Big Cottonwood Canyon
Hit some SLC rock with Eric on our first afternoon in Utah. After an all-too-big lunch at the hotel, we headed south to Big Cottonwood Canyon to find some relatively easy sport routes.
We first pulled over at the Salt Lake Slips, about 2.5 miles up the canyon. Easy approach from the pullout, just down the trail, across a small stream, and up maybe another 50 yards of trail. Lots of hard quartzite with small square edges provided comfortable but technical slabby climbing. We hit up a nice 5.6 up a left facing arete (Italian Arete) as well as a pure slab climb on the right (Roll the Bones, 5.6). Being relatively easy, the bolts were airily spaced, including a first bolt a good 20 feet off the deck on a rocky, sloping landing. Clean climbing, though, with a beautiful view of the steep slopes of the canyon once you reached the chains. Eric did excellent on his first outdoor lead, smooth and controlled the whole way.
We skipped the other slab routes on the face to head back downcanyon to the Dogwood Crag. Very polished, slick rock at the bottom of the climbs gave way to more frictiony near-vertical edging up top. We found a nice (but maybe overgraded) 5.8 (On the Skids) which Eric also led. A group doing rapelling lessons provided a little excitement as well as a lesson in calling "Rope!" before chucking your damn line, but the scenery and technical climbing were worth the hassle. Some nice 9s on the face that we considered, but the fading sunlight and girlfriend-waiting-anxiously-back-at-the-hotel convinced us to head back to the Canyons and a much-appreciated dinner. Maybe next time; there's a plethora of hard routes out here too, fodder for the budding 11/12 climber...
Congratulations to Eric on his first outdoor leads! Pictures to come...
4 comments:
Awesome! Did you guys do just the first pitch of Italian Arete?
Yeah, it kinda slabs out on top of it, didn't look overly interesting and I wanted to avoid the hassles of a multipitch rappel (though there might have been a walkoff).
Man, jealous ...
Seems like climbing in the middle of the week allowed you guys to get on some routes that otherwise would have been crowded. Many other climbers out there?
There were a smattering, including one dude who recognized our Rock Club passes (embarrassingly still on our harnesses) - he used to work at The Cliffs in Valhalla. There were a few groups at each crag, but not such that every route was taken.
Might try to sneak out for a climb or too Sat afternoon after my talk...
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