Indian Rock

An entry for the Ecotone Wiki’s topic on Stones and Rocks.

Berkeley, in addition to its fame as a center of development of California cuisine (the town’s radical past now usurped by the gourmet ghetto on Shattuck Avenue), is also noteworthy as one of the original training grounds for modern rock climbing. In the 1930s, the California mountaineers who would go on to do many of the first ascents in the Sierra Nevadas, among them Dick Leonard and David Brower, would practice their bouldering techniques in North Berkeley where there is a set of crags composed of rhyolite.

Indian Rock is the most famous of these boulders. It got its name from nearby mortar basins in the rock used by natives for grinding acorns. It is less than a mile from my old house, and I would often go there on a walk. It has a great view from the top, and as can be seen from the steps in the photo, you don’t have to go up the steep side with ropes to get to the top.