Gold Bar Climbing

This digital Gold Bar climbing guidebook gives you GPS navigation, verified topos, and beta for hundreds of climbs. Explore classics and hidden gems with offline access to maps, directions, and beta videos. Whether it's your first visit or fiftieth, KAYA makes your Gold Bar days smoother, safer, and more dialed.

The magical forests of Gold Bar (also known as the Reiter Foothills) are the sister area to the more popular Index Town Walls and all the same levels of quality within the rock climbing apply. Quiet shady locales peppered with imposing boulders dot the hillside below Zeke's Wall drawing climbers up the logging access road. The climbing covers all ranges of styles with predominately more 'holds' than the neighboring Index areas which allows for athletic and steep problems somewhat outside of the norm for granite areas. Comfortable rounded seams, protruding knobs, blocky pinches..... Show more

This digital Gold Bar climbing guidebook gives you GPS navigation, verified topos, and beta for hundreds of climbs. Explore classics and hidden gems with offline access to maps, directions, and beta videos. Whether it's your first visit or fiftieth, KAYA makes your Gold Bar days smoother, safer, and more dialed. The magical forests of Gold Bar (also known as the Reiter Foothills) are the sister area to the more popular Index Town Walls and all the same levels of quality within the rock climbing apply. Quiet shady locales peppered with imposing boulders dot the hillside below Zeke's Wall drawing climbers up the logging access road. The climbing covers all ranges of styles with predominately more 'holds' than the neighboring Index areas which allows for athletic and steep problems somewhat outside of the norm for granite areas. Comfortable rounded seams, protruding knobs, blocky pinches....it's all there in glorious abundance spread between the more exposed clearcut area and the forested upper portions of the hillside. Season: Gold Bar can be a year-round destination because of the variance in aspects and sun exposure between the clearcut and the forest. Cool, calm summer conditions can be easily found beneath the tree canopy in the forest while the winter sun and wind can dry the clearcut boulders quickly and provide the stickiest friction of the year. History: Climber's began exploring the Reiter Foothills in the early 1990's and the golden age continued into the early 2000's when it was still possible to drive up the logging road. This access allowed for extensive development as getting all the necessary equipment to clean the blankets of moss and manicure the detritus beneath the boulders much easier. Motorized access was revoked around 2010 due to years of abuse on the land from the off-roading crowd that also frequents the area. This change in jurisdiction has slowed the pace of development and cleaning though most of the classic problems remain accessible. Hiking the road is relatively easy in the grand scheme of climbing access and well worth the effort any time of year! The future access to the area may change as commercial logging operations occur in the area but the timeless quality of the boulders themselves will remain. Paper Guidebook: Purchase the paper guidebook from Pablo Zuleta here: https://westernwashingtonbouldering.com/guidebook Gold Bar is about 50 minutes from downtown Seattle and an hour 20 from Leavenworth via Highway 2. A Discover Pass is required to park at any of the parking spots along Reiter Road. This pass can be purchased at the General Store in Index, along with many outdoor gear stores throughout Washington, such as REI, Big 5 Sporting Goods, etc. The Discover Pass costs $35 for the year and must be displayed while parked. Click here for more info: https://www.discoverpass.wa.gov/133/Where-to-Buy