Mortar Rock (Berkeley)
Berkeley (901 Indian Rock Ave) · near Berkeley · SF Bay Area
Rock Climbing
At a glance
- Skill level
- expert
- Grade range
- V0–V13+ (the hard end of Berkeley bouldering)
- Best season
- Year-round · Best in cool, dry fall/winter/spring for friction
Permits and booking
- Permit
- City of Berkeley pocket park — free, dawn to dusk, no permit. Residential neighborhood — be quiet, park considerately, and no chalk graffiti; access depends on good neighbor relations.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
Rock Climbing detail
- Climb types
- bouldering · top-rope
- Rock type
- Rhyolite — volcanic, sharp
- Route count
- ~30–40 problems on a ~100ft outcrop
- Signature routes
- Nat's Traverse · Impossible Wall Traverse · Nat's Lieback
- First timer note
- This is a hard, sharp, highball spot — not the friendly beginner scene of Indian Rock one block south. Bring multiple pads and skin.
- Intl tip
- This is a hard, sharp, highball spot — not the friendly beginner scene of Indian Rock. Bring multiple pads and skin; for easy top-roping go to Indian Rock instead.
The guide
This tiny Berkeley outcrop reportedly holds the largest concentration of difficult climbing per square foot in California, and …
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Mortar Rock (Berkeley) — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.8918, -122.2723