Bouldering Guide Downloads
To alleviate pressure at Carver the PRG is giving away free topo guides to the “Schwingus” at Rocky Butte and the “Magma Zone” at Broughton Bluff. Enjoy!
Discovering a climbing area close to Portland
Jay Richards leading “Searching for Elvis”
It was over a decade ago that Jay Green and I drove the logging roads of Silver Star Mountain searching for Chimney Rock. Chimney Rock is actually two pinnacles. You see them off to the northwest when you are driving on I-84 just before you come to Troutdale. We drove to a dead end and decided not to drive endlessly around but to get out of the car and bushwhack uphill until we could see over the ridge, and then maybe we could see our prize. We both stepped out with minimal gear because we were convinced it would take us only a few minutes. Just as we lost sight of Jay’s car I pointed out some of the numerous black bear scat piles next to our little deer trail we were following. It was then that Jay revealed to me that this was the farthest he had traveled in the woods without a gun and it made him nervous. I thought he was joking until he looked at me and I could tell he was not. He was a guy who liked his guns. Years later Jay pioneered such hard climbs as “Packing Heat” and “Closet Nazi”.
At the end of that day, we found our prize, explored around both pinnacles, both of us claiming who was going to bolt and climb which route first like, we owned the place. The sun was about to set so we hurried back without getting lost and planned endlessly how we would make this new find of ours a very special place for us and our friends.
One on one with Marcus Donaldson
On Dec. 8, 2004 I had the pleasure of interviewing PRG member Marcus Donaldson, over breakfast at the J&M Café in Southeast Portland. The sun was bright, the coffee bottomless, and after a few minutes of off-the-record chit-chat, we got down to business…
T – You’ve been climbing for about 12 years…how’d you get started?
M – I was in Arizona, and I met a fellow from Switzerland…and he wasn’t really that passionate about it, but he had the skills, so I begged him every sunny day, which was a lot in Arizona, to go out and take me on routes and show me how to do the deal.
T – So were you pretty hooked right off the bat?
M – Oh, completely…completely. First times I remember getting out there, I was just, this is it, this is what I want to do. Basically just went out every day and got into trouble, led what we could, backed off a lot of stuff too…stoppers and rap slings littered all over Arizona from our learning days.