Climbing at the beach

The wonderful thing about a marine climate is its temperance. The ocean is such an effective temperature buffer, moderating the extremes and keeping things pleasant, very suitable for climbing outside, even in January. You have to be careful though, I have found many beaches here in northern California to be short on sand when the tide is in, perhaps that is how most beaches begin before sand is brought in for people to lounge on.

Mickey's Beach is a little known area just south of Stinson Beach in Marin County, just north of San Francisco downtown proper. Famous among the locals as a "nude" beach, it is also known as a climbing/bouldering area to those who use to recreate for that purpose. I arrived in the early afternoon, very bad timing for the tides as they were quite high! Most of the routes have water access only, pretty dissapointing. If you can get over the fact that nude people love to frolick around in this narrow sheltered area, there is good bouldering to be had.

No photos could be taken near the beach area where the climbing is, but here is an overview of the beach (without seeing the actual beach), you can vaguely pick out the popular Stinson Beach just to the north on the other side of the big boulders.


Yet another sunset on the way home: