> Will's Climbing Page > Crags > Red Rocks

Red Rocks

The Word: A huge sandstone crag.
Sun/shade: The main escarpment gets shade from late morning, but with all the gullies you can find either at any time.
Season(s): Way too hot in summer. Occasional snow in winter will sometimes limit your options.
Wet weather options: None, the sandstone weakens and holds will snap off.
Style of Climbs: Single pitch sport and multipitch trad.
Grades: All

The Details: Well for starters, this is home to the all-time favourite route of (wait for it) none other than Lynn Hill (Levitation 29 if you're wondering). Not a bad endorsement. From what I saw in a day and a half, this place is totally incredible.

The rock:

Access:

Sandstone Quarry

A nice convenient area to get in plenty of climbing in a short time. The obvious white boulder 100m from the carpark has some brilliant problems on it, including slopers, pockets, jugs and a textbook thin hands crack.

Mass Production Wall

An appropriate name for a rather generic sport climbing wall. But it’s worth a visit. On these first two routes, clip the first bolt short as it’s placed too low to prevent a grounder when clipping the 2nd bolt.

* Parts is Parts 14m 5.8/16 (OS)
A nice enough warm up. Watch out for several loose surface flakes. The crux is stepping up R past the first bolt, can’t remember much about the rest.

* Battery Powered 16m 5.9/18 (OS)
Another low first bolt, and again the crux is moving past it. Either high-step and reach all the way to the flake, or balance up on several small footholds just to the R. Up the flake to the bulge, clip the second bolt off a jug just above it, rather than the slopey break just below it. Continue up the thin wall above, then the final section goes on nice slopers.

Nic on Battery Powered (5.9/18) Nic looking natural

** Trigger Happy 20m 5.10a/20 (OS)
With a route description including "a varnish patch shaped like Australia", I couldn’t resist doing this one. Unfortunately the guidebook editor’s geography is rather lacking, it looks much more like the lower 48 states of the US (without Florida)! Also, the first 2 bolts should be about 2 feet closer to the West Coast to more accurately represent where you’re meant to climb! If you go straight up the seam above the 2nd FH (where the Rockies would be) it’s at least 5.10d/22. Anyway, the first 8m is just a scramble up to the ramp/ledge and the first bolt. Then some nice vertical face moves lead to the varnish patch and 2nd FH. Move L after clipping it and use the West Coast to oppose poor sidepulls near the Rockies, nice steep swinging moves on this bit until you score some nice jugs on the Canadian border. Head for the Alaska/Canada border on the nice steep headwall, it’s easier than it looks, but nice and airy.

* Hit and Run 18m 5.9/18 (OS)
6 bolts, not 5. Nice sustained climbing. The crux is past the first bolt and requires good footwork on poor footholds. It’s probably getting harder as the footholds wear away. But it’s a lovely intricate problem to solve, keep your eyes open for holds where you least expect! At the 2nd bolt move slightly L to the start of the seam, which you use for your L hand for much of the remainder of the climb, with faceholds on the steep R face.

Nic on Hit and Run (5.9/18) Nic resting

Pine Creek Canyon

One of the shortest walk-in areas of the main escarpment. I do not recommend trying to get from Dark Shadows Wall to Straight Shooter Wall by staying up near the base of the cliff, it involves a lot of bush bashing and boulder hopping and is longer than it appears due to a few gullies to be traversed. It would be much better to walk back down the main gully then slog straight up to SSW, despite the extra uphill walking involved.

Straight Shooter Wall

After doing SS, it would be sensible to take the opportunity to toprope the .11a just to the R off the same anchors. But of course, I didn’t think of this at the time!

** Straight Shooter 16m 5.9+/19 (OS)
A superb little section of textbook tips fingerlocks up a "desert varnish" wall. Some surprisingly tricky fingerlock and handjam moves down low can be well protected with wires and a #1.5Fr, to gain the obvious #3Fr slot. (I used a perfect #2 camalot slightly lower to keep the slot free for footjams). Good rest with feet in the pod. From here a few wires can be placed, and then step up to place a small cam (blue metolius is perfect) in the perfect parallel fingertips splitter at half height (make it good cause you don’t want to stop for the next few metres!). Work fingerlocks up the lower half of the splitter using several slight footholds on the face, then when the feet run out, (crux) stab a sliver of your toes in the crack and crank off classic parallel tips fingerlocks to some higher constricting fingerlocks, smear up on varnish and pull through some slightly better holds until you get your feet up into the first opening, by now a few metres above your gear!! Awesome!!! Sinker med-large wires are available as soon as you are able to stop! Continue up the rest of the crack with good wires and enough faceholds to keep you happy. Take a sling for the DFH anchor, what’s there is pretty old and crusty. This is a classic fingers exercise, but just a little short to earn the third star from me.

Dark Shadows Wall

Haven’t actually climbed here, but after the energy investment I thought I’d make an entry. As usual the "30min hike" given in the guidebook might be accurate for fitness fanatics, but for semi-hungover and soft weekend warriors like me it’s more like 40mins. On the Monday we were there, Dark Shadows had 5 parties already on it, I hate to think what it’s like on weekends. There’s really no opportunity to pass slower parties but at least the rap route doesn’t interfere with climbers, except slightly at the 2nd belay. Best way to rap is by doing a full 60m rap from the 4th belay to the 2nd belay (staying R of P3&4), then a 50m-ish rap to the deck (staying L of P1&2). You’ll need to be clever to avoid your ropes getting wet in the creek. If everyone is moving efficiently it’s worth waiting in queue provided you get started with at least 3 hours of daylight left (2hrs climbing, 30mins rap, 30mins walk-out). However, if like us you get stuck behind some slow parties (who take 2.5hours to even finish P1!), then the "epic potential" is probably pretty high. You can rap off after any pitch, but that’s never very satisfying. So we decided to bugger off and do something else instead.

And here's a pic of the first gorge at the far R end of the main escarpment. There's some one pitch routes on the small walls halfway along on the left.

And this is Rainbow Wall, the sheer wall at the back - about 10 pitches high from memory. There's a mega classic 5.9 (Crimson Chrysalis, 9 pitches) up the steep whiteish buttress just left of centre.

And yes, there is even some short stuff for the time-poor like me.

More Internet Sites on Red Rocks

Supertopo.com A great resource for everything you need to know.

Guillaume Dargaud's Site First hand info from a Red Rocks regular.

Gary Clark's "American Classics" A great collection of classics. A good starting point for your US tick list!

Somewhere Out There Craig Foster's site. A nice Red Rocks geology section, but not much else.

TheCrag.com As always. Record your Red Rocks ticks here, and see what everyone else is climbing.