Saving Santee Boulders and it's History . . .

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bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Oct 28, 2011 - 11:08pm PT
The Ex took to climbing like a duck to water and got really good, really fast. This is 1985. She'd been climbing just a little over two years and had every problem on the Ampitheater wired. In the Spring of '86 she led Rebolting Development at Suicide. It was maybe her 9th or 10th lead.

bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Oct 28, 2011 - 11:19pm PT
Most of the Graffiti at Santee is a cryin' shame, but this was almost forgivable.

gonamok

climber
dont make me come over there
Oct 29, 2011 - 01:12am PT
Ya bub, Jocelyn was pretty awesome. I remember you had told her you would do dishes for a month if she could crank hear my train a comin, and she was working that thing like a maniac. One time me you and her were walking up the hill and Jocelyn was begging and pleading for us to stop at HMT so she could work on it. You were like "nope, nope we got work to do" cuz me and you were hot to get on a particular deal. She kept begging as we were passing HMT, and finally she looked at me for the tiebreaker vote.

I said youve been working on that thing every time youve been up here, right? She nodded. I still remember my sage reply. "lack of variety killed the cat". And we walked on by.

A mans gotta do what a mans gotta do. Plus, she mighta sent it, so you owe me one bobo.
bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Oct 29, 2011 - 01:23am PT
Yeah Ron, I made the mistake of agreeing to a cheatstone so she could start with the same jam I did. You wanna talk about dishpan hands. That was a long month. I insisted we eat out a lot.
mooser

Trad climber
seattle
Oct 29, 2011 - 07:22pm PT
A few early-80s grainy shots, bouldering at Santee. Definitely not as clear as BVB's and Off-White's above!



gonamok

climber
dont make me come over there
Oct 29, 2011 - 10:49pm PT
You mean she cranked it bob? i didnt hear about that
bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Oct 30, 2011 - 03:41am PT
Yup, she did it, with about 5" worth of cheatstone. It really wasen't that surprising. Right about that time she did about 9 or 10 back-to-back laps on Jaws for Epi who had her changing from one Patagonia outfit to another. It was a good couple of months for her at Woodson. Alcoa, onsighted Out Of Sight without even breaking a sweat (easy route, but too high to really be consided a boulder problem), hucked some laps on Cali Night, the usual suspects. She never did get Driving South. I find some comfort in that. When we moved to Yosemite a few months later she was flashing 11+ thin cracks right and left. My Creation. Her having been a gymnast in High School didn't hurt.

Lap #I don't even know what.

loosepuck

climber
Nov 7, 2013 - 07:19pm PT
I climbed here back in 1980 to 1984. My dad gave me the guide book "Crags and Boulders of San Diego County". He climbed it back in the 70's with the San Diego Mountain Rescue Team. I just recently came across the book during a move and it brought back great memories of heading there after work or school and tooling around.

If anyone knows of an effort to save access to this awesome place, I would be interested in donating my guidebook for an auction to raise funds. It is one of the original 400 and is in excellent shape. It has one page that is loose, but the cover and spine are pristine.

Anything to help save the roots of SD climbing.
Splater

climber
Grey Matter
Nov 7, 2013 - 11:26pm PT
At this time the city of San Diego has acquired some of the parcels with boulders from Pardee. Not sure if there are any other parcels still left to acquire. Pardee is building Castlerock homes just east of there, which may become part of Santee city.
Santee boulders will become part of Mission Trails Regional Park.
The park is about to issue a draft of their new Master Plan, written by the city park planning and consultant KTU&A.
I have not seen the draft yet but am told they are not planning to limit access. They do propose fixing the trail system.

If they do try to limit access in the name of conservation/MSCP/MHPA,
then the response by climbers/hikers/runners/ scramblers should be to sue for a prescriptive recreational easement, since it meets the state requirement of at least 5 years of regular public recreational access before 1973.

The other thing the city is about to do is to close some of the mtn bike trails in East Elliot, mainly the newer ones since 2010, which are the best. They feel some obligation to control the area and meet some of the recent opinions of the USFWS and CalFish&Game. There is also an issue with trails that continue onto MCRD. They do propose some new trails which they say will have less impact. http://www.sdmba.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=11&Itemid=19

The next MTRP task force meeting is Thursday, November 21, 2013, at the Visitor Center. The Task Force meets at 1:00 PM on the third Thursday of odd numbered months. http://www.mtrp.org/cac.asp?idno=203910
bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Jan 9, 2016 - 02:19pm PT
Santee Bump. If you like Santee, conditions do not get better than they are right here, right now.
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Jan 9, 2016 - 04:44pm PT
Gotta be honest. I always thought the Santee boulders sucked compared to Woodson. Undoubtedly because I am such a poor natural boulderer.
Klimmer

Mountain climber
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2016 - 06:42pm PT
SBs truly are a treasure. 2 thumbs up!

There are climbs out there that haven't been done yet. Sharma or someone needs to visit and send the hardest. Seriously.
dee ee

Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
Jan 9, 2016 - 10:38pm PT
1) Who are you? ST post name and/or real name.
David Evans....DEE EEE

2) What year did you first climb at Santee Boulders?
1982

3) How many times (approx.) have you climbed at Santee Boulders, or from what year to what year?
1982-1985 4 times a week during that time period, so maybe 500 times.

4) Do you personally know of anyone that climbed at Santee Boulders before you ever did? Do you know who first climbed at Santee Boulders and what year it was?
All the SD locals of that time climbed there before me. Greg Ep, Almodovar Bros, BeeHay, Mike Paul, Gonamuk, Bruce Nyberg and many who don't come to mind immediately.

5) Are you aware of a climbing guide(s) in any form (even scribbled notes) for Santee Boulders, that pre-dates Doug White's "Crags and Boulders of San Diego County" (1978)?No

4) Did you climb at any of the Great Western Bouldering Championship climbing contests held at Santee Boulders in the 1970's or '80s? Do you know the specific dates of these contests and who organized the contest?

No, the first climbing contest I participated in down there was earlier at the Lakeside boulders in which many of us placed 2nd!

5) If you did climb at said contests, can you list some names of any noteable fellow contestants? Who actually won?
No

6) Please link to any posts you have made regarding Santee Boulders in any meaningful way.
No can do. I have many old photos from there.

7) Say something about what Santee Boulders means personally to you. Why should Santee Boulders be preserved?

When I moved down there in the early '80's I loved that place more than any other SD bouldering area.

5-12 of us would meet every day (Mon. - Thurs.) in the afternoon to boulder. Sometimes it was Woodson or Lakeside or one of the other areas but most often it was Santee. I could see the boulders from some of my classrooms at Grossmont Community College, which made perfect attendance impossible. Friday was reserved for driving to do "real" climbing.

I lived in a climber only household with transplanted northerners John Freriks, Doug Munoz, Mike Casper and the Manx, with frequent visits from Mike's bro John Casper and all (and I mean all) of the active members of the San Diego scene of the time. A week day did not go by without a semi-party at our house, it was the best! On the weekends and holidays everyone bolted for the crags, be they Tahquitz, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, the Sierras or the Trono.
I have some bad memories about certain people killing rattlesnakes unnecessarily but be that as it may....

That place will always be special to me.

Here is me and The Manx on a typical afternoon.


mooser

Trad climber
seattle
Jan 10, 2016 - 07:51am PT
Thanks for bumping this thread, bvb. As Greg (eeyonkee) said, the boulders as a whole don't compare to Woodson, but it's got its own scrappy identity, history, and charm.

My wife and I (and whatever friends we were bouldering with us) had a tradition of (as often as possible) stopping by a pizza place in Santee on our way back to La Mesa after an afternoon of bouldering. I can't remember the name of the place (Fillipi's, maybe?), but it was a great capper for the evening.

I miss the days of being able to drive up to the rocks, but am happy to see the area off limits to motorized vehicles now. I'm also happy to hear that it might be accessible and protected. It'd be such a sad shame if that area had become the yard of someone's McMansion. That happened to some really sweet boulders in the Rancho Bernardo area.
BeeHay

Trad climber
San Diego CA
Jan 10, 2016 - 12:27pm PT
Thought I had posted here, there must be another thread?

Need to set some of you old f*kers straight about the '82 contest, some of us still have a couple of brain cells left…

Yaniro and Moony did have a climb off on the Aid Crack, but when neither one got it the action was moved to the previously discussed scoop on the off width boulder. Moony grabbed first place on that one in waning daylight. I remember it well, because in a freakish display of local's advantage (and thanks to BVB for being sick and Watusi still junior class) I was tied with Lechlinski (sp?) for 3rd. We were up next for a tie breaker, luckily darkness intervened and I won the coin toss and an ice ax!

Notes on local advantage; I think at least half of the problems I did were new to me, the big advantage was knowing which climbs NOT to try. Like the arete on the left end of Amphitheater, I think it was 12 points, that thing is way to hard to start for a short boy. Word spread about a 20 pointer way over at the west end that was a give away. Sure enough, I bagged it sight unseen after the strong guys had filled their cards with sandbags.

I never dreamed at that time, that the place would still be accessible in 2016. "Urban Sprawl" can be sad to watch, but most of us do in fact live in a house. My house was built in 1927, and I'm sure some old codger was pissed off to see the open space disappear…

BH
Rick A

climber
Boulder, Colorado
Jan 11, 2016 - 02:06pm PT
I lived in San Diego from 77 through the summer of 1980 when I was going to school there. Since it was closer than Woodson, I visited Santee quite a bit. Had some great sessions out there, most of the time with Dick Shockley, who figured out problems with the cerebral precision expected of one with a PHD from Cal Tech.

I did a top-rope FA on the tallest side of Moby Dick, probably the longest route at Santee at 20 feet or so. I missed the following thread when it was originally posted, and it has has a Rich Sims photo of me on the route. I remember it consisting of very hard cranking on particularly thin holds.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=724572&msg=724699#msg724699
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Jan 11, 2016 - 02:15pm PT
As I recall Santee, they're all particularly thin holds. I like holds with some meat on 'em.
dirt claud

Social climber
san diego,ca
Jan 11, 2016 - 02:27pm PT
Has anyone climbed this seam on Synchronicity boulder before?


bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Jan 11, 2016 - 02:36pm PT
The first time Mike and I met Dick Shockley was 1973, at Santee. We had hitch-hiked (and walked miles) over from Mission Gorge to check it out, having never been there. That was one of the first times we began to realize that at the crags, vast differences in ages -- we were young teens, he already had a receding hairline -- went unnoticed when you could keep up, as a climber. For most of my life the age spread among people I climbed with regularly would easily run decades in either direction.
bvb

Social climber
flagstaff arizona
Jan 11, 2016 - 02:38pm PT
Has anyone climbed this seam on Synchronicity boulder before?

Yeah, I think it's 12c? It's also the 1982 climb-off aid crack BeeHey is referring to a couple posts upthread.
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