The granite of Little Cottonwood Canyon, of Salt Lake City of Utah.
Little Cottonwood Canyon has a large variety of climbing to do on the wild cracks and knobby slabs of this area. There is bouldering in the bushed down below but very cold in the shade right now. A couple of French Canadians found the bouldering to be great in that temperature, great for them hanging out in down jackets.
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2 unknown climbers OT awesome crack that everyone has to do :
Hand Jive 5.9 45meters.
This climb is a spectacular warm-up to the climbing that you will find in the canyon. The lay backing and the jamming that is found is all bomber and exciting. The top of the climb gets easier with some wild exposed moves.
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Stewart at the top of the Hand Jive Crack 5.9
The views of Salt Lake City can be seen in the background. That is how close to town that we are actually climbing at. The sun is shinning and the rock is warm. The decent off this climb can be done with one rope, two raps down another set of chains. There is a bolted line to the right of Hand Jive and this runs you at a 5.11d sport route on the slab, yuck. |
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Unknown climbers on Cresent Crack 5.7 4pitch
We decided to climb crescent crack next after there was still a party on Mexican Crack. Stewart took the lead first up the crack and into the chimney. The climbing was so fun through the chimney with the perfect hand crack. The party above were taking to long and so we rapped off and climbed this slabby sport climb that comes in at 5.10d.
Click the picture to see me toping out on Pitch one of the Crescent crack..
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Kelly hating the Slab 5.10d
When rapping off of the top of Crescent Crack, we looked at this slab route and thought we could give it a go, well it turned out to be very difficult and greasy, so we top roped the route with pleasure.
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Stewart grinding his way up the initial steep start of Mexican Crack 5.10a
We waited all day to be able to climb this route from all the parties getting on it. We made it our last route of the day and found the climb to be very challenging. They gave this an old school 5.9 and then upgraded to 10a, but it still climbs like a 10c. The route has technical small nuts after the initial moves. Then once at the sideways crack, the move getting into the crack is very tricky and then the crack is a sustained finger hand crack. Tri Cams worked very well in this crack. I was making the final moves to the anchor out from my last piece about 15 feet and slipped off. I was going for the pendulum swing, but luckily half way down I grabbed the large chicken head that I was standing on prior to slipping. I stopped myself in a weird and wild way, and finished off the climb for the OS, I guess. |
The Thumb, deep in LCWC
Stewart and I decided we would attempt this nine pitch 5.7 climb on the Thumb, and it would top out on top of the point of the thumb. We did our scramble that felt almost 5.7 to get up in the chimney. From reading the description, it felt as if we did the first pitch, but really had not, we found ourselves off route doing Indecent Exposure 5.12a.
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Kelly on Indecent Exposure 5.9 A0
We decided since we were off route and the crack above us seemed to be really nice looking we would try to get up it. I batmand up the fixed sling to a ledge, this whole thing can be freed at 5.12. I got a hold of the crack and found it to be very challenging due to the direction of the crack inside. I soon found myself freaking out with trying to commit to the lead and decided I would aid the rest.
Stewart found the aiding to be challenging, due to that when I started aiding was higher than what he could physically climb. I headed up the final pitch to come to a lone bolt below a flaring off width that I just didn’t have the gear to protect. I decided to retreat off the one bolt.
Click picture to see a rap off retreat of Indecent Exposure. I will come back and work this climb so I can free it.
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