and check out where they put holds and imagine the lines they had in mind when they were carving them.

I live and work in downtown Denver, so I can definitely see biking the 6 miles out to Stapleton to mess around on them for 45 minutes. I'd love to see more projects like that in Denver's city parks, but I'm not holding my breath because of the costs. The guy I talked to at Monolithic said the Stapleton wall and the freestanding boulder cost more than $100,000, and I know Entreprises, another company, charges about $15,000-$20,000 to design and build a 13-foot boulder.

Would I rather spend a couple hours after work at North Table Mountain or Morrison? Yes, but this is a pretty cool alternative in town.

I went out there last night with a friend and bouldered by headlamp. We spent most of our time on the upper boulder, not the retaining wall. Pretty rad addition to the park, if you ask me. Plenty of options for problems, and pretty natural looking, though you can tell by feel that it's not real rock. I have plenty of poor urban friends who like to boulder, so I imagine we'll be back out there soon enough.

While you're there you should check out the boulders & wall at E 26th Ave and Wabash St. There is also the Eye sculpture on the green way at E 29th Ave and Xenia St (this is not meant for climbing (though it may have some pretty cool problems)).

"though you can tell by feel that it's not real rock."

Not to split hairs but technically, concrete is a calcareous conglomerate:-)

Scott M. Mossman wrote:"though you can tell by feel that it's not real rock." Not to split hairs but technically, concrete is a calcareous conglomerate:-)

No mistake Nate, even though it's a calcareous conglomerate, it's still not a rock because it's not "naturally occuring" (although future alien geologists that visit our planet after we're long gone might consider it such). No offence meant, just interjecting humor, which is sometimes a dangerous thing to do on this site!

the good things about this are its free, convienient, outside (good on nice days at least), but most of all you can make your little problems as hard as you like, there are plenty of options, and using eliminates can lead to some badass lines. um, and everythings a first ascent :) if you dont have time to get to some real climbing i give this place 2 thumbs up. had a blast bouldering around midnight, and only saw 1 shady lookin group in the parking lot in the 1.5 hours i was there.