Bor

Bor is one of the biggest czech bouldering crags, also called sometimes as a „small Fontainebleau”. Several hundred blocks within a 15-20 minutes walk in the crag, superb quality sandstone, mostly easy landings and a beautiful forest. The crag is located on the border of Czech Republic and Poland, but on the Czech side, a 2 hours drive from Prague to the east. The area is in the czech sandstone climbing area with a lot of nice sandstone towers to climb on. A good opportunity to try yourself if you would like to climb clean lead routes besides bouldering in Bor.

The crag is family friendly and the access is easy as the paths are wide in the forest. There are two main parking lots around the crag: the access is easier from the polish side, it’s just a 10 minutes walk to reach the first boulders. The czech-side parking is in the tiny village of Machov, from here the centre of the crag is a 30 minutes uphill walk. At least, you don’t have to deal with the warm up after this. So the polish parking is better for families because of the easier access. Although you can find more accommodation on the czech side, see later our recommendation. 

Season

The ideal climbing weather in Bor is usually at spring and autumn, when the temperature is between 10-20 degrees. The whole crag is in a shady forest, so climbing in the summer months is also possible. If the weather is warm, you can still find a lot of north orientation boulders. For the summer months we recommend to climb in Hillside sector, where the upper boulders are covered by a massive rock face at the top of the hill. The spring season starts around March, after snow melting. The summer months can be a bit warmer, around 20-25 degrees and the autumn is also perfect climbing weather with good friction.

Bor Bouldering

As we said before, bouldering in Bor is similar to Font. Mostly bigger size blocks with really good sandstone problems. The average height can be around 4-6 meters, so 2 crashpad is recommended for most of the problems. However, the landing is mostly easy with flat surface under the blocks. There are a lot of easier problems and you can find some really impressive highballs also, such as Magma (7c).

Do not feel weak if you find some boulders hard for the grade, the grading is pretty tough, as many boulders opened by the Stranik brothers. Climbing style is typical sandstone with a lot of open-hand holds, but you will enjoy your trip also if you more into crimpy style. If you are visiting Bor for the first time, it’s a reasonable thing to start in Central sector, around Boulder 10. Here you can find a lot of easier boulders to warm up, like Komunálni odpad (5a) or Ruská Ruleta (6b+). Around these blocks you can give a try on local specialities like Beach Boy (7a) mantle and Adr fitnes sit 7b+, or the really technical 7a+ slab called Temnota v hlouby duše. The TopoGuru Bor boulder guide helps you to find easily this part of Central sector, just follow the compass next to the topos.

Getting there

Public transportation is not an option to Bor, so car trip is the best to get there. If you are coming from east or south direction (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary), the polish parking is closer with 40 minutes driving. From the north and west it is better to choose the czech parking in Machov. The closest airport is Prague within a 2 hours drive.

Where to stay

The region is a big touristic destination also, so lots of accomodations are available on the known websites like Airbnb and booking.com. Our favourite is Penzion Montana, which is a bit more far from the czech parking (30 minutes by car), but the house and the location absolutely worth to drive there. It is a typical climber accomodation owned by a local climber. The house runs as a shared house with several nice fully equipped apartments and a beautiful garden around. The best extra is the beer tap, where you can draft your own beer every evening after an exhausting climbing day. Here you will get used to the local habit „after-climbing beer” pretty fast.

Rest day

Bor is located in the heart of the Czech sandstone area, with a lot of nice sandstone towers. If you are not scared, it can be a perfect “restday” activity to climb one of the towers. Note, that the area is not bolted, so you should bring your own climbing gear. Adsprach is a famous tourist location with a lot of beautiful natural sights.