Alpinfox

Climb: City of Rocks Idaho ~50 pitches in 9 days Date of Climb: 6/19/2006 Trip Report: Short version: My girlfriend and I spent 9 days climbing ~50 routes at City of Rocks. It was fun. That’s it. Long version: City of Rocks (COR) is a collection of granite domes, spires, and other craglettes hidden away in the cattle and potato-farming country of south central Idaho. It is "one of the premier granite sport climbing destination in North America", but also has some fantastic cracks. The rock is unusually featured for granite with lots of patina flakes, horns, and chickenheads which make for some fantastic face climbing and surprisingly easy climbing on steep faces. There are also huecos, arches, and other rock architectural forms not usually associated with granite. Supposedly this is because COR is some of the older exposed granite on the planet and has therefore had lots of time to erode into these fantastic shapes. Huecos and Arches: Lost Arrow Spire: Overall, COR reminds me of Joshua Tree in it’s general layout (lots of small, scattered domes), desert setting, coloring, etc. Classic City of Rocks Overview: The two differ in that COR is more featured and the rock is not as abrasive. Another thing that differentiates the two places is that I think COR has more high quality routes in the easy range (5.8 and less) than JT, making it a more fun destination for beginner climbers. My girlfriend had a two week break from school, so we decided to go on a road trip. She has wanted to go to City of Rocks for years, so that was definitely on the list. I had been there twice previously, but always in route to somewhere else (Tetons, Indian Creek), so I was looking forward to spending some more time there. I also really wanted to check out the Sawtooths (specifically the Finger of Fate), and we also considered visiting the Tetons and Devil’s Tower, but COR was so much fun that after a few days there, and learning that the FOF access road is a bit rough for a Subaru, we decided to stay put. We had a fantastic time. The climbing is low-key, fun, varied, scenic… it’s just a great place for cragging. The highlight of the trip for me was watching my girlfriend lead a few trad routes. She took a ground fall a few years ago, badly injuring her back, so needless to say, she has some hesitations about being on the sharp end. After following me up dozens of trad, sport, and alpine routes in the last few years, she has gained a lot of self-confidence and skill, and felt ready to try out leading again. Her first couple leads of the trip were on bolted climbs, but she eventually donned the gear and sent a few 5.6/5.7 trad routes in good style. My favorite climbs: “Skyline” – This awesome 5.8 crack goes right to the very top of Morning Glory Spire. Since most COR climbs top out on rounded domes from which it is hard to see your second, and the climbing generally eases at the top, this climb is exceptional in that it goes to a pointy summit. Another great thing about climbing Skyline is that from the top of the spire, you can top rope my favorite route of the trip: “Crack of Doom” – This crack is incredible. It was first ascended in the 1960s by Jeff Lowe. I assume he was wearing EBs? 11c in EBs? Wow. This climb has a difficult face climbing start (I couldn’t get it in three tries) that leads to a thin tips crack with some face edges for feet out to the right. A few tenuous moves leads to great finger locks, then glorious-glorious hands, then a bit of fists, then back to OMG AWESOME hands. If this climb just started off the deck with the tips crack, it would be 10+ and would have people lined up on it all day. The difficult start keeps the riff-raff off. “Intruding Dike” – This is a superfun 5.7 splitter crack with lots of edges and horns and stuff for face holds. Usually routes of this difficulty aren’t very aesthetic, but ID is a classic. Highly recommended. This was my GF’s proudest lead of the trip. Below is a list of all the climbs we did: 6-19-06 Carol’s Crack, 5.9, finger crack Flesh for Fantasy, 5.11a (VERY SOFT!), TR, face Unnamed 10a face climb right of Carol’s Crack. 6-20-06 Wheat Thin, 5.7, flake Come All Ye Bumblies, 5.7, TR Rye Crisp, 5.8 flake requiring #4 camalots for pro Columbian Crack, 5.7, “one of the all-time classics”. It was pretty cool. Chimney start, finger crack, hands, OW. 55m. First Lead, 5.6 crack. Hoping the GF would lead this one after TRing it. Kinda funky to protect, so she declined. A couple other TRs on Practice Rock. Right across from our campsite, so why not? 6-21-06 Too Much Fun, 5.8, face. Very steep climbing on big flakes. Difficult start. Tumblie Takes a Tumblie, 11a, face. Didn’t quite get the onsight due to a long reach I didn’t see at first. New York is Not The City, 10a, face. I liked this one. Raindance, 5.7, face/slab. My GF’s first lead of the trip! Tribal Boundaries, 10a, face, TR. This one felt harder than I remember it from my last trip to the City. Reservations, 10a, face, TR. Just right of TB. Felt harder than TB. 10a?? Really? 6-22-06 We went to “Castle Rock Valley” this day. CRV is a separate collection of crags about 3 miles NW of the town of Almo (which in turn is about 6 miles ENE of COR). This area used to be privately owned, but was recently rescued from development by the Access Fund. It is a fantastic collection of high quality crags with the longest climbs (4 pitches) in the greater COR/CRV area. There is a $4 parking fee for this area. Two 5.8ish cracks in the “Crackhouse” area of Castle Rock. Cool area with lots of densely packed parallel cracks. Jug-A-Lug, 10b, face. Pretty cool steep climbing on big jugs. To Have and to Hold, 5.9, face. My GF’s hardest lead of the trip. Hard layback start. To Have and To Hold: Groom with a View, face. Originally graded 11a, now supposedly downgraded to 10c. I’d agree. Opuntia, 10a face climbing on arête. GF backed off at 6th bolt due to big traverse right required. A little spicey which is totally out of character with the rest of the route. She called this route “lame”. Opuntia: 6-23-06 Batwing, 5.8 crack with a bit of unprotectable slab. Sweet route. 50m Skyline, 5.8 crack+naturally protected face. Cool route that goes to the top of Morning Glory Tower. One of our favorite routes of the trip. **** Crack of Doom, 11c, face/crack, TR. I was more interested in this route than any other at COR. It is fabulous. Very difficult/awkward face climbing for about 10 feet (I didn’t get it clean) to a tips crack with face edges for feet. Once you can sink your fingers (~15ft) its cruiser fingers to OMFG glorious hands, to OW, to glorious hands. Awesome. Crack of DOOOOOOM!: Book of Dissent, 10a (yeah right), stemming corner, TR. Strenuous. Glad I was on TR. Fall Line, 10c, face. Cool route. My GF really liked this one. Took me a while to figure out the crux. Fall Line: Easy Corner, 5.5, crack. GF’s first trad lead of the trip! "Easy Corner": Triple Roofs, 5.7, TR. Not many 5.7s overcome a 4ft roof. Tenish Anyone, 10a?, TR, not that interesting. Extremely high 1st bolt. There is a MisterE route at Smith Rocks of the same name. 6-24-06 This was supposed to be our rest day. “I just wanna do this one climb…” Adolescent Homosapien, 5.7, crack. GF’s trad lead! w00t Aspen Leaf, 5.9, gear. ~20-degree overhanging 5.9 corner? Fuck yeah. Overlooked classic. Streachmarks (sic), 5.9 finger crack, TR. Sweet but short. Tel Aviv, 12b, TR. It didn’t look hard. Total flail. Humiliating. Hough’s crack, 5.7. GF’s lead! A quality alternative to standing in line for Intruding Dike. Intruding Dike, 5.7, crack. High quality route. Estrogen Imbalance, 10d crack. I took one hang on this one. Cool, infrequently done route. I recommend it. Good pro. Life without Sex, 11a/b, face, TR. Two cruxes. 1st is height dependent, but easier than 2nd crux. 6-25-06 Needed a rest from our “rest day”. Hiked the North Fork of Circle Creek trail and checked out a bunch of crags. Got freakin’ roasted by the sun. 6-26-06 Life without Sex, 11a/b. On lead this time. Felt easy. Unnamed “5.8” intruding dike crack climb just left of LWOS. Some thoughtful pro placements in some places. I did this as a “true” onsight just for fun. No beta, just looked at it and said, “let’s do that”. I like doing that every once in a while. Felt harder than 5.8 to me, but I guess that’s just the way true onsights go. Donini’s Crack, 10c. Crux is thin hands through a roof. Does Donini have small hands? This thing felt harder than 10c to me, even on TR. I hung once on lead. Damnit. Lochness Monster, 11b, TR. Holy shit was that hard. Kicked my ass. Way harder than “Life Without Sex”. Thin Slice, 10a, finger crack. Good route. The corner to the right would make a nice climb. Can’t believe no one has cleaned it up. Looks sweet! Tow-Away Zone, 10a, face/crack. Very hard, slippery (unusual for COR) start. Just Another Pretty Face, 10c, TR. Slabby, traversey. Glad I didn’t lead it. 6-27-06 Intruding Dike, 5.7. GF led it this time. Sweet! Intruding Dike: Bloody Fingers, 10a, thin crack. One of the classics that is getting slippery and gunked due to too much traffic. New Toy, 10?, TR. Face to the right of BF. Prickly Pear Flower: Butterfly: Random Beta: Water – There is water available within COR at Bath Rock and at the Breadloaves. There were some rumors of E. Coli contamination of the Breadloaves water. I don’t know the true story. In any case, the water at Bath Rock is nasty, so try to avoid having to drink it. You can fill up jugs/bottles etc at Tracy’s General Store in Almo for free. Recommended. Camping – $7.40/night for up to two cars and eight people. You can call ahead ($6 fee) and get a reserved site for up to two weeks. Since ~70% of the sites are reservable, (only ~30% are first come, first served!!) this might be advisable. There will not be any sites available on weekends unless you reserve them. There are some extremely nice campsites in the COR and there are some shitty ones. Look around. The campground management is as mellow as I have seen anywhere (no grey-haired Nazis in golf carts coming around at 5AM). Driving – On our way to and from COR, we stopped at Dierke’s Lake (right next to Shoeshone Falls) just outside of Twin Falls, ID. For a $3 fee, we were able to go swimming in a columnar basalt rimmed lake that was very refreshing in the 90-100 degree temperatures. You could even jump off the cliffs into the lake. Dierke's Lake: There was some chossy looking climbing (some with bolts) on the far side of the lake, but we didn’t try anything. Fiery Orb In The Sky - COR gets hot. I’m guessing it was at least in the mid 90s every day we were there. Fortunately the layout of the place (lots of small crags) allows for pretty easy shade chasing. Climb west-facing stuff in the AM and east-facing stuff in the PM. If you have one, bringing some kind of tarp or sunshade thing would be a good idea if you could keep the wind from destroying it. The sun can drive you crazy and you might end up doing stuff like this: Gear Notes: COR cracks take nuts well. Lots of horns to sling for protecting non-bolted or runout faces. Newer routes are "modern bolted" (aka overbolted) while some of the older routes can be run out. Some routes require building gear anchors and walking off, some have convenient rap anchors with chains. There is a little bit of everything at COR. Approach Notes: ~740 miles from Seattle 12 hours of driving that goes like this: cow... cow... cow... potatoes... cow... cow... cow... potatoes... cow... horse... GRANITE!

In my experience it is very difficult to do the length adjustment thing while you are hanging on the rope. A better way (if possible) is to get your weight off the rope temporarily and do the adjustment, then continue rappelling. You can either do this by getting a good stance on the wall (a bit sketchy), or by clipping into a piece of gear/bolt momentarily while you make the adjustment. Marking the middle of your rope (and re-marking it when necessary) is a great way to avoid this situation as well as save a lot of time on every rappel.

Damn, Fern is rockin' the 11s now.

and a waterskiing squirrel!! LOOK AT THAT LITTLE GUY GO!!!

Nice Fern! Glad to have you back in the PNW though.

YEAH!

I wouldn't say that...

OK, I'm going to Finn McCool's. 4217 University Way Seattle, WA 98105 Game starts at noon. Maybe see someayous there.

Yeah, I watched the Enland vs. Trinidad/Tobago game there. A little too crowded for my taste, but maybe it won't be so crowded for a non-English game?

Anyone know of sports bars that are showing the game?

Nice job guys. Looks like a beaut. Is this your coolest rock FA Dru?

yes. yes. why?

OMG!!! Done and done! Is there any way we could get this image set as the background for cc.com?

So there I was, eating my lunch in the mostly deserted Rotunda, reading through the relationship advice column of the UW Daily Newspaper like I always do, when I happened to come across this: OMG!!! I especially liked the hero pose: Oh, and Gary... here is a little factoid for you: "Snowblindness: A burn of the cornea (the clear front surface of the eye) by ultraviolet B rays (UVB). Also called radiation keratitis or photokeratitis."

Yes. Double F.

You is teh suchk

If you can get them to leave again, you could shoot some spray foam (available in spraypaint-size cans at any hardware store) in there and fill the hole, thereby preventing their return.... or you could fill the hole with them in there, but some might consider that a little cruel. Alternatively, you could set up a bee box under the eave right below their current nest and take up a new hobby. MMMmmm.... Apiary=Honey.... Fun for the whole family!

Holy crap!

"Dropping Coils" would have been a better name for this route. p.s. Should have told the cops you were trying to lasso a sailboat mast and go for a little waterski session.

Safe for work video link

Sounds great! What kind of car did you have? How bad was the road? Did you drive to the end? I was in COR from June 17-27 and we wanted to go to the FOF but heard the road was too rough for a Subaru wagon. What did you climb at the City?

Shit. Not the best news to come back to after a 10 day climbing trip. I wish you well Kurt and look forward to tipping back a pint with you again sometime soon.

Heading out tomorrow. COR is first planned stop. I plan to try to check in with this thread occasionally while we are out there, so if anyone has updates on Winds/E. Perch conditions, or more beta, I'd appreciate it if you'd post it here or send me a PM. Cheers! p.s. Judging by the amount of snow in this picture: I'm hopeful we'll be able to get into the sawtooths.

I think you better notter post those pix Gary.