One reason we moved to Boston was to be closer to the things we like to do. Yes, the Sierras are great, but at a minimum of 3 hours driving time from the SF Bay Area multiplied by the screaming infant factor, they were just too far away for regular visits.

This weekend was our only our second where we all stayed in the Boston area since we moved here in July. I made plans with some I met via meetup.com’s Boston Rock climbing meetup to climb at quincy quarries on Saturday morning. I had heard about the quarries back before I left the area (I left in 1989) but was not in to climbing then, so I had never made the effort to go. The stories back then were of car break-ins, falling rocks, and kids drownding in the water left in the old quarry holes. website offline I had been assured that the current scene was much more positive. I was pleased to find out that it was so. back link check . After some debate, my wife and I decided that it would be a decent attempt for a family outing, so we packed up the car and drove the 15 minutes south to Quncy.  We met up with Roger, my partner for the day, out on the street.  We both were running a little late, which made for a perfect connection.  The climbing was a one minute walk in on a paved trail.
While there is climbing that close to SF (Glen Park comes to mind) the quarries are a great site. The main area is a large grassy field with cliffs surrounding it.  One portion is quite overhung and makes a decent place to, say, put a stroller containing a sleeping toddler.  The cliffs are short, the tallest in this area was 50 feet.  But then again, that is still taller than even the highest point at most climbing gyms.  Add to that the fact that it is real rock and it makes for an enjoyable climbing experience.

We spent the day at  K wall.  I opened by leading outside corner, a 5.8 with great gear placements all the way up (Although I did clip a fixed piton). Once the rope was up, we pretty much shared ropes with the parties next to us on this climb and the 5.9 next to it.  At the end of the day, we move the rope over one more anchor and beat on what we thougt was a 5.9.  It was, except for the final move which was probably low 11s.  More than I was ready for at that point, even on TR.

The climbers were a great bunch.  Lots of people just getting into the sport that were experienceing “outside” for the first time, mixed with a few old school climbers that showed up solo and just got a ride on the existing topropes. One such old-school climber (Paul) showed a level of gracfulness in his layback approach to the crux move on outside corner, that we had all dyno-ed our way through.   I followed his example on my next attempt.

I managed to abrade the back of my hand on  a hand jam, so I call it a successful day.