RECREATION : FINISHING SCHOOL : Stoney Point in Chatsworth Provides Climbers Who Want a Piece of the Rock With an Accessible Daytime Training Ground for Advanced Maneuvers and Artistic Expression

It’s nearly sunset at Stoney Point, a boulder-strewA. city park in northern Chatsworth that’s popular with rock climbers and rock heads. In the last few minutes of daylight, before the rock heads slink in and begin another evening of hard drinking and environmental destruction, a handful of rock climbers get in a few more ascents on a massive sandstone boulder named Turlock.

One of the climbers is Mike Rubin, a Tarzana chiropractor who calls himself “the Rock Doc.” Rubin is attempting a tricky maneuver on what’s known as the “flake,” a wide lip about halfway up the rock. As he edges his Boreal Fire sneakers onto a thin shelf, he loses his grip and utters the dreaded O word:

“ Oooooops ,” he says as he begins to fall.

Fortunately, the Rock Doc has three things going for him: 1) he’s insured; 2) Rachel Weil is holding the other end of the rope he’s attached to, and 3) he’s only five feet off the ground.

Rubin is just discovering rock climbing, a sport that takes itself seriously as an art. A rock climber will tell you that most other forms of climbing are to rock climbing what street fighting is to tai chi. Rock climbers talk of “solving problems” and “elegant solutions” and making the climb look effortless, as though they were walking on level ground instead of defying gravity on a vertical wall.

Rock climbers go off on the weekends to idyllic climbing sites in the Sierra, far away from city life. But during the week they come to Chatsworth to practice at the Eton of rock climbing. Stoney Point is considered one of the world’s best places to work out, a gym for climbers, because it offers a variety of challenges, most only a few feet above the ground.

But even its otherworldly appearance--boulders piled on top of boulders--isn’t enough to make climbers forget they’re in the city. Aside from heavy traffic on Topanga Canyon Boulevard and trails littered with wine cooler bottles, there is graffiti on even the most inaccessible rocks, which raises the question: Do they teach climbing at graffiti school?

“This is not what rock climbing is all about,” says Weil, a climbing instructor who lives in Northridge, as she gazes at the splattered rock walls that look like freeway underpasses. “But this is where we go to meet friends and train and get a pump.”

Rubin is pretty pumped up after being lowered to earth by Weil. He gets right back on Turlock and starts toward the top, which is about 15 feet above him. “If you get stuck and want advice, let me know,” Weil tells him. “If not, you’re on your own.” Rubin tiptoes unsteadily. “Try not to get your legs spread out,” she says. “Trust your right foot.”

Straining and looking a little ungainly, Rubin manages to pull himself up on the flake and then scrambles triumphantly to the top. “Air’s a little thin up here,” he says with a smile. Weil then retraces his route, without the aid of a rope, and walks up easily, her form perfect. “She’s ballet on the rock,” says Rubin, who is trading out chiropractic adjustments for climbing lessons.

While Weil works with Rubin, a couple of experienced climbers are not only walking up Turlock but also around it. Jan McCollum, Weil’s boyfriend, is practicing his traversing technique. A climber for 16 years, McCollum has done a lot of big climbs in the Sierra, something he was able to do only because he learned all the right moves on Turlock.

“I’ve been on this rock thousands of times,” says McCollum, who wears blue slipper-like climbing shoes. “But the only way you can boulder the same place all the time is to make a game out of it. If everyone else goes left to right, you go right to left. Or you make a route harder by taking a hold off of it.”

The other veteran on Turlock, Steve Root, is a Kentuckian who moved to Chatsworth last year to be near Stoney Point. “I love this place,” says Root, who wants to be a climbing guide. “It’s tremendous to train here because you can train year-round. The locals kind of put it down--sandstone is not the best rock--but everyone is glad it’s here.”

A soft twilight descends on Stoney Point. A couple of young women come down a trail from the upper reaches of the park and decide to finish their day on Turlock. Pascale Dubois and Kiki Delmas are Frenchwomen living in Pasadena. Neither climbed until they moved to this country last September.

Delmas, a free-lance photographer, takes an easy route up Turlock and attaches a carabineer to a bolt anchored on top. Then she lowers a rope to Dubois, who ties a follow-through figure-eight and straps herself into a waist harness. Dubois, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tried to do the flake the second day she ever climbed and didn’t make it. But she has practiced hard and now makes the climb look simple.

After scurrying down, she says in French-heavy English, “It eez such a great feeling to hold on to such a leeetle peez of zee rock.” Then she goes and watches Delmas do a difficult under-cling maneuver on a section of Turlock that’s beyond vertical.

It’s time to pack up and forget about crack jamming until tomorrow. Weil, 27, walks out of the park with her mother Bev, who was there to watch her climb.

“Here I don’t mind watching her because it’s low,” Mrs. Weil says. Not like Yosemite two years ago, when she couldn’t bear to watch her daughter play on the rock walls at Tuolumne Meadows. “With binoculars it was OK, but not in too close,” she says. And her basic rule for Rachel: “Don’t tell me beforehand you’re going climbing.”

Rachel laughs. “Mom actually deals very well with my rock climbing,” she says. “It’s difficult for any parent because it’s a risk sport. But the risk is calculated and relatively safe. Most accidents could have been avoided.”

Which is why rock climbers don’t linger in the park after dark. As Rachel and her mother walk to their cars, they hear a series of long, bloodcurdling howls from the top of the highest boulder. The rock heads have arrived.