The world has been rather thoroughly mapped out, but that doesn't mean there is no frontier left to explore.
Take the miles and acres of boulders littering the hillsides of I-90's Homestake Pass for example. The rocks have been there for ages and are passed hundreds of times a day, but it's only been recently that rock climbers, boulderers specifically, have pushed deeper into the area's potential.
During the first of what organizers are hoping is a yearly happening on Saturday, the Butte Bouldering Bash celebrated the new climbs. By the end of the day, the muted grays of the boulders of the new
Northern Bourbons - located adjacent to Homestake Lodge - were covered with random white chalk spots, like so many finger-painted constellations.
"This place is fantastic," said George Hughbanks, a climber from Spokane. "It's really good stone, really great features. There's not too many places you can find big rail roofs to climb out and ... it's unique. Good landings, that is the one thing I've noticed here. The landings are all nice and flat right in front of the boulders.
"A lot of stuff hasn't been touched. It's amazing because these boulders go on for miles. A couple people I ran into have never been here and they're from Butte."
Hughbanks, with his wife Shannon and son Mason, joined an estimated 40 competitors, and an overall 50 climbers, sampling the new climbing routes, or boulder problems, included in the area's new guidebook - the second in the "Bouldering the Backwaters" mini-guide series - released Saturday.
"So it's kind of like a guidebook-coming-out party as well as kind of just trying to introduce people (to the area) because not a lot of people boulder beyond Whiskey Gulch," said Tom Kingsbury, who is from Bozeman and one of the guidebook authors as well as event organizer.
Bouldering, as it sounds, is rock climbing on boulders - instead of ascending cliffs with ropes, boulderers use crash pads on the ground beneath the rocks that are usually under 20 feet tall in case of a fall - and Whiskey Gulch is the most well known of the Homestake Pass areas. Due to the minimum of equipment needed, bouldering is one of the fastest growing, most accessible forms of rock climbing.
The approximately 76 miles from Bozeman - and many more for anyone else not from Butte - are within most climbers' range, because if climbers had an entry in some kind of field identification guide there would have to be a note about expansive travel and wandering.
"It was either Leavenworth (Wash.) or here," Hughbanks said of his weekend plans. "When you drive through the area, you just see them. You kind of wonder what's private and what's public, because you start drooling over it all."
Hughbanks' words hint at the other, broader issue bringing climbers out on a day that dawned rainy and overcast in Bozeman.
"Mostly just want to support the SMCC," said Brady Raney from Bozeman.
The competition at the Bash was a benefit for the Southwest Montana Climbers Coalition (SMCC), which works locally to protect and ensure area climbers can get to their favorite crags - like the Bozeman Pass and Livingston's Allenspur. Not an ordeal at the Northern Bourbons, access is generally one of climbing's most contentious issues making organizations like SMCC almost essential.
"SMCC really needs a climbing event yearly," Kingsbury said. "For like a pure climbing event, this is the first one they've tried."
Of the new areas' 140 problems, 90 of them "were deemed safe enough insurance-wise," to be included in the competition. Each of those was assigned a point value based on difficulty and competitors' top seven "sends," or successful climbs, counted to an overall total.
But at few events does competition get so quickly pushed to the background as at an outdoor bouldering comp, where competitors literally catch each other falling.
"It's good to see this event happening," said Brett Jessen a climbing company rep who was also out exploring the boulders. "For not only development (of the area), but for local shops too, because you build the psych for climbing. The more events there are, the more people show up and realize how cool it is and they get more amped.
"And it builds the community."
That community started small out here, with the initial explorers, but that hasn't stopped them from putting up about 1,200 problems throughout the area over the course of the past six years, according to Kingsbury.
"A couple years ago we found this area (the Northern Bourbons)," Kingsbury said. "And it just really struck us as a nice area with good concentration (of problems) and so then the development really took off here and a lot of people just got psyched - well, at least the dozen of us climbing."
But more are soon to follow.
"Once all the guides start coming out, it'll just start showing people the way," Raney said.
As for the area's name:
"So we were kind of joking, it's kind of like a finer quality Whiskey, you know, like our Bourbon," Kingsbury said. "It kind of grew from that."
Sean Forbes can be reached at sforbes@dailychronicle.com.
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