Bouldering at the Harbor Wall

General | Getting There | Ratings | Route Descriptions | Summary of Routes | Topos

by Jeff Elam

General

Note: There were reports of people getting ticketed for climbing at Harbor Wall. Some of them were later able to dismiss the tickets in court.

The harbor wall is a great bouldering spot on Chicago's South Side. To anyone passionate about climbing, living in a huge city in the middle of a vast, flat plane can threaten one's sanity. Weekend escapes to Devil's Lake provide some relief, but where can one find an alternative to the doorjam for daily training? At the Harbor Wall!!! This roughcut granite and mortar structure is 650 feet long and about 16 feet high at its tallest point. Despite the rock gyms which have recently opened in Chicago, the harbor wall still offers free outdoor climbing on real rock. Stately sailboats, graffiti, a cool lake breeze, and broken glass all lend the Harbor Wall its own special charm. Pleasant conversations with picnickers above (Some of which are now scrolling across the bottom)usually covers such topics as The American Gladiators, Mt. Everest and the fact that if you want to get to the top of the wall, it would be a lot easier to just walk around the back.

Getting there

Map

The easiest way is to bike. Take the lake shore bike path south to La Rabida Hospital. You can also drive. There is parking right next to the wall.

Ratings

Difficulty ratings are based upon the Yosemite Decimal system. The ratings are assigned by consensus and reflect the difficulty of the sequence of moves executed in proper form (see below) as if the porblem was the crux of a much longer route. Furthermore, no first ascent credits are assigned or claimed since we no idea of the number of climbers who have exercised their tendons on these walls. It is entirely possible that UC alum. John Gill flashed every single route at the wall on an icy February morning wearing nothing but Converse All-Stars. 'nuf said.

Route Descriptions

The sketched topo map of the wall should provide more than enough details of the vertical routes as well as their relative locations. The vertical routes are "named" for the bit of graffiti closest to the starting hand and footholds. It is possible to ascend the wall in just about any location along the wall and traversing the entire 650' length (which has some sequences in the 5.10 range) is a tremendous way to build up climbing endurance, not to mention a heck of a lot of fun. The wall is so climbable that given every possible hold, the most difficult vertical route would come in at no higher than 5.10or 5.11. Because it is entirely possible to get to the top of the wall along any part of it using all possible holds including the tops of the blocks, cracks between blocks, and any piece of cement that you can find, it was decided that to complete a named route, proper form must be maintained until the route it completed. The rules for climbing a route in proper form are:

1. you must start the route using the specific hand and foot holds indicated on the topos
2. each move to the top must be executed statically
3. finally and most importantly, the only legal holds are the features found on the faces of the blocks themselves. Any ledge, crack, blob of morter, etc... not on face of the blocks is considered "off route".

The only exception to all this is that EVERYTHING IS ON for the descent. Some of the landings are over large blocks and gaping holes...We don't want to hear about any broken ankles. If you can't downclimb, top out.

Summary of Routes

As mentioned above, the routes are traditionally named by the closest bit of graffiti scrawled on the wall. Proper form is dictated by a completely static ascent to the top using only features on the faces of the granite boulders. Getting down...everything is fair game.

1. Tony-N-Grant 10b
2. W 10c
3. Dillanora 10b
4. Royal Crown 10b
5. G 9
6. Dewayn 10d
7. Sally 10c
8. Angelo 12a
9. Unnamed 11a
10. Unnamed 10a
11. Tears of Joy 12a
12. Always 10c
13. Meesh 12+?
14. 1975 10d
15. 0+00 8
16. Technicolored Yawn 10a
17. Three Sons 11c
18. Jane 10c
19. Unnamed 10a
20. Maurice 11a
21. Unnamed 10a
22. Beaver 11b
23. Lalo 9
24. Mack 10c
25. 5.9 Rock 10b
26. Nita 11b

Topos

When printing, you might want to choose 'landscape' mode so each topo fits on a single page.

Routes 1-10

Routes 11-23

Routes 24-26

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Bouldering at the Harbor Wall by Jeff Elam (1995)
HTML version by Eric R. Bittner () 16-Feb-1997.
All rights reserved by the author. Contact Jeff Elam () for a hard copy of this guide. Climb Hard! Resources > Climbing > Climbing Outdoors > Harbor Wall