Josh Levin: Mickey's Beach 7/28/10

Mickey's Beach: Some of the best North Bay bouldering the Bay Area has to offer. Last month I headed up with my friend Mitch Newman to check out the area yet again and see if we could hit up some of the harder problems in the area. Pretty good day overall.

photo: Mitch Newman

We started out at the Orange Buddha Boulder and warmed up. I love the area around this boulder as there are tons of decent warm ups, some of them right above the surf of the Pacific Ocean. My favorite is a sandy v1 that directly faces the ocean and requires you to time exactly when you run out to hop on to avoid the tide that coasts in immediately after you start climbing. The entire time while climbing the problem, the ocean cascades below you and the fresh ocean air swirls all around. It's not something to miss out on.

After warming up, Mitch and I got on Orange Buddha Arete (v8) and I was able to fire it off in about 5 or 6 goes. Mitch sent it quickly after, sending again for the camera. Proud, dude! ...Especially since it's his hardest of the grade by far. We were both pretty psyched! I also sent the super long and pumpy Hammerhead Traverse (v7) after falling off the last hard move on my flash attempt. The problem traverses half the Orange Buddha Boulder and finishes up the warm-up crack at the end. The whole thing took me more than a couple goes to suss out the beta and figure out the finish. Cool problem though.

Hammerhead Traverse v7
photo: Mitch Newman

At the end of the day, Mitch and I headed just up the road to Stinson Beach and worked the area classics Manitou and Little Wing (v11 and v9, respectively) and got some cool shots while working some unknown beach problems on the High Tide Boulder. After almost sticking the crux move on the problems, we decided to call it a day and headed home. Can't wait to get back out there again.