The Boulder Project

We all have our obsessions, our boulder projects.Lying awake in bed chasing the shadows with our hands, memorizing the sequence by moonlight. We visualize our project and its completion over and over in our minds. The moves, which at one time were impossible, seep into the realm of attainable. “Next season,” we tell ourselves as we sip our last cup of joe at the Kava Coffeehouse before heading down Highway 395 out of Bishop. Access to boulders is not eternal, though. Our hardest challenge might not be the dyno to a one- handed mantle sequence, but mastering the techniques of awareness and respect - for land, for life, for one another, for ourselves.

The Boulder Project, a national initiative facilitated by the Access Fund in cooperation with climbers, the climbing industry, land managers, and local activists,creates synergy in the climbing community to ensure that boulder projects remain open even after all of us have sent our problems. This isn’t your typical Access Fund initiative – no overt Access Fund-driven educational campaign.To that end, broad-based involvement is of utmost importance. Not only is it important for all segments of the climbing industry to rally around the Boulder Project from a moral standpoint, but also it will bring the youth and the energy of the bouldering community into the growth and development of the industry, thus affecting access, thus affecting environmental and ecological concerns.It’s a symbiotic objective. The future of bouldering, especially when it comes to access, rests in all of our hands through the actions and choices we make today.

Ultimately the Boulder Project is a way of life, thinking, making choices,building relationships, and taking actions that stretch well beyond bouldering. It’s an awareness that the world and ourselves are evolving. Bouldering creates an intriguing tension. On one hand is the natural world; there is something about mountains, deserts,and the rock that excites us, and in their midst we push ourselves to perform at our highest level. Yet equally, the enormity of it all diminishes our importance in the earth’s affairs. The Boulder Project is about respecting this tension, owning our actions as they affect our climbing environment, and working to ensure the preservation of climbing access well beyond the completion of our boulder project.

How can climbers be a part of the Boulder Project? Easy — let your passion for climbing inform your choices.Become involved, share your love of climbing with non-climbers, encourage shops and retailers to cater to climbers, let your land managers know your passion for bouldering, encourage your bouldering posse to organize a clean-up,mentor younger boulderers, realize that your choices and actions today affect access for future boulderers, and most importantly, continue to get outside and send your boulder project.

Originally written for Access Fund Vertical Times #57, April 2004