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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 27, 2009 - 02:23am PT
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The thread on the Night Climbers of Cambridge got me thinking about the buildering at our Universities. I guess we could talk about the best buildering anywhere, but to limit the topic, let's keep it to the best college buidings. To start:
There is some great buildering at UC Davis. Buildings like Sproul Hall, Clark Kerr Hall (AKA AOB 3), Kleiber Hall all had cool stuff that was high enough that we did some of it with a rope and protection(usually slings through holes and gratings).
University of Wisconsin-Madison had some big, roped routes, mostly chimneys and wide cracks and even a published guide.
How about your favorite place of higher learning?
Bruce
ps - I only got caught four times, but the dean at UC Davis just couldn't expel a straight-A student.
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Gobi
Trad climber
Orange CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 02:29am PT
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UCLA has some good finger cracks and a couple walls with all these little artistic edges that make for great crimps
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 02:50am PT
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Cal has many excellent crack and face problems. I used to practice off-width technique on the pillars of Eschelman Hall, and there are plenty of liebacks all across campus (a famous one in my day was on Doe Library). Memorial Stadium has good hand cracks, but had a very high police hazard in my day (1969-73). Several people tried to nail up the Campanile; none escaped the police. Two of my friends did manage to hang a Mickey Mouse on the south face of the Campanile Clock in May of 1970, though, which is a good story in its own right.
During my freshman year in 1969, someone did some sort of climbing performance art on the University Art Museum. For several years afterward (and maybe still, for all I know), there was a Leeper stuck in one of the joints above the patio.
Around the Student Union there are some good concrete faces. In 1971, and again in 1973, we rigged a tyrolean traverse between Eschelman Hall and the Student Union on the day the clubs had their activities fair. I wonder what the current state of affairs is there.
John
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:01am PT
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(a famous one in my day was on Doe Library)
Which face of Doe, I wonder?
I've eyeballed those handcracks up at the stadium - that's the real deal. Did you do either? I've run by them many times at night, no one around, gone up 15 or 20 ft, and come back down. No cops, just chicken.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:14am PT
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The South face near the main entrance on Doe Library. I, too, got perhaps 15 or 20 feet up the hand cracks before fear (both of cops and the lack of a rope) got to me. I know the cracks underneath the stadium (that arch and overhang) are boulderable, though -- or at least were then.
Also, the "b" on the sign on the Giaque Low Temperature Lab was quite a bit shinier than the rest of the letters my freshman year. My chemistry TA explained that one -- he was liebacking up the crack in the corner of the stairwell leading down from Hildebrand Hall past the sign, and started to chicken out. . .
No doubt about it. Those were the days!
John
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:17am PT
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Memorial Stadium has good hand cracks, but had a very high police hazard in my day (1969-73)
Ha, ha, my high school climbing buddy, Steve Fish, and I got busted by campus police back in 1972 climbing those cracks on Memorial Stadium.
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Dirk
Trad climber
...and now, Manhattan
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Feb 27, 2009 - 10:44am PT
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Virginia Tech, anyone? It's like Boulder High School, but on a entire campus-sized scale.
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treeman
climber
mule city
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Feb 27, 2009 - 11:04am PT
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John MacMullen published a very well made mini-guide to buildering on the Northern Arizona University campus BITD. Anyone have one?
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cowpoke
climber
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Feb 27, 2009 - 11:17am PT
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anyone recognize these splitters?
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Feb 27, 2009 - 11:30am PT
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I'm not sure about Boulder High school, but the University
of Colorado in Boulder has been a traditional area--the
engineering building specifically, I think. When I was closer
to Boulder I used it occasionally. And in
'Front Range Freaks' Timmy O'Neill did a bunch of climbing
throughout the CU Boulder campus.
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2009 - 12:41pm PT
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Small world. My Dad got his PhD at UC Berkeley and his major professor was William Giauque of the Giauque Low Temperature Laboratory fame. Giauque got the Nobel Prize during my dad's third year and he made my dad repeat his prize winning experiments before he would grant my dad his PhD.
Bruce
ps - yes, Boulder has some great buildering especially on one of the Engineering Buildings and at the 'Pit' at Mackey Auditorium.
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cowpoke
climber
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Feb 27, 2009 - 01:17pm PT
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yup, oakie...did you ever builder while there? with the woo so close, it was not too much of a temptation when I was there. nonetheless, the feature in that photo always caught my attention on the way to the office.
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scuffy b
climber
just below the San Andreas
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Feb 27, 2009 - 02:22pm PT
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At Cal:
The "glass chimneys" on the UC extension building, I think it
was,Fulton & Bancroft
Various problems up the outside of Edwards Stadium, as mentioned
by Guido
The OW cracks in the pillars at Eshelmann, as mentioned by John
Several really nice problems on the Bear's Lair, later made
too scary when ankle-breaker bike parking blocks were emplaced
A fun problem across Lower Sproul from there, jump up to an
angling frieze, ratchet up till you could get a foot on, etc
A few good problems at the entrance to the Little Theater
Really hard, mysterious traverse at Dwinelle Hall
Hard traverse problem at the entry to the Giacque Low Temp lab
The crack nearby metioned by John, and the even better
Hildebrand Hand crackaround the corner to the right
Difficult chimneys on the S and N sides of Evans with the option
of hideous hard undercling traverse entry. The ones on the
North side were later obscured by additions to the hall.
A good retaining wall to the north of Evans, mostly eliminated
by the additions
A matching pair of shallow wide cracks in corners at the western
entrances of Evans hall
A fun retaining wall traverse between Evans and Davis--one hand
recommended
Tall easy chimneys at Davis hall
"Sunday Crack," lieback to 10 ft undercling to lieback on Davis,
typically with escape traverse to easy chimney, rarely top
roped to top of building
Very hard traverse on frieze at Agnes Fay Morgan
Crack climbs with pillars at Giannini hall
Very slick squeeze at Wurster
Hard hard mantel at Wurster
Infamous Wurster lieback, easy way quite hard, hard way harder
Several named climbs at the Optometry building
Plus, of course, the library and the stadium.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Feb 27, 2009 - 02:25pm PT
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Of course, for those of you that remember 'The Exorcist'
there was a wall in Georgetown (I don't think it was the university), where the priest goes barreling down. That was
a bildering wall too. . .
As was a bridge over the Rock Creek Parkway in DC. . .
I was climbing it and got some booty, before we got
nabbed by the DC police. . .who told us never to be caught
there again. . . oh well, I still got the booty. . .
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Dick_Lugar
Trad climber
Indiana (the other Mideast)
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Feb 27, 2009 - 02:54pm PT
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Yep cowpoke, attended classes in that very building a couple years ago, but never sent it!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:13pm PT
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I've always liked this "bystander double-take" shot from Marc Jensen's Bouldering, Buildering and Climbing in the San Francisco Bay Region 1988.
http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/ba/berk68.htm
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Anastasia
climber
Not here
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:22pm PT
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Georgia Tech has a few John Gill problems.
AF
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:25pm PT
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"UCLA has some good finger cracks and a couple walls with all these little artistic edges that make for great crimps"
Where are those? I went there two years, and the only stuff I did or saw other doing were at the Student Union: a traverse along the masonry by the patio facing south campus and some thin edges you could lieback on the opposite of the building where they have the outdoor concerts.
Edit: Oops. Forgot the time at grad school. Make that five years.
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TwistedCrank
climber
Ideeho-dee-do-dah-day
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Feb 27, 2009 - 03:38pm PT
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Buildering.
Pff...
In my youth growing up in the shadow of the ivy-covered buttresses of the University of Chicago the real prize was the spire on Rockefeller Chapel. There are some delicate moves near stained glass windows and the first ascent is reputed to have involved lassoing a gargoyle which we eventually freed.
John Gill is reported to have some problems on some local buildings there as well.
As for other spires of the ivy nature, when I was at Cornell University a pumpkin was mysteriously impaled on the lightning rod on the top of the McGraw Tower. I'm not naming names...
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