During one summer off from McGill studies I visited by home town, where my mom still lived, with my girlfriend at the time (now wife) and also passed some time on a well known land mark of Campbell River called Big Rock. This is a large boulder on a rocky beach next to the Island Highway. Due to it’s prominent location it’s popular with graffiti taggers and artists. It probably gets a fresh coat of graffiti every year, at least on the West and South faces which are most visible to highway traffic. These thick layers of paint are pretty shit for climbing but, hey, you gotta work with what you got and it actually helps ‘up’ the difficulty of climbs a little.
Back in the days of Dr. Topo I actually made a guide for Big Rock (as well as select climbs at Crest Creek Crag) and Dr. Topo sent me a free crash pad for my efforts! Thank you Dr. Topo (RIP)!
For anybody still interested in the problems I documented, below is a downloadable copy from the archives.
- Note that the ordering of pages is intended to be printed out double sided, folded, and then stapled together down the middle crease to make a booklet (as was the case for most Dr. Topo topos).
- WARNING: Each winter the area around the base of Big Rock can change drastically resulting in low starts being inaccessible. For example, I’ve seen this impact the North face on some years such that there’s no undercut at all making the SDS starts noted in this guide impossible (unless you’re willing to move a lot of rocks!). Additionally, layers of new graffiti can also impact climbs.