We climbed Red Garden Wall, in Eldorado canyon as a sort of victory lap after we returned from Lumpy Ridge / Estes Park.

The deep notch, in the closest ridge, is the entrance to Eldorado Canyon. Just inside the entrance to the canyon is the tiny town of Eldorado Springs, and a short drive further takes you into the state park.

The approach is a hike up into one of the side ravInes…

At the base of the wall, you make a short access climb up a notch that finishes as a short chimney. There were two climbers in front of us, so there are a couple shots of another climber going before us…

From there we walked along an interior sort of cleft — with the wall on both sides of you. There were climbable routes all over once you ascended the access climb. We picked a 2 pitch route that had a huge variety of rock and features. Crumbly parts where everything was loose, smooth almost slab areas, and huge angular blocks near the top. Pine trees right in the climbing lines, wild flowers, moss. This climb had everything, including a really old — not dead yet! — gnarly tree as a belay-station anchor…

 

At the summit, we were atop a tremendous tower! The views to the east showed Boulder and Denver just visible. And there was some debate about how exactly we were to get off this thing…

Eventually we figured out the exit; A short rappel, a walk down around the tower to the other side, and then a spectacular rappel out of this enormous notch…

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