I
t’s hard to believe that it was almost seven years ago that
I wrote an area profile titled “The Okanagan’s Bouldering
Boom” in this very publication. That piece included statements
like “the Okanagan has seen a bouldering resurgence that doesn’t
show signs of slowing down” and “to say the bouldering is diverse
and that there is something for everyone is an understatement.” It
highlighted the massive amount of bouldering development and the
explosion of interest in bouldering in the Okanagan region of B.C.,
all while putting the psyche of the area’s developers into print. If
nothing else, “The Okanagan’s Bouldering Boom” alluded to the
idea of the region as a high-quality, future destination.
Well, the future is now, and the stoke of developers and
Okanagan boulderers has not diminished over the past decade. In
that time, more areas have been discovered and developed, previ-
ously discovered areas have become well-developed and highly
concentrated, access work has been undertaken, a guidebook has
been released, Rock the Blocs festival was created and is still
going strong and the Okanagan has firmly entrenched itself asOKANAGAN
BOULDERING
Story by Andy White
A Decade of Development in Central B.C.
one of North America’s seasonal boulder-
ing destinations.
The Okanagan Valley now holds 20
bouldering areas and over 2 , 500 boulder
problems. From Penticton to Kelowna
to Vernon, the Okanagan is loaded with
diverse bouldering locations. Previously, I
stated, “The rock varies from Tuolumne-
style, knobby granite to rmnp-esque boul-
der fields filled with ridiculously featured
Monashee gneiss. Settings range from
lakeside escapes to higher elevation ‘kid
in a candy store’ boulderfields. You’ll find
arêtes, caves, faces, traverses, overhangs,
jug hauls and much more. In fact, during
the summer, it’s quite easy to begin your
day on horizontal gneiss in the backcoun-
try, move down to the lake for verticalfeature