Boulder is a pretty interesting name for a city, don’t you think? Both a pronoun and a noun gives it a fairly unique affect. I was thinking about the reasoning behind of the name of the city, deducing (incorrectly) that it must have been named for some of the world class bouldering found around the Flatirons and in the surrounding area. But after some digging, I discovered that it was thought to be named after Boulder Creek, the thirty-mile creek flowing through downtown and outwards from the Rocky Mountains.

There is no real consensus on this matter however, and very little information on the origins of the name, however most assume that when the city was first established it was named after the already then named Boulder Creek, for its many boulders lying above the water, and the overall rocky geology of the place itself. Much of the rock is granite, the oldest thought to be from the Precambrian age (over 1.7 billion years ago), which was measured by the radioactive decay of elements residing in the rock. Granite makes up the walls of the Boulder Canyon as well as the crest and west side of the Flagstaff mountains. Some of the most famous climbing walls are made of granite, including Half Dome and El Capitan at Yosemite Valley.

The amount of boulders to climb in Boulder, Co makes it a world-class and extremely popular place for boulderers. There are over 4,000 routes (including rope climbing), so it is a place you can spend months working on projects, or days just trying new things. Boulder is upfront about its attributes, and calls far and wide for some of the world’s most daring adventurers.

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