Hi there, I am going to California in October and would like to go bouldering either close to San Francisco or Redding. Does anyone have some useful info for me on climbing in the States?

You can find useful information on mountainproject.com

How close is close?

Closest to SF is probably Turtle Rock in Berkeley. Popular old school student hangout, but pretty average. Cool to check out from a historical perspective.

Castle Rock south of SF looks to have some cool sandstone boulders, and worth a visit, not sure if there are access problems though.

If you have the time get to Yosemite, Lake Tahoe or Bishop though.

Not sure about Redding, but I know a guy who comes from Eureka and he used to rave about a place called Lost Rocks on the coast near there somewhere.

Check out http://www.supertopo.com

There's too much too list. Yosemite is a must if you've never been.

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\"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you\". - Oom Nietzsche

Sorry for the late reply. Totally forgot about this post and fortunately saw it again. Ill go check those out asap. Do any of you maybe have contact details of someone there that I can tag along with or ask for advice. Even just a name and surname for a facebook invite will work.

If you don't get anywhere you can always check out one of the climbing walls (mission cliffs in SF iirc). When I was there, ahem, a number of years ago I got some details of where to go. They're really friendly stateside anyway. If you stay in Camp 4 in yosemite there's a notice board for climbers looking for partners, gear etc. I got chatting to some guys while waiting in line for a the ranger hut at the campsite to open and by the time I'd finished setting my tent up, someone had already come up to ask if I was the South African looking for a climbing partner - we ended up climbing together for the next week or two.

_________________
\"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you\". - Oom Nietzsche

If you ever end up in Colorado let me know I will go climbing with you.

It looks like there are a couple of climbing gyms in Redding and Eureka too. They are a good place to start networking, and often have noticeboards, as do the local climbing shops.

I met a few folk who worked at Vertex in Sebastopol when I was in Bishop, and they were all really friendly, but I'm afraid I've lost their contact details and I suspect they have moved on anyway.

Not sure if you are still reading this, but I managed to find a top for Moonstone Beach. Drtopo is a shadow of its former self, but some of the topos are still there

http://www.drtopo.com/submitted/

Download them while you can.