UCLA Campus Buildering

Bunche-Crunch

The UCLA campus offers excellent buildering opportunities.  Buildering being the word for the (illegal) activity of climbing urban structures. Students and researchers who are trapped in the concrete campus environment might be tempted to explore that environment in creative ways. Fortunately for climbers there is no need to look too hard to find perfect splitter cracks and neat traverses.

Bunche-Crunch!

The best crack at UCLA, and  the "supercrack" of the campus. Roger Suen discovered it and named it. And he led the firs reported ascent. The crack is located on the east side of Bunche Hall, next to and on the left side of the walkway. It is perfect hands all the way, about three stories tall, and it takes 3-4 yellow camelot-sized cams (2inch) for lead protection. Belaying on top is a bit tricky. We slinged a couple of air vents. They don't all look super-solid so I recommend slinging at least two. A few long slings are needed.

Roger on Bunche-Crunch

The best news is getting down! There are tall trees on the east side. One of them branches over the roof and is perfectly forked for a rappel!
A good time to climb without attracting too much attention are Summer afternoons.




Geology-Franz Hall Bridge

Geology crack

A fun hand-sized dihedral crack between the bridge column and the Geology building. Its easy to setup a top-rope using the iron railing of the bridge. Probably the best crack to warm up to campus buildering.

Powell Enduro Traverse

Powell Library Problems

The south side of Powell library offers several great problems.

1.Endurance hand traverse: My favorite finals-blow-steam problem because it builds up a good pump and can be done without a spotter (though not recommended). It starts at the southeast corner of the backyard. A nice handcrack can be liebacked to an unlikely horizontal edge/rail that goes across the entire side of the building. Going left and traversing the east face, there are no footholds so it is a nice endurance training. Continuing around the corner there is a welcome break in the the chimney formed by the columns. Using opposing feet technique allows for a nice shake off. From there one can go down the "chimney", or can continue on to the end of the south side. Heel-hooking is also possible though I avoid it when going alone, fearing a bad fall. The edge can be a bit dusty.

Pedro climbing

2.Various problems up the different size chimneys formed between columns. Particularly interesting is the full-body chimney, that will challenge your core strength and flexibility to the extreme!

3.The Jump. This is a rather scary "parkour" problem. Make sure you got a good spotter.

Oliver spotting

4.West wing corner crack. One of the "last great problems" at the UCLA campus. Its a perfect 3" crack (blue camalot) that goes up three stories. It is not clear what would be the best way to terminate the pitch and belay the second. One possibility is a window on the left. I was planning to climb it for a while and checked the window from the inside to make sure it can be opened. It can! Another possibility is to climb to the roof. There is uncertainty on how would one come down from there. Powell Library is high profile building and UCLA campus police are known for being quick with the tasers!




Ackerman Union Offwidth

I recommend the second floor terrace on the east side (facing Kerchoff). The offwidth flairs a bit. One must be careful not to leave black marks on the white wall.

Rosenfeld Library Offwidth

A visionary problem of the future. Rosenfeld library is my favorite building on the UCLA campus. Not for buildering, for hanging out. On the outside stairway that goes down to Anderson school of management, there is a little terrace. The north side of the terrace is a "no right angle" tower split by a crack. An extravagant architectural choice that pleases climber's eye with its aesthetics! The crack starts kind of high so some sort of human pyramid will be needed to reach it! Protection will be tricky as the walls of the crack are not parallel and flair in.


Medical building Parking structure

The outside of the parking structure facing Gayley Avenue. Another good looking wide crack problem.

Physics and Astronomy building

There are some chimneys and mantel problems.

Fowler Museum

Some good chimneys.

COOP training wall

Adrian at the COOP

Last but not least! The Coop underground parking structure harbors cool tidbit of UCLA climbing history! The carved wooden "crack machine" is a masterpiece build back in the day! I used to keep my bike down there and had a quite of few memorable training sessions. There were two chock graffiti that said:

"Real climbing starts from the ground"

and

"It was Mike"

Mike who? I never found out...If you have information please share!    

About the History

I made some bold statements here about first ascents and unclimbed problems based on my limited knowledge. If you know of unreported ascents please comment here or email me!

Pedro: no buildering session is compete without unicycling