Blob Rock

For my money, Blob Rock is easily the most loaded cliff in Boulder Canyon. It has great variety: multi-pitch trad, sport, steep faces, slabs (scary and not), even some halfway decent cracks. This crag is fairly complex -- better have a guidebook and as of this writing, contains far more worthy routes than are listed on this site. With predominately southern exposure, it is a good cold weather crag; the rub is that it tends to receive a raptor closure around the beginning of February . On the plus side, this closure tends to be lifted earlier than most.

What's the deal with all the raptor nesting closures?! Seems like every year they close a new area, this year it's Blob Rock. Pretty soon it will be all of Boulder Canyon, then all of Eldo, and so on until climbing is not allowed anywhere in Colorado between February 1st and August 1st!

Blob Rock has closed for years. The route Where Eagles Dare was named after the nest you about belay from at the base of the last pitch. It think it's been like that since the 70s or 80s. It has certainly been that way for the 90s. I went by the (unoccupied) nest for my first time in the late fall of 1995 with Gary Stettler, after the seasonal closure was lifted.

While your statement of the current condition is exagerated, it does call into question our fate- we close 1/5 of the cliffs for an endangered species to recover them- what happens when their population recovers and there are 5X as many? This is a long term concern.

Territorial behavior is the only thing that will keep them off of EVERY cliff, but surely you can expect regulations to decrease, or closures to increase.

I don't get it: while Blob is closed to a few (mostly environmentally friendly) climbers, we're spending millions of dollars a year paving and maintaining roads in National Parks so that every yahoo with an RV, a generator, and a six pack of macro beer can enjoy the "wilderness." Kind of frustrating, not to mention hypocritical, if you ask me.

Does anyone know what the Access Fund's policy on these closures is?

The Access Fund supports raptor closures and works with agencies to encourage cooperation among climbers.

Raptor closures around here are utterly ridiculous. Cliffs get closed without any sign of birds on a yearly basis.And now it is creeping into other critters as well - there are even closures for bats up in the Flatirons.At Ralston Buttes, the crag is closed year-round for no particular animal - it is "a sensitive study area", whatever that means.

This would be merely irritating if there were ANY scientific evidence that the raptors were negatively impacted by climbers. However, since there is absolutely no evidence to support that position, the vast majority of these raptor closures are just downright stupid.

The Access Fund is a group that I support with my fees, and I think they do a good job.They do a lot of good things and have done a great job of buying up properties and access rights on threatened crags.But with respect to closures, they are extremely weak.Their efforts to "work with" certain land management agencies (Jeffco Open Space, Boulder Open Space, the idiots that run Hueco, etc.) would best be replaced with aggressive litigation.

The Access Fund may support raptor closures, but the only reason they do this is to placate land managers that can't be placated. They should get some balls, start a legal defense fund, and challenge every single one of these closures in court.

Thanks Richard - totally agree. I was talking about this with a friend and his comment was that we should be happy that more is not closed (implying that there are grounds to close more). What a load.

I would love to start seeing litigation against some of these nazi land managers on power trips. I can just see their self-righteous behavior about the whole thing right now. The government sucks.

My friend's car got borken into at the Blob Rock parking spot a few weeks ago. I would recommend parking at the Cob Rock lot and walking over for better car securtiy (it's only about 50 feet away).I think the Cob lot offers more visibility and it's more populated, both of which could dissuade thieves.

This is a response to Richard Magill's post stating that there is no evidence of climbing negatively affecting raptors. A few years ago a friend and I did a route in late May at Castle Rock in the Platte. The access to this crag is from Wellington Lake, a fee area. The woman who collected our 3$ told us to stay away from the climb with nesting falcons. We asked if you she tell us the specific route or at least crag the birds were nesting on. She could not, but said the nest would be "obvious". We proceded to our route, which I believe was "The Throne Room", saw no sign of nesting and began climbing.Throughout the first two pitches, falcons loudly screeched from adjacent cliffs. At the end of the stretcher 2nd pitch, I pulled into the belay hole to find a nest containing two unhatched large eggs.I was unhappy about this arrangement, but was unwillingly to abandon the route and make 2 raps from (my own) gear anchors, so I established an anchor with gear above the the hole and my feet resting on the edge of it; this was likely the most common way to rig this belay and the most expeditious, which in view of the threatening weather, was a concern. I brought my partner up, explaining the need for delicacy in the vicinity of the belay.We were not swinging leads, so the belay changeover was protracted; in the hurry to outrace the weather -- we eventually pulled buzzing ropes from the summit rappel and, in shirt sleeves, were pounded by hail on the ensuing raps -- my partner forgot about her out-of-site feet in the hole and stepped on the nest, crushing an egg.

Hard not to call that a negative impact.

Yes, I would agree that actually climbing through the nest and breaking eggs is a negative impact.I would not recommend climbing on a line with a nest on it.

However, I don't see any scientific evidence that climbing a line nearby (say even 10 feet away) has any impact on raptors.

So if there is one nest on a crag, why close the whole crag? Why not just close the line with the nest (and maybe some adjacent ones).Closing all of Blob Rock over one or two nests just doesn't make any sense.

Are 3 and 8 transposed in the topo? I thought the lost Flatiron was between Sherwood and Cob.

In response to climber's impacts on raptor nesting:

While there may not have been an environmental impact assessment done on climbers per se, full with population parameter data, the negative impact of humans on nesting birds is clear. As mentioned by "anonymous coward", the raptors were "screaming" at the climbing duo for the length of the climb. This means that the female was not sitting on the eggs during this time. Incubation is CRITICAL for the developing egg. Raptors are extremely sensitive to humans. Humans anywhere near a nest-- whether it's climbing the line the nest is on, or anywhere near it, will disrupt the mother. Stress during incubation can damage the embryonic development of the chicks; stress on the parents following hatching of the eggs can damage the natural development of the chick, and may lead to an early death. Developing birds are fragile.

Further, remember back to your basic ecology. Raptors are K selected species-- long-lived, slow reproducers. Their populations don't explode like rabbits. Their populations are fragile, and without nesting protection, can crash quickly.

I think the birds might say to you, Stefan, get your own rock. And since they live there and need to reproduce there, and there's plenty more rock in Colorado, maybe you should.

Paul, I believe the topo to be correct. If my memory serves (and the website seems to confirm this), 200 yards west of Cob Rock is Sherwood, then another 100 yards west lies the approach for the Lost Flatiron. I find it easier to walk along the road and use Sherwood's Tyrolean as opposed to Cob Rock's. You avoid scrambling over the boulders at Cob's base.~Wm

Anecdotal stories about the impact of humans on raptors are apparently easy to come by.However, my point remains the same - there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE of any negative impact.Point me to a statistically valid study - there aren't any.

And as far as anecdotes go, I've seen bald eagles living just fine on a Broomfield golf course. Peregrines do well living on downtown sky scrapers.

Stefan is right - the raptor closures are silly. Boulder area land managers frequently close cliffs without any active nests.

I like raptors as much as anyone, but the bottom line is that these closures are not based on scientific evidence.

My friend and I encountered an anchor not listed in the Falcon guide to Boulder Canyon at the top of (what the Falcon guide calls) Blacklight. Currently there are no rap rings, just the two hangers, any objections to adding chains so one may rap without [leaving] gear (as we did)?