TRBTC Ep. 14 Volcanic Tablelands Transcript and Notes

The Jazzhammer Index of Bouldering Areas

- Index measures the density of bouldering problems in a given area. The index is number of problems (listed on Mountain Project)/Area (measured in acres. 

- Highlighted in red are areas that I think are breaking the system because they are too small. 

Episode Transcript

 Introduction

Hello everyone! This is the Rock Behind the Climb, the podcast about the geology of different rock climbing spots. I am your host Quinn “The Jazzhammer” Todzo. First of all, I’m Happy to be back, no pun intended! 

I have a very special episode for you today. 

I am covering one of the most world class destinations for bouldering at all skill levels: The Volcanic Tablelands of Bishop California. 

The Volcanic Tablelands are known for 2 clusters of boulders known as the Happys and the Sads. 

What makes this climbing area special is how approachable it is. The volcanic rock provides plenty of positive hand holds, and the boulder problems feel like a climbing gym. Add to that a relatively short approach, a huge concentration of boulders, and well protected fall zones. 

It’s also only a 15 minute drive from the town of Bishop. You could get a cinnamon bun from one of the town bakeries and still be licking your fingers when you arrive at the boulders

All that is to say, this area is also super popular. On a given holiday weekend, there can be droves of gym buddies, kid teams, and road trippers all getting after it. 

Now, I realize that talking about the crowds may have deterred some of you listeners from going. However, I promise that the geology is so cool that it’s worth braving the crowds, or just not going on a holiday weekend.

Roadmap

OK, so for this episode, I wanted to try giving you all a roadmap for what I am going to talk about. I’ve gotten the complaint in the past that sometimes it’s hard to follow along, so I figured maybe giving a little table of contents will help those of you who tend to lose focus at times.

So I am gonna start out talking about the town of Bishop’s geologic context and bouldering reputation, since I haven’t done an episode about Bishop and it’s a pretty unique climbing destination.

Then, I’ll get into the tablelands and how the Happy and Sad areas were formed. Spoiler, they were formed differently even though they seem similar.

After that, I’ll get into more detail on the climbing and the rock itself

And to finish up, I present the new, revolutionary Jazzhammer Index for Bouldering Areas, and why the Happys and Sads are mathematically the best climbing area. So, stay tuned to find out what that is.

Bishop As a Climbing Destination

Before I get into the Tablelands, I want to talk a bit about Bishop.

So the Volcanic Tablelands are located right next to the town of Bishop, California. Rock climbers know Bishop well as the bouldering capital of the world. People outside of the climbing world have never heard of it. That’s because Bishop is located in the eastern sierra of California. It’s a town of population 2000, and a minimum of like a 4 hour drive from any major metropolitan area. And it feels like the wild wild west. The tiny enclave is miles away from any other human settlement and sits in the middle of an open and wild desert landscape. You might even start to feel yourself saying “Yee-haw” and “Bustle my britches, if it ain’t a new podcast by the Jazzhammer”. But alas, there is a dead giveaway that you are not in fact a cowboy or cowgirl on the plains of Wyoming in 1868.  It’s the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada and White Mountain Ranges that mark the west and east skylines of course. And maybe the fact that youre probably driving in a car. 

Geology wise the town is in the Owen’s River Valley which is the middle of what geologists call a Basin and Range province. Basically the mountains that are immediately to the west and east of town used to be clumped together, but over time have spread apart creating the Owens River valley in the middle. It’s the same general process that created Death Valley National Park. Because the town of Bishop is in the middle of two mountain ranges pulling apart from one another, there are a lot of interesting geologic features nearby like a multitude of earthquake faults, and an imploded volcano. The faults, volcanic activity, and of course mountains contribute heavily to why there is so much good climbing.

What makes it the bouldering capital is that you have 2 of the best bouldering areas in the world that are both just a 15 minute drive from the center of town. To the west you have the area known as the Buttermilks. It’s a collection of the biggest boulders you have ever seen splayed out across the rolling desert landscape. It’s well known for having some of the hardest and tallest boulder routes that get international attention when they are climbed. It was the first bouldering area established in Bishop back in the 70s. 

If Bishop is the New York City of American Bouldering, then the Buttermilks are Manhattan. All the celebrities hang out there. The boulders are huge like manhattan skyscrapers. It’s intimidating and exciting. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, but more likely you’ll get your ass handed to you.

The Volcanic Tablelands, on the other hand, are like Brooklyn. Cool, trendy, fun, artsy, or at least it was until it became gentrified by comp kids. Just kidding. But you get the picture, in the Tablelands, you’re still just as much in New York City, just the slightly lesser recognized part. 

Ok despite my temptation to make more metaphors about Bishop, I am going to move on. Let’s chat a little more about the features of the Volcanic Tablelands.

The Tablelands Description

Basically the Tablelands are a big flat mesa of volcanic rock. A mesa is a landscape feature with an almost perfectly flat top and shear, steep sides. The Volcanic Tablelands Mesa stretches for miles within the Owens River Valley, and meets its western margin, or end, right where all of the bouldering is located, just north of town. 

The boulders are located in mini canyons carved into the mesa. The Happy Boulders are in one canyon, and the sad boulders are in a different canyon about a mile up the road. The Happy’s is bigger, about the width of 2 football fields, and stretches about a half mile once you get to the climbing part. The Sads is only the width of 1 football field and only about a quarter of a mile long at the climbing part. 

Suffice to say though that neither one is very big. But, in the space of the Happy’s and Sad’s there are more than 750 problems in the two areas combined. That is a ton of problems in a very small area. 

Both canyons were shaped by Normal Faults, which are places where the ground slides downwards into the earth. Think of a bookshelf where all of the books are leaning up against a book end. The ground is like the top of the books on that bookshelf. If you pull away that bookend a little bit, those books will start to slide down next to each other. That’s basically normal faulting. The cracks between the books are the normal faults where the books are sliding down. If you were standing on top of one of the books, you would feel like you are dropping compared to the book in front of you.  

In the case of both the Sad’s, a normal fault is located right along the bottom of the canyon causing the bottom of the canyon to drop. This in turn caused the boulders to break off from the volcanic mesa and tumble into the canyon. 

The Happy’s actually started out as a flowing stream channel. Without the faulting, it might still be a primary drainage path for the Tablelands. However, the faults cut it off and dug deep depressions upstream of where all of the bouldering is. Now of course it’s dried out. Likely the large number of boulders are a result of the stream channel collapsing over time combined with the normal faulting I just talked about. 

It kind of makes sense if you visit the Happy’s and the Sad’s that there is this difference in how they were formed. The Happy’s is nice and wide and flat. It feels like a nice, perfect river channel. The Sad’s on the other hand is narrower and the boulders are kind of on top of each other. It feels more chewed up, which is because you are literally on top of where the earth is ripping apart. It is also the reason you have the extensive cave area in the Sad’s known as the Ice Caves, where there are a lot of hard and cool roof problems. These caves are just boulders that are stacked on each other, but you don’t really see this in the Happy’s. Another consequence of being a narrower canyon that was formed by faulting instead of water.

As an aside, if the Happy’s kept flowing, it might look more like the nearby Owen’s river gorge which is a sport climbing area next to the flowing Owen’s River. Instead of being like 30 feet deep like the Happy’s Canyon, it's hundreds of feet deep and has massive vertical walls perfect for bolted sport climbing. The rock though, is exactly the same. 

The Climbing in the Happy’s and Sad’s

Now, lets talk about the climbing and the rock itself.

The climbing is fantastic. As I talked about at the top of this episode it feels like a climbing gym. What I mean by that is you have a huge range of different styles and problem types on pretty solid rock. Problems like Acid Wash V9 and The Fang V4 are overhanging cave type problems. Solarium, a V4 features a number of balancey crimp moves on a vertical face. Ketron Classic uses dynamic movement on slopers and jugs to eventually make a big throw to a bucket before hitting the top. You have problems with knee bars and dynos, crimp rails, and overhanging roofs. The one thing you don’t really find are sketchy slabs that rely on friction and people screaming at you to “Trust the Feet”. But you know, “Oh well”

In fact, not really a place where you need the friction of the rock, or have it for that matter.

I would argue that for the average outdoor boulderer, the Happys and Sads are more accessible than their pancake ingredient counterpart because the climbing style is more varied and there are way more problems. If you get bored or stuck, it is not hard to find another thing to work on.

The rock is called Volcanic Tuff, which is a rock type formed from volcanic ash clumping together. The volcanic ash came from the long valley caldera, one of the biggest volcanoes on earth. The eruption occurred about 760,000 years ago, in an eruption that has been characterized in the  “Super-Collasal” tier, which is about 100 times bigger than Mt. St. Helens. If you were wondering, there is one tier above “super-collasal” called “mega-collasal”, but I digress. “Super-collassal” is still pretty dang big.

Anyway, the rock formed by this volcanic ash is characterized by being strong and having pockets that range from finger size to small cave size. The strength of the rock comes from the fact that the ash had to melt together to create it, which makes the rock well bonded together.

The pockets were created because when the ash settled, sometimes there were gaps between particles or clumps of particles. As the rock cooled, these gaps remained open creating the holds we know and love. 

The classic problem Solarium in the Happys featured a lot of these air gap holds. You start this climb on some big edges and work your way through finger pockets and tiny crimps before grabbing the larger jugs near the lip. Once you get to the lip it is all big holds on plate like jugs to finish the climb. All of the first crimps and pockets appear to me to be areas where there was trapped gas between clumps of volcanic ash that eventually gave way to the holds on Solarium. 

For this boulder rock specifically, I would guess that the reason you see small holds at the beginning and finish with mega jugs is because the top of the boulder sees more weathering than the bottom which enlarges the pockets in the rock. So in this case, weathering over time with water and ice there led to more erosion which leads to larger holds on the top of the boulder. 

Comparing the Tablelands to Other Areas

OK so now the part you’ve been waiting for, the unveiling of the JazzHammer Index of Bouldering Spots.

In bouldering, I would consider myself  more of a volume boulderer rather than a projector. When I go to a new area, I like trying as many climbs as I possibly can. In that vein, I love an area with a large density of problems because a) you don’t have to travel very far between boulders, and b) there are a lot of options for climbing stuff if you have limited time and a lot of energy. 

The feature that I find most compelling about the Volcanic Tablelands is just the density of boulder problems. 

The concentration of problems and boulders is certainly felt when you go to the Volcanic Tablelands. It’s like a 15 minute walk to get from one end of each canyon to the other, and they each feature hundreds of problems. You can probably climb 10 problems before moving your pad 10 feet.

I was curious how the concentration of problems in the Happy’s and Sad’s compares to other popular bouldering spots. So, I created what I am calling the Jazzhammer Index. Basically, it’s a ratio of the number of boulder problems divided by the area where the boulders are located, measured in acres. The higher you are on the Jazzhammer Index, the larger the concentration of boulder problems.

OK so how are some of the most well known bouldering areas in America on the Index.

On the low end you have Joes Valley and Yosemite Valley. Both are around 0.2 points on the Jazzhammer Index. Pretty low. But Makes sense. At Joes, you have to drive to each spot between boulders. And Yosemite Valley, for all the hype it gets, doesn’t actually have that many problems.

The next tier is around 6-8 points on the Jazzhammer Index. Here, You have the Hidden Valley Campground area in Joshua Tree, and The Kraft Bouldering Area in Red Rocks. These areas have a great density of boulders and you can climb all day easily in the same place. 

The Buttermilks is a little higher than those 2, coming in with an impressive Jazzhammer Index of 11. 

And then you have the Happys and the Sads, coming in at a whopping 22 and 19 respectively on the Jazzhammer Index. That means that the happy’s and sad’s are about twice as dense as the Buttermilks, 3 times as dense with boulders than Red Rocks or J Tree, and 100 times as dense as Yosemite Valley or Joey Valley which are all world renowned for how good they are. 

So there you have it folks. According to the Jazzhammer Index, The Happys and Sads are 100 times better than Yosemite Valley. For bouldering. 

I should say, the Jazzhammer Index does break down a bit for small areas. Like for instance Mortar Rock Park, which is this rock in the middle of a Berkeley neighborhood that has 65 different variations of what is basically the same route. It would come in at a Jazzhammer Index of 411. 

So clearly, there is some work to be done there, but alas, it’s a start. The point is though, that the Volcanic Tablelands are great, so go check it out, and I’ll catch you on the next one.

Jazzhammer Out.

Sources

https://sierra.sitehost.iu.edu/papers/2012/Southworth.pdf - Bishop Tuff

https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/long-valley-caldera/science/geologic-history-long-valley-mono-basin-region - Long Valley Caldera

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364510829_Quantifying_and_analyzing_rock_trait_distributions_of_rocky_fault_scarps_using_a_deep_learning_approach - Specific Studies of the Volcanic Tablelands

https://owensvalley.org/geology/ - general geology of Owens River Valley

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsw/lithosphere/article/8/3/238/145872/Observations-on-normal-fault-scarp-morphology-and - morphology of the tablelands and interesting analysis of the Happy Boulders Channel

TRBTC Episode 13 Red Rock Canyon Notes and Transcript

 Sources

Very special shout out to Miles Todzo and Devinne Cullinane who helped edit the episode transcript.

https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/uploads/Nevada-Red%20Rock%20Canyon-Geology.pdf - intro information

https://www.mountainproject.com/area/105731932/red-rocks - info on rock climbing

https://www.lvwash.org/about-the-wash/hydrology-geology-biology/index.html#:~:text=The%20entire%20hydrographic%20basin%20is,then%20flow%20into%20Lake%20Mead. - las vegas wash 

https://www.nps.gov/articles/desertvarnish.htm - desert varnish

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106056281/the-pearl - the pearl V5

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/113802237/the-wave - The wave V3

https://www.mountainproject.com/photo/106267165 - cannibal crag

https://smallpond.ca/jim/sand/overview/ - sand dune to sandstone formation animation (Definitely check this one out)

Referenced photos from the episode (and captions that give a little more context)

The cliffs of Red Rock Canyon seen from Las Vegas. The flat desert plain in the foreground is part of the Las Vegas Basin which was formed when red rock pulled apart from the Valley of Fire.

My brother and I climbing the Plumbers Crack Boulder. If you look close you can see linear bedding planes that are oriented in the same direction as the perfect split. Miraculously this boulder landed so that it could split down the middle. Also, the desert patina coats the outside of the boulder, which contributes to a much harder face climb.

The potato chips boulder (V2) which features an imperfect split along one of the bedding planes to create many little ridges and holds on the split face. The best holds for me were the ones coated in the desert patina. The photo features my brother utilizing some of the bedding planes to top it out.

The canibal crag sport climbing area: This is a perfect display of the various migrading sand dunes that hardened on top of one another. The big horizontal breaks in the rock are the separations between different subsequent sand dunes. THe smaller laminations are the cross beds that were deposited as the sand dune migrated. The more angled cross beds show a period with larger sand dunes. The chalked up route up the prow of the crag uses holds in the cross beds. See the source labeled “Sand dune to sandstone formation” for more information on this process.

Me climbing The Wave (V3). Other than featuring a giant cutout in the rock, this climb also features little iron nodules in the sandstone that proved to be nie little holds.

A close up display of the tightly banded vibrant display of color in the rock. The varying degrees of red and orange have to do with the iron minerals in that sand dune. Since it was raining on this particular day, we did not climb. My hand is just there for scale (and not reaching to grab a hold!!)

TRBTC: Red Rock Canyon - Transcript

This is the Rock Behind the Climb, the podcast about the geology of different rock climbing spots. I am your host Quinn “The Jazzhammer” Todzo, and this episode will make you see every single climb differently in Red Rock Canyon, so get ready to get friggen blitzed, geologically. For those who are new or haven’t heard this podcast in a while, my goal is to really connect the features in the rock that define the climbing in an area to the geologic processes that created them.

In this episode we are going to explore why exactly the redder the rock provides better holds. We’ll talk about how winds changing direction millions of years ago causes you to shift your weight halfway up a sport climb. Bouldering wise I’ll get into the main reason is that everyone from your V0 homies to your V10 crushers come back from red rock psyched out of their minds. And finally I’ll close with why the city of Las Vegas specifically ended up right next to this natural playground.

Red rock canyon in Las Vegas is hands down the best all around rock climbing spot in America. You’ve got long monstrous trad routes right next to amazing sport climbs and absolutely world class boulders. There are so many problems and routes of all types and difficulties right next to each other. And better yet, you are literally less than 30 minutes away from Las Vegas. You can literally send, rage, lose all your money, and crush again all in the same 24 hour period.

Coming in from Las Vegas, the approach into red rock is a spectacular change in environment. You go from this insanely artificial metropolitan area with strip malls and casinos to this giant red and white striped cliff that abruptly emerges from the flat desert plain, buttressing the western horizon. It’s crazy because the giant cliffs and deep canyons make it feel wild, remote, and adventurous even though a glance to the east reminds you that you are not too far from civilization (or maybe the fall of civilization in the case of some casinos).

So, let’s start off with the basics: what kind of rock are we climbing, and where did it come from?

The rock at red rock is Sandstone which means that it was formed from a bunch of sand grains clumping together over millions of years to eventually form the stone that we see today. In the case of red rock canyon, the sand was deposited by wind blowing the sand grains into giant sand dunes. Over time, these giant dunes got buried by more wind blown sand dunes to eventually get pressed into rock in a process called lithification. 

When you climb the rock today, you can actually see evidence of the sand dunes by the way that the rock is cracked and striped. Often, you will be able to pick out large horizontal cracks in the rock. These are known as beds and they mark the separation between subsequent sand dunes. In between those beds are thinner sloped stripes of rock called cross-beds. These are deposits that mark the travel of a sand dune over time. Because yes, sand dunes move over time! To learn more about this, I have included a resource in the show notes that has cool animations that describe this process.

A good example of what this looks like is at the Cannibal Crag. Climbs on this rock feature holds on the cross beds and spots to rest in between beds. What’s cool is that you can see how the environment changed over time as you climb up the rock. For instance, you could be climbing up a section of rock where all the cross beds are sloping down from left to right, and then abruptly the beds will shift to sloping from right to left. This is because the wind would have changed direction with the next sand dune! After years of generally blowing from left to right, something drastic about the land changed to alter the wild patterns. All of this to make you have to shift your weight to account for the cross beds sloping now right to left. 

The thickness and steepness of the bedding planes is controlled by the relative wind speed at the time that the sand dune was formed. Thicker sections with more steeply slanted cross beds show a period with larger sand dunes and therefore stronger wind speeds. Flatter holds are of times when the wind wasn’t blowing as strongly. So if you are climbing along on steeply inclined cross beds without a rest in sight, you can blame the high winds at that time for making such a massive sand dune!

If you have never been to Red Rock, I have put a photo of what these beds look like in the show notes. You know that Dr. Seuss book Oh the Places You’ll go where the little dude walks through a world that has a bunch of multicolored striped hills. It kind of looks like that, but just varying degrees of red, orange, and white. I dunna know. Either way it’s vibrant as heck.

The red and orange colors come from the iron minerals that are mixed in with the sand grains that rusted over time. 

The iron in the rock actually does more for it than just provide cool colors. The sandstone layers with the iron minerals actually give the rock layer a lower permeability. This means that less water can get in between the grains and cause it to deteriorate. This is why the redder the rock, the more weather resistant it is, and therefore better holds.

On a lot of climbs, the best holds are the ones that are darker colors, because they have resisted weathering better than the less metallic rock layers. This allows the redder sections to develop into larger jugs and deeper crimps than the lighter colored holds which are typically slopier and smaller.

Also, just as an FYI, the rock as a whole is porous, meaning that even though it looks strong and compact, water can actually percolate through it. When water is trapped in the rock, it makes the rock weak and easily breakable. So definitely don’t climb on it for a few days after it rains, because you would be likely to break a hold.

OK so to recap this section I thought I would share a few slightly altered song lyrics from a modern poet of our time by the name of Taylor Swift that I think captures the essence of the sandstone at red rock. Ok here goes

I am a sand dune, it's a typical epoch night

I'm carrying the kind of minerals she doesn't like

She'll never know your climbing style like I do

But she wears calcite 

I am oxidized

She's light colored, and I'm a little rusty

Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find

The hold you're looking for has been red the whole time

Not sure if that made sense, but alas: we’re moving on

If you are impatient like me, rather than dive straight into the cliffs and crags that scrape the western skyline when you drive up from Vegas, you’ll actually take an abrupt right turn to go hit up the Kraft Boulders which you can access before actually entering the national conservation area. 

The bouldering here is truly la creme de la creme. It’s incredible. Basically every boulder I’ve tried in the Kraft area felt like a gym problem. So many boulders have amazing holds, mostly decent landings, and offer a wide assortment of problem types from crimpy slabs to muscully overhangs. What makes this spot truly remarkable to me is that you have hundreds of problems in such a dense area that completely vary in difficulty. This is really cool because no matter who you are or where you are in your bouldering journey, you can find a ton of really fun problems in the Kraft mountain area.

When you get to the Kraft bouldering area it can feel like a maze just looking around for the exact problem I wanted to try. But if you happen to look up just past the endless field of boulders, you’ll notice Kraft Mountain, which is where the boulders actually originated. 

Basically, the giant field of boulders is a result of giant blocks of rock tumbling down the mountain from this one lens of intact sandstone due to erosion. Over time, as water and ice entered the cracks and joints within the sandstone unit, the blocks fell and tumbled down the mountain. This is known as a talus field, which are geological features found in a lot of mountainous areas where rockfall is common.

Some of the most well known and popular bouldering areas in America were formed in a similar fashion. Places like Joes Valley in Utah, Icicle Creek in Washington, and even Yosemite Valley are places with bouldering formed from talus field.

In talus fields, I would argue that the factor that influences the climbing the most is the orientation of each boulder after coming to rest, which is dictated by rockfall. Rockfall in Kraft mountain has occurred after years of water freezing and thawing in the cracks of Kraft Mountain. However, at different times and under varying circumstances each boulder detached from the cliff, rolled for a bit, and found its resting place.

The orientation of the boulder as well as its size, are both dictated by the rock fall. This can mean the difference between whether you have a low angle slab climb or an overhanging test piece. There are boulders with huge airy top outs like after a bunch of crimpy moves like The Pearl V5. And then, there are 5 foot boulders, featuring 7 moves to get out of a mini cave and over the lip to the top out like The Wave V3. And the crazy part is that these two completely different problems with different styles are right next to each other. 

A prime example of an iconic red rock boulder is one known as the cube. The boulder is this massive, nearly perfect rectangular block of sandstone that somehow landed perfectly on its side after tumbling down the mountain. The fact that the block a) stayed intact during the rockfall event, and b) landed on its side allows for some sick high ball faces and striking arete problems. The actual rock climbing holds probably have more to do with erosional processes after the cube had fallen into place, but the essence of the climbing style is because of the rock fall.

Another boulder that had an interesting rock fall is the one known as the Plummers crack. THis is a freaking beast. It’s one of those problems where the photos really don’t do it justice. Basically it’s a 30 foot rock that is split in half down the middle, creating a chimney style crack that gets wider as you get higher up. It’s not technically that hard, but its one of those things that is incredibly scary but also so cool and rewarding when you top it out. 

Anyway, the instance of this boulder in the context of rockfall is quite cool because the boulder literally split in half. What must have happened is that when the plumbers crack boulder came tumbling down, it landed with so much force that it literally split down the middle. That doesn’t explain the whole deal though, because how could you possibly get a crack so perfectly sliced where each face inside the chimney is nearly smooth. Most likely there was already a planar joint in the rock formed during it’s original deposition. That means that the rock had to have this coincidence of landing in such a way that the natural joint plane was perpendicular to the ground, with enough force to split the entire thing! 

Next time you are out at red rocks or any boulder field, I encourage you to look at the boulder’s with the question of how did the boulders end up there, and then look around at the environment and see if you can find any clues from the surrounding area or adjacent rocks to piece together what might have happened. 

Then, when you make your grand discovery and inevitably annoy the crap out of your friends by talking their ear off while they are just trying to send their project, you should reach out to me. I would love to hear about your mind-blowing geologic discovery while out climbing! My contact info is in the show notes

Aside from the orientation of the boulders, I should also mention the main reason the boulders have so many holds. It has to do with this stuff called desert patina. It’s these dark patches of metallic minerals that coat the outside of the rock. The patina, just like the redder sand dune layers, protects the rock and makes it a lot less prone to erosion. In many cases the rock erodes around the patina, which makes for good cracks and edges to pull on . I saw a ton of cool climbs where you have to suffer through a number of tiny little crimps before lunging for a giant patina jug. The patina was especially helpful for me on the climb known as Potato Chips V2, which is an overhanging climb where you are relying on small holds that you can’t really evaluate by just looking at it. My strategy of going for the patina holds proved successful because they had a little more to grab onto than the non patina crimps.

The patina is featured prominently throughout the park. For example, basically the entire black velvet wall is just the sandstone coated in the patina. In many cases, the patina functions in conjunction with the sand dune beds and other water features to create crazy holds and climbs.

OK ok ok, so we have this cool striped rock made from sand dunes, and bouldering that is absolutely world class, but there is one very important aspect about red rock that elevates it to one of the best crags in America. 

It’s that if you are out having an adventure up in the canyon and get caught in an insane hail storm, you aren’t likely 8 hours away from the car and have to have a cold and wet trudge back to the car before you have to drive another hour plus just to get a hot meal.

No, Red Rock Canyon is this amazingly wild feeling location that is just a stones throw from Las Vegas. Like I said in the intro, you can literally wake up after a crazy night out in Vegas and within 20/30 minutes be fighting off that hangover with a 13 pitch trad adventure.

I think you are pretty hard pressed to find many other situations like this where there is a major metropolitan area so close to this quality of a climbing crag. But, Las Vegas is an interesting situation. The city is located on a completely flat desert plain that is nestled between mountain ranges. 

The geologic term for this is a basin and range topography, which is to say it is a part of alternating sets of mountains and flat lands due to the earth’s crust extending. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the North American plate got compressed which gave rise to a bunch of mountains. And then, kind of like when you release a slinky, North America extended back outward. Essentially, the mountain ranges around Las Vegas were all clumped together, but then the Earth’s crust extended, thus separating the mountain ranges. This created huge valleys that got filled in with sediment over time like present day Las Vegas.

If you ever take a day off of climbing and visit the valley of fire state park which is just east of Las Vegas, you’ll find sandstone that very closely resembles red rock canyon. This is because the two parks literally split off from one another leaving Las Vegas in the middle.

A key feature of the Basin and Range topography is that it makes the mountain ranges quite steep and shear, leaving you with a very flat basin right next to incredibly steep cliffs. This makes for the unique situation of red rock canyon and Las Vegas because the flat basin is perfect for building a city upon, and the steep shear rock makes the rock climbing possible.

Well, that’s about all that I have for you. I think there’s a lot more I could talk about with Red Rock canyon and the rock around Las Vegas, but I will cut myself off there for now. If there is anything I want you to take away from this episode though, it’s that all the rocks in Red Rock Canyon have a unique story of how they got there. Whether its massive ancient sand dunes that gave way to the crazy striations in the rock, or the boulders that all fell out of Kraft Mountain and landed in precarious positions to allow for so many different boulder styles, or just taking a step back and looking at the Red Rock as one half of this mountain range that ripped apart leaving fabulous las vegas in the middle. In the words of T Swift: What you’re looking for has been in here the whole time!

Thank you so much for listening. If you have any further questions, have an idea for a place I should visit, or just want to connect with me, shoot me an email. All my info is in the notes. I have also included a link to my blog which includes photos and a transcript of the episode. All right, catch ya on the next one! Jazzhammer Out!

Episode 12 The Grotto Transcript, Photos, and Sources

Episode Link:

https://soundcloud.com/quinn-todzo/trbtc-ep12-the-grotto?si=3208f1ecae6846dcac2bfe9393d86947&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing 

The glorious stone columns of The Grotto

Episode Transcript:

I want to climb

Somewhere Devine

I’ve been I miner for a crag of gold

Tectonic compressions

And volcanic slime

Keep me climbing at 

A crag of golddddd

And im getting bold

Hello and welcome back to the Rock Behind the Climb, the podcast about the geology of different rock climbing spots. I am your host Quinn “The Jazzhammer” Todzo bringing some rare auriferous luster back to your podcast feed. This episode I am taking you to gold country in the Sierra foothills of California, to discuss the formation of giant stone columns, perfectly vertical cracks, and the great wall of California. I am speaking of course about The Grotto in Table Mountain.

I have wanted to cover this spot for a long time. Just looking at photos of these 100 foot colossal stone columns separated by perfectly vertical cracks that tower over this subterranean pit will  give you a sense of FOMO. And then, you take a step back and look at the formation at large: this giant long and skinny plateau of rock that snakes around the area and looks like the great wall of china, and you can’t help but wonder what the heck created it.

Usually when I go out rock climbing, I have to be the one that brings up the geologic significance of the area to the group, but this time I had people asking me about the rock formation literally as soon as we arrived so lets get into it shall we.

Located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada right near Sonora, California “The Grotto” is a climbing area on Table Mountain, the great wall of china looking thing I mentioned earlier. Honestly I think calling it a mountain is really a misnomer because rather than a defined pinnacle like most other mountains it has a flat ridge that is about as wide as a football field and snakes around the area for a length of nearly 15 miles. I guess if they were trying to be technical the namers could have called it Table Inverted Valley (For reasons that I will get into), but I guess that just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.

Table Mountain is well known for a number of different climbing crags, but I am going to focus this episode on the specific area known as “The Grotto”, which exhibits the marquee stone columns. 

So we’ve got this giant 15 mile long great wall of china looking feature held up by giant vertical columns that seem as though they could be supporting the parthenon. So what in the heck is going on here, and how on earth did it all happen naturally.

Table Mountain, Sonora on the way to the Grotto (left), Aerial View (right). Aerial view taken by Gary Hayes by way of source 2.

Table Mountain was formed because a nearby volcano erupted 10 million years ago and filled an existing stream channel with a ton of lava. Then, over time the banks of that river channel eroded, exposing the much more weather resistant intact lava flow that had kept the shape of the old river. This is why Table Mountain has a sort of serpentine shape, because it took the shape of the old river bed. It is also why it is flat on top, because it was basically like pouring a liquid into a fixed container that eventually hardened over. Geologists call this an inverted river or inverted valley because the topography of the river channel is actually higher than that of the surrounding area.

As an aside, miners from the California Gold Rush recognized that Table Mountain covered what could possibly be a gold bearing stream bed, and tried to mine it. Looking through a database of old mining claims, it looks like there was one practically right next to The Grotto actually, but I didn’t see any signs of it while I was out there. I guess there wasn’t a lot of gold found underneath Table Mountain because there were never any major claims. Those silly miners were only interested in the supposed deposits underneath? I mean c’mon everyone knows the real gold is in the incredible crack climbs right above

But I digress. Getting back on track I should also mention that the lava rock that cooled to create table mountain is technically called Latite, but for the purposes of this podcast I might refer to it as basalt which is just a lava rock with less silica and more metallic composition than latite. Basalt, however, is much more readily found and studied so a lot of my sources are specific to basalts, but the same principles behind the creation of the various features apply to both rock types. So I just ask all of you out there when you head to the grotto with your friends and someone mentions how cool the basalt columns are, you don’t have to counter with a snarky “well actually rock is really Latite”, because in my opinion, close enough. 

Ok, back to the grotto. To remind you we left off just when the hot molten lava filled the stream bed, so lets get into how this eventually turned into giant stone columns.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, the Grotto is vertical crack heaven because the columns are separated by cracks of varying widths giving you a ton of options for different types of crack climbing. The columns themselves are probably about 5 feet wide and have their own climbs on them as well. There is this hellish 5.10d rated climb called AC Devil Dog where you basically climb up the face of one of these outcropping columns by just hugging the damn thing since there aren’t many actual holds. My wingspan proved to just be enough to get me to the top, while hang dogging most at most of the clips.

Me Hanging on for dear life on AC Devil Dog

Most of the climbs though involve jamming your hands and feet into cracks that range from hand size to finger size in between the columns. So how did these columns and cracks form?

Well when lava comes out of the ground, it is a mostly homogenous molten hot mass that flows like a liquid, hence why it took the shape of the river. When it cools, similar to freezing water, it shrinks because the once excited, heated up molecules are now packing more tightly. This rapid cooling and shrinking causes cracks in the rock. Typically these cracks break in ways that create hexagonal shapes. This is because in an ideal world when you have a completely homogeneous mixture cooling at the same rate, it will try to create the least amount of cracks it possibly has to to relieve the internal cooling stresses. So, basically what you want is the smallest perimeter to surface area ratio which is how you get the hexagonal shapes. 

There’s a bunch of videos and stuff on the internet that talk about how much perfect hexagons appear in nature like in honeycombs or snowflakes apparently. They are just the most efficient shape in covering an 2D plane with the minimum amount of perimeter, or in the case of stone columns: the minimum amount of cracking.

The way these 2D hexagons turn into 3D vertical columns (and in turn create vertical cracks) is because the rate of cooling of the top of the lava section cools much faster than the bottom. Since the rate of cooling varies linearly with depth, the cracking that was initiated at the top propogates vertically downwards. 

This is how we get the columns we know and love, because the bottom of the column of rock cools slower than the top, so the perturbance that was initiated at the top will just continue downwards rather than start anew. As with most things in life, these cracks take the path of least resistance, which happens to create nice vertical columns.

But wait!!! Something about all of this doesn’t add up. If you have been to the Grotto you know there are at least 3 things wrong with the idealistic hexagonal column picture I just painted. First of all, none of the columns appear to be hexagonal. I mean there is no way I would be able to grip the corners of AC Devil Dog if they were flaring at 120 degrees. This particular column is square, but I saw others that even looked triangular. Most notably none of them seemed perfectly hexagonal. 

Secondly, those vertical cracks are not the only cracks in the columns. There are huge longitudinal cracks that cut across the columns sometimes causing the columns to break off. On climbs like the 5.11 rated Snake Bite, you actually start on one crack system and then you get to a point where one of the columns has broken off, and have to maneuver yourself onto another crack system while also getting around a small roof. 

Finally, and most notably, the climbs don’t actually top out at the top of of the columns. There is actually at least 50 more feet of volcanic Latite that looks a lot more chaotic than the orderly vertical columns before reaching the top of the mountain. In fact, there are actually a bunch of very difficult extensions on the column climbs that go up this next section of rock. 

So what’s going on here? Well lets break it down (pun intended) piece by piece. Ok so first of all, while hexagons are the ideal best shape, if the lava isn’t perfectly homogeneous in its composition, you start to get cracks that aren’t at the perfect 120 degrees to each other. It really just takes one crack that decides to protrude at a 90 degree angle instead of 120 and boom, your whole system of perfect hexagons is ruined. Take that youtube videos on hexagons in nature

Secondly, what are the other cracks in the columns that cause these things to break? Well those longitudinal cracks, in my observation, are most likely caused by spheroidal weathering. I’m not going to get into it too much in this episode since a) it opens up a whole new can of worms and b) I talked about it extensively in my Joshua Tree episode. Basically, it’s a type of chemical weathering where some of the crystals that make up the rock dissolve over time which cause cracks to expand and edges to round or break off. Some of the columns look like they have bites taken out at the bottom which is most likely from chemical weathering creating a horizontal crack that caused the bottom portion of that column to come tumbling down.

Lastly and most interestingly, lets talk about what is going on with the remaining rock above the columns. Rather than have perfect vertical cracks, this above section is a slightly overhanging with joints and fissures that propagate at random. If I didn’t know any better I would think that this was a different rock type or at least part of some different event. That’s how starkly different the upper section appears.

However, this is actually pretty common with cliffs that exhibit columnar jointing. In fact, geologists have broken down columnar jointing systems into different zones. The zones with the columns are called the colonnade and the ones with the irregular cracks and such are called the entablature, and it almost always happens where the entablature sits on top of the colonnade.

The reason the entablature exists is because in order to have those perfectly vertical cracks, you need every part of the rock horizontally to cool at the same rate and then cool slower and slower as you go further down. If for some reason the cooling process is disturbed like a particularly long and penetrative rainfall event, the isotherms (or regions with similar cooling rates) can be disturbed causing the cracking to happen haphazardly. This is more likely to be the case towards the top of a cooling lava rock section where the cooling rock is most disturbed by the elements. 

So to recap: we have giant columns because of regular cooling of a homogeneous lava. However, since in reality the rock doesn’t cool regularly and isn’t perfectly homogenous, it didn’t result in perfect hexagonal columns from the top down. 

But hey, if we wanted things to be perfect all the time we probably wouldn’t make it as climbers, or geologists, or enthusiasts (big shout out to the climbing and geology enthusiasts that listen to the podcast who don’t actually climb or go to these places that I talk about).

OK to finish the episode, I want to circle back to the beginning and talk about where the lava that filled the stream bed even came from, because as you will see, it is very closely related to a bunch of other rock climbing spots in California.

The lava actually wasn’t from a volcano like we normally think of them. It was from an ancient fault line pulling apart and letting magma just kind of spew outwards. 

Essentially the land mass of California had been in a state of compression which created the volcanoes and volcanic fields of climbing areas such as Mt. St. Helena, Pinnacles, and Bishop Peak down in San Luis Obispo.

However, just like when you squeeze a spring and let go, after being squished in compression California went into a state of stress relaxation meaning that the land literally spread back out. This stress relaxation opened up an old fault line in the area around Table Mountain causing lava to spew out and fill the ancient stream bed, thus creating Table Mountain.

I think the interesting takeaway here though is that all these crags that I just mentioned including the grotto are related by being formed from a similar event. Granted Table Mountain was more of a reaction to the events that created those other 3 places I listed. I find it fascinating because none of these climbing locations look or climb like each other, but because volcanoes can have many different ensuing rock types, these similarly created climbing crags take wildly different forms. 

You could honestly put together a pretty sweet road trip down the state of California and hit all of the coastal volcanic climbing crags, and come out a very well rounded climber. Like you could practice your crack climbing at the grotto, get ripped on the pumpy climbs at mt st helena, practice patience and slow careful climbing in pinnacles, and then finish with some sporty long link ups down at Bishop Peak. And all of these climbs would be connected by a common geologic event, which I dont know for me is freaking cool.

With that thanks so much to all of you listening! Feel free to reach out to me with any comments, questions, or critiques through any of the provided avenues in the episode description. Also, if you follow the link to my blog you can find the full episode transcript with photos. Before I close the episode I want to leave you with this quote from 1882 in a journal entry titled “The Ancient Man of Calaveras” W.O Ayers that talked about the gold mining at Table Mountain. 

He writes: The question occurs to us: How came Table mountain to exist? That basalt, when it was erupted, was fluid like other lava. How could it be piled up so thick and so abrupt (for its sides are often perpendicular) on that high mountain ridge, and remain there? Why did it not spread itself out laterally and cover the plain? But one answer to these questions can be given: There was no plan. 

Thanks again for listening, and I’ll catch you guys eventually on the next one. Jazzhammer out.

Sources:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00206810902978265 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233188590_An_in-depth_look_at_distal_Sierra_Nevada_palaeochannel_fill_Drill_cores_through_the_Table_Mountain_Latite_near_Knights_Ferry/link/00b4952a03565585bf000000/download 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2449590.pdf - ancient man of the calaveras

http://hayesg.faculty.mjc.edu/Gold_Rush.html - gold rush

https://www.kqed.org/science/8032/how-californias-warping-microplate-makes-its-faults-creep - Sierra Microplate and creep

https://touchstoneclimbing.com/trip-report-table-mountain/ - Table mountain climbing history

https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21534 - gold mining around table mountain

https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/show-mrds.php?dep_id=10214295 - punch bowl gold mine that was right next to the grotto trying to mine underneath the mountain

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007JB005018 

https://watermark.silverchair.com/2068.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAApwwggKYBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKJMIIChQIBADCCAn4GCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMdfhpYBYOqLUemreIAgEQgIICT5wDzQhYNYh6cJWvFWyIDZhaog6ksf0Bz0VTcw39Ap0VdGjyAURXKFI5eT49dhrN43zrSBANBjxOjnZMfjy-v2VPaAhF5HxQR3ciqSVpNIsALXPrMRQ-IIObsyk375MIdmewVpUSmMJCaMeHYW95a_OdMRm9p2yfH0UDqcUNXNniCARxwPMy4JqeIh38P7rL19FGkPFR5-eq85NCAEdkxQmQdAHfKmyfB4xEcH-mayn6T_rWwWlXbwysml2JqNpEahhA_tje490U80j56tm6bNl4Mn4RfUHO628DbWtBtkpkBdEYy_VGH3sC4VeclPY7Uv9wzkKFr3W8s9cyEx5FUTVLM8HVqBzvLrmb1d0_joqjI6hOwC87hRs02fIlK6bfGLoHaWUzQNcuBEBP74wgZZR8YjcXiCxaUxMrejUfBbjRWXTFWOrzI6BfzPkr7l-6EmWTMUtpyMTQuBdTNhQVARxh5JbUm4MU5p4EsW1mTgfm6nOuFSXCm2BsoJjdzAWBZwAbivOqvucarJgriZl4a510FtZ3gMtY2MasUrKMDve7NRgWHenGKefQAL1248WEcBGY4rJmb_uxID98EB_6AraFvp1apQQ9sYnng4Q-ebBZwF-2GhS7IBT4Jzzdkyjn1ESd2-t5QHcqCGRjRJ_BSLIXRbwdaoeAP-64ueOwcIdUn_IdyweDB_ualOUGPXe0VihS_uSBf3tzocwPOoph9Pdmhv1YPezORP66BYNyUj5b_BTfQMHRTpuIHelDTNid1gq4glLDVzJbsq04pFuMbA - transpressional

https://pages.mtu.edu/~raman/SilverI/IRKeweenawRift/Columnar_Joints/Columnar_Joints.html - colonnade vs entablature