A great example of some “roadside cragging”, as they say. You park, hike a short distance and get your climb on!

We got to the parking lot super early and got the rock-star parking space next to the trail. An hour later, the entire area was swarming with fair-weather bicyclists, walkers, joggers… you name it. By then, we were up on the rocks…

The first climb was this neat little two-short-pitch thing. Chilly in the shade, and it led out onto the most dome-like part of the rock. There was this one, long 45 degree sloping crack, on a near vertical face… you could just get enough edge or your shoe in it to caaaaaarefully walk up along the crack. Almost all of the climbing was just sort of trying to “palm” the general features of the rock.

Later, we moved to the left to this sketchy, run-out (long distances of climbing for Mike before he could set gear for protection) monster blocks thing.

Anecdote: A father-son duo that we were talking with, bailed off some gear. (Meaning they gave up on a climb, rappelled and left their gear on the rocks.) So Mike spent about 45 minutes doing this insane down-climb, on slimy wet rocks, just to then wriggle out under this huge roof to pick up some “booty”. (Slang for free gear you find left behind by others.) o_O

Views from the top, looking back down to the road. I think the scariest part of the day was when we walked out, and had to watch the NON-climbers… in sneakers with no gear, dragging their girlfriends up the big blob of rock in the second photo (below). I seriously thought they were going to fall. We hussled up and left because we didn’t want to see it.

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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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