New Online Guides to Rockies’ Bouldering Hot Spots

The Canadian Rockies have thousands of un-climbed boulders scattered through forests and beneath mountains. 

A group of well-known indoor competition climbers, lead by Marc Eveleigh, recently discovered two high-quality areas in Kananaskis Country near Calgary and produced two online guidebooks.

The first boulder-field is close to a popular day hike near Spray Lakes on the Smith-Dorrien Highway. Along the path that leads to Old Goat Glacier, the closest glacier to Canmore, is an open scree field with a number of steep boulders. Marc and his brother Scott established most of the problems at Old Goat.

As the guidebook states, “Old Goat Bouldering offers a variety of climbs from steep and powerful to delicate tall slabs. With a great view out of the valley and a rushing waterfall nearby, it has all the makings for a great climbing day.”

Visit here for the Old Goat guidebook.

The other newly developed area has been called The Nest and it has nearly 20 steep problems on a short cliff above a creek. The water-polished rock is clean and has interesting holds and tufas.

With less than a 30-minute approach and snow-free conditions early in the year, The Nest could become Kananaskis Countries new go-to bouldering zone.

The hardest problem to date is Bleeding Edge of Free Will V10 by Matt Lucas. Marc established almost all of the existing problems at The Nest, but the strong Andrew Funk added Tinkerbell’s Day Off V6 and Cassie Magyar made the first ascent of Dumbo the Elephant V1.

Visit here for The Nest guidebook.