History of Climbing at Alum Rock Park in San Jose, CA

Does anyone know anything about the history of climbing at Alum Rock Park? It’s one of the oldest city parks in CA, so I imagine that plenty of people have climbed on Eagle Rock and Alum Rock at some point.

I hiked through the area the other day and noticed that Eagle Rock had a number of old anchor bolts at the top of the rock. It doesn’t necessarily look like there’s any fantastic climbs, but it got me curious!

Climbing in the Alum Rock City Park is mentioned in the "Day Climber's Guide To The Santa Clara Valley" book by Stark-Craig Publishers published in 1974.  There are 14 climbs listed for Eagle Rock, one climb for Bad Vibes Rock, and three climbs listed for Alum Rock.  

Thanks for the insight, Mark! I might need to try to get my hands on a copy of that book now!

I suspect it will be hard to find.  If you are an AAC member, you might try their library.  The guidebook is thin staple-bound book.  I purchased mine from Chester Books and it is the only one I have ever seen available.  The $2.00 price is printed on the cover.  Who could imagine a $2 guidebook today, but probably in 1974 this was a good price.  I have not climbed at any of the formations in Alum Rock City Park, but have seen some of the old anchors.

I suspect this is a climbing area that either fell out of favor or climbing was banned.  None of the latter guidebooks I have (I am a guidebook collector) for SF Bay Area list climbing in Alum Rock Park.  The three editions of "Bouldering, Buildering, and Climbing in the San Francisco Bay Area" I have do not mention anything about Alum Rock Park (first book in early 1980's).  "Bay Area Rocks" (1992) by Jim Thornburg also does not mention the area.  

Is there anything worth climbing at Alum Rock? 

I’ll ask a few local climbers from the 70’s era. I remember when I moved to Palo Alto, people told us about all the local climbing areas, and I know that was mentioned. I cannot remember if we ever checked it out. 

Hi Matt, I do know a long time Palo Alto climber and have his number. As in he has lived there a good half century. I'll give him a call. He likely would meet you, or us, out there. 

There is a thread on Supertopo discussing Alum Rock, though the photos were deleted a number of years ago:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1028629/Alum-Rock-City-Park-San-Jose-TR

Unrelated, but there are currently some issues with the Supertopo site. I thought it had been taken down, but the forum is still accessible through searches and some internal links.

edit - I just received an email reply from the Supertopo website admin, who said ST had some downtime over the weekend, but the site is now back up and running.

Here ya go:

day climber's guide to the santa clara valley

Don't get your hopes up.

Here is some history for you.  Stanford University Alpine Club used to maintain a library with guidebooks.  Don't know if that still exists...

Dan Merrick wrote:

Here ya go:

day climber's guide to the santa clara valley

Don't get your hopes up.

Woah, cool, thanks for sharing. I don't expect any crazy revelations about secret awesome crags, but its cool from a history of the valley POV.  

If we’re talking secret valley crags, what about Foothill Express Overpass? (There was a brief revival during the pandemic.)

Tony Lobay wrote:

If we’re talking secret valley crags, what about Foothill Express Overpass? (There was a brief revival during the pandemic.)

I remember pre-climbing gym days there, but I don’t recall all the graffiti. and also concrete cracks we used to climb down that way too. Was it at the Almaden Reservoir?  

I used that guide back in the 70’s.  Believing the grass was greener a friend and I drove there after school and even with our youthful enthusiasm we never went back.  I was living in Los Gatos so it was much easier to stay on the west side of the valley.  It’s funny I can barley remember the park but can vividly remember being stuck in traffic heading back home!

as a sidebar I should note that we were self taught and had very limited experience so our evaluation of the place is suspect.  We saw no other climbers there at all.  

Thank you all for looking into this more and sharing your memories of the area!

I tried looking for a digital copy originally, but I guess I missed the one on the internet archive, so I went ahead and ordered an overpriced physical copy off eBay (that should be here soon).

Eric, I would be happy to meet up with you and your friend over at Alum Park sometime, but I’m  curious what the official rules on climbing are. The guys on the old SuperTopo thread were told by a ranger that climbing wasn’t allowed in the park, but that was over a decade ago. I looked at all the signs around Eagle Rock and didn’t see anything that explicitly said no climbing, but I did notice there were a lot of signs that said not to go off trail. Maybe rapping in would address that? 

Almaden spillway. Never climbed there. This is from  Jensen’s guide from ‘88  

Tony Lobay wrote:

Almaden spillway. Never climbed there. This is from  Jensen’s guide from ‘88  

Tony! Thank you! Yes that is the place. Had some good workouts there.  

The Anderson dam spillway used to have some routes with rocks epoxied to the vertical concrete but they were removed at least 20 years ago.

There are a few other spots that once had glue ups.  During the pandemic I discovered the remnants of one on a freeway pillar near crystal springs reservoir. There was also a route up the dam and you can see some bolts - probably a great way to get arrested.

Is there any bouldering near Anderson reservoir?

Uhhh, yep crystal springs was a good way to get arrested. There was also a glue up off 92 in Foster City. Caltrans did not like that one either and also threatened to arrest us. Crazy kids.