Why so secretive?
From The Secret Is Out by Jess Daddio:
But mostly, you can blame, or thank, the High Country’s unstable history of climbing access for the relative solitude of Boone bouldering. During the mid-to-late-90s, as bouldering rose in popularity, so too did the housing industry. For a while, it seemed almost personal—as climbers unveiled boulders on the outskirts of Boone, developers were just as quick to snatch those areas up, kick climbers out, and occasionally, bulldoze the boulders altogether.
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“You gotta earn it,” Fuelling says of bouldering in the High Country. “It’s not just handed to you in a $12 guidebook. You gotta come here and poke around and talk to people and make friends.”
His comment about the guidebook? It’s not just a metaphor. Boone has never had a guidebook on bouldering, nor, it seems, will it ever. That fact alone has fueled a reputation of Boone among climbers as being a “locals only” community, one that shuns newcomers and hoards the area’s secret rock.
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“You have to realize that [the Forest Service] goes up there every year and looks at the trails and decides whether or not they are going to continue to let us do that.”
“It’s kinda hard to release a guidebook to climbing places you might not have access to a year later,” Horton adds.
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Respectful and diligent, proactive and persistent, climbers in Boone may be protective of their boulders, yes, but with good reason. If the place you love to play had a history sprinkled with bulldozers and dynamite, you’d probably be willing to strap yourself to a tree to protect it, right?