Hidden Gems

Hidden behind rhododendrons and mountain laurel, along the steep ridges and tumbling creeks below Grandfather Mountain, are nearly 50 clusters of what many consider Boone’s best boulders. But with no guide, faint trails, and undulating mountain topography, it could be that the next classic boulder problem lies waiting just over the next ridge on one of North Carolina’s most scenic highways: 221.

You name it, 221’s got it. Towering highballs, steep roofs, burly mantels, short approaches, incredible boulders in a beautiful forest—it is the best of the best. Or at least that’s what my friends and I heard when we first learned of the lesserknown bouldering spots around Boone. So we scoured the web for beta and gleaned bits and pieces from locals before finally stumbling upon a map that held the key to this seemingly hidden bouldering.

Scattered across the hand-drawn, black-and-white map were drawings of cluster after cluster of boulders. And running like a gnarled corkscrew through the center of these rudimentary drawings was a curved and twisted line with the number 221 written beside it.

With the small map in hand, we’d head out on the highway, matching the curves on the road to what we saw on the map. We’d usually end up pulling off into unmarked gravel parking areas where we’d thrash about in the nearby woods, scrambling through thick vegetation in search of the boulders.

Oftentimes we’d come up emptyhanded, and we’d drive on, hoping for better success at the next pull-off down the road. But sometimes we’d stumble into a secret trove of boulders. It seemed like the climbing potential was never-ending, and with every new area we found, we thought we’d discovered the best bouldering in Boone.

But we weren’t the first to come to that realization. Not even close.

In the early 1980s, Tom Howard, Doug Reed, Mike Grimm, Porter Jarrard, and countless others combed the thick forest and ridges en route to Shiprock, the Jewels, Pilot Rock (the latter two now closed), and some of the other crags high on Grandfather Mountain. Along the way, they stopped and picked off a few high-quality routes and boulder problems, many of which remain some of the area’s most highly sought-after classics. In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, Brent Pilkington, Cogie Reed, Pat Stone, Dean Melton, Anthony Love, and many more pushed the envelope of what was possible on the fi ne-grit stone below Grandfather Mountain. In recent years, Mike Stam, Joey Henson, Ross Parish, Pat Goodman, and others have explored the creeks and ridges and uncovered hundreds of new problems, many of which have yet to be repeated.

It’s rare that you’ll find a better circuit of classic problems on perfect stone in a more beautiful setting than 221. Boulders sit among massive, old-growth hardwoods and towering hemlocks, and climbing styles vary greatly along with the texture of the rock, which ranges from very fine-polished quartzite to coarse, pebbly conglomerates. Since it might be hard to climb at all 50 clusters of boulders in one visit, local developer Mike Stam recommends starting with the classics.