KAYA Climber Stories
Meet the Author: Brendan Baars
The Nooks Bouldering Guidebook
KAYA: Tell us a bit about your personal history with climbing and how you got started.
Brendan Baars: I was born, raised, and still live in Grand Rapids, Michigan—one of the few states where climbers must travel hours to climb at any crag worth mentioning. 11 years ago, a good friend took me to the climbing gym and I was hooked instantly. At the time, I was a collegiate long-distance runner and after going to the climbing gym once, I immediately knew that climbing was what I wanted to do. I quit running and fell head over heels in all things climbing. I sought the best climbers and resources that Grand Rapids could provide. I started working as a front desk staff and then progressed into setting at the local gym, Inside Moves, one of the oldest facilities in America. I started traveling to climb, dabbling in sport and bouldering but ultimately my love for bouldering took over almost immediately.
KAYA: How did you discover The Nooks?
Brendan Baars: The Nooks came into the picture about six years into my climbing life. I was one of the three friends that discovered the Nooks. Our quest started with a video called ‘Project Crownland’, featuring Gus Alexandropoulous showing off a crag in Northern Ontario. I was captivated by the drone shots of this mammoth cliff and talus fields. Researching it, we found that it was well within driving distance for Michigan climbers. After visiting the crag and meeting Gus, I immediately became addicted to searching for boulders in the surrounding area and so our search began.
We started traveling mid-winter to hike with snowshoes north of Elliot Lake, Ontario in search of boulders. After striking out multiple times, we discovered a stretch of road about 10 miles long that had boulders along the entire ridge. Obviously, we didn’t know the entire stretch had boulders at the time, but we had found enough to travel up during the spring and fall to have some fun on the blocs we had found. It started off just being something fun to do that was a shorter driving distance than traveling all the way down south to Chattanooga. There was only a hope and dream of finding and developing an actual area. But that soon changed with my obsession with reviewing satellite and topographic maps.
The more I looked at home, the more hiking we did in the woods. It was evident after a year spent searching that we had found something significant in a place that no one was looking. My obsession with it drove the development further and further until it came to a point where a small guidebook was warranted. Taking a risk, I spent a whole winter and plenty of my own money to print and distribute The Nooks Bouldering Guidebook. I spent my spare time making connections with the local Ontario community and grew the Nooks from the ground up with word of mouth.
KAYA: Why did you want to write The Nooks guidebook with KAYA?
Brendan Baars: I wrote the original Nooks guidebook in hopes of making it a legitimate place for people to climb. With a physical guidebook, it kind of cements itself as a worthy place, and getting it into gyms across Canada did the same thing. Originally, I had thrown it on Mountain Project but soon got sick of the slow process and vast amount of information I had to put out. It honestly became a mess of information to get through. I also knew that the physical guidebook was soon to be overshadowed by continued development. That’s where KAYA came into the picture. As I wasn’t ready to put out a new book every year, I wanted the information for the newest boulders to have a home for people to find and enjoy and KAYA is the future of guidebooks. With KAYA I can offer the best and quickest information for new development and give people an easy way to access it.
KAYA: What was your favorite part of the process?
Brendan Baars: My favorite part of creating the online guidebook through KAYA was the ease of use of importing all the information. KAYA makes it simple from the general information to the photos and maps features. Being able to zoom into an area and see both the trails and boulders is an incredible feature that makes getting lost a thing of the past. I now have the ability to develop some boulders that would take up a vast amount of room in a physical guidebook just because I would have to describe where to park, where to go, etc. And people would probably still get lost. With KAYA this is all solved with a simple parking symbol and a trail to follow.
KAYA: What’s your favorite problem in the area?
Brendan Baars: My favorite problem at the Nooks is impossible to answer. However, because of nostalgic reasons, I’ll answer this with the problem that started it all — The Colour of Time V9. It was during year one of development and we had found a small group of boulders not very far from the road. We quickly got disappointed at not having more boulders in the area and took a walk through the woods.
We stumbled into the area that the Nooks is famous for, Gold Mine. It's named after the depressing walk we took to find more boulders. I had just stated to my friend, “I just wish we could find the Gold Mine of rock climbing”. Boy, did my wish come true! Boulders upon boulders continued as we walked through a maze until one boulder stopped me in my tracks. I stood under a huge 60-degree overhang with two distinct perfect lines. I started off with the easier of the two lines because it was the last day of our trip. But after doing it, I couldn’t leave the harder line behind. Working out the moves, I dug deep into my tired body and got it done. It has become the iconic testpiece of the Nooks.
KAYA: What do you hope to give to the community with this guide?
Brendan Baars: My hope for this guidebook is to continue growing and giving back. The Nooks has taken off and is a mainstay in the Ontario region. I find joy in giving back in the way of development. If I can do this hard work, I get personal joy as well as give back to a sport that has given me so much. With KAYA, I can continue the growth of the Nooks and make it available to anyone who has the KAYA app. I love development and having the ability to update the app whenever I want is so cool.
KAYA: It sounds like things are pretty adventurous out there at times. Do you have any harrowing tales from developing boulders?
Brendan Baars: I was once stung in the eyelid by a savage ground wasp while doing nothing but sitting on top of a boulder. It would not let go so I had to pull it off with my hands while developing the Nooks. I’m partially allergic. One side of my face swelled up for more than a week and closed my eye. I now have a very big fear of wasps. I also was walking on a wet log, slipped off, and impaled my leg on a stick. Along with countless other injuries, the moral of the story is, developing isn’t the safest activity.
KAYA: Is there anything else you want to share with us?
Brendan Baars: I love what I do. For years I fantasized about finding 5-star lines of my own. For that to become a reality for someone who lives in a state like Michigan is TRULY a dream come true.
The Nooks is truly special. It’s a cross-border collaboration between two countries. It brings climbing communities together that otherwise would be separated by a border.
I feel truly blessed by this experience and besides my wonderful wife and family, the Nooks is what has shaped me the most in life and climbing experiences. I have taken this as my personal ‘legacy’ quest and want to see it finished. And by finished…It won’t ever be finished. I’ll be long gone before the last bloc gets climbed, but getting to share the area with newer climbers is something I think of a lot. Unlike experienced climbers, who have their favorite crags already and rarely visit new places, the newer climbers are falling in love with the Nooks and making it one of their favorites. It is both interesting and motivating that the next generation can learn from this and continue the development process.
Nowadays, the Nooks is a mainstream name for all of Ontario. Considered one of the top bouldering destinations in the entire region and is visited by climbers from both the United States and Canada. Today, it blows my mind to think of the vast amount of people and time that was spent to make this crag a reality. I may be the driving force behind the success, but it was not possible without the work of countless people. Hearing that people are traveling from 8+ hours away is something only my wildest dreams could ever imagine, and we are just getting started.
We hope you enjoyed this insight into The Nooks bouldering history. Below you’ll find the top five popular problems on KAYA!
1. Nighthawk V5, Upper Gold Mine
2. Knife Fight V5, Lower Gold Mine
3. Put Me In Coach V4, Lower Gold Mine
4. State of the Art V6, Lower Gold Mine
5. Breezeblocks V1, Lower Gold Mine
https://kaya-app.kayaclimb.com/climb/Breezeblocks-v1-The-Nooks-8182661
