It’s the hangout. Despite signs prohibiting it, teenagers always climb the rocks at a lime quarry on Fenby Farm in Westminster.

Instead of telling the youth to scram, city officials installed eight climbing boulders at the quarry this month to provide a safer alternative for thrill-seekers.

The lime quarry is the perfect place for the gritty-to-the-touch cliff boulders, the first of their kind in Carroll County, said Ronald Schroers, Westminster’s recreation and parks director.

Playground Specialists Inc., which constructed the boulders, described the quarry as the most scenic setting it had ever worked with, so the Emmitsburg company took a picture for its catalog.

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The man-made rocks include little, easy-to-grab ridges, and the boulders range in size to accommodate daredevils of all ages.

“We bordered it with natural mulch and 9 inches of wooded carpet” for softer landings, Schroers said.

In their first couple of weeks, the rocks have been heavily used.

“The feedback has been incredible,” he said.

The state Board of Public Works approved $45,000 in Program Open Space funds for the boulders, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced last week.

Schroers recently met with Ben Brown, a 14-year-old Boy Scout from Westminster who plans to install a memorial bench at the quarry as part of his Eagle project in honor of Charlie Deigel, a friend and climbing enthusiast who died in a car crash at age 17.

Charlie “did enjoy [climbing] but I never got the chance to go with him,” Brown wrote in an e-mail to The Examiner.

“I am putting in one bench, possibly two plaques commemorated to Charlie, and a tree or two.”

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com