4/30/2012
The Black Canyon: legendary for hard climbs and loose rock. At 2700' deep, and at times only 1000' across, there is no other canyon in North America that is so precipitous. This is the home of the biggest vertical walls in Colorado, and they seem endless. Intimidating. To quote the NPS website:
"Black Canyon is not a place for the beginning climber. Of the one hundred forty five climbs that are either found in Black Canyon Rock Climbs
or are known by the Park Service; eight are rated at 5.8, and of these
eight only four have good information available and see regular ascents.
Twenty one climbs have a rating of 5.9; five of these are aid routes
and only six of them see any significant climbing activity. The other
one hundred and seventeen climbs have ratings between 5.10 and 5.13 and
many require aid"
Ethan and I arrived at the canyon on Saturday afternoon, and began scoping out possible camp sites. One of the many cool things about this park is that the entire thing is one big cross-country camping zone. As long as you are out of sight from trails and roads, it's fair game. You just need to fill out a free backcountry use permit. In meandering along the canyon rim, we found a view that was particularly photogenic, close to a series of "sky islands": detached portions of the canyon walls, not yet sufficiently sharpened by erosion to qualify as spires. How about one of those for a campsite?
A bit of 3rd and 4th class down-climbing got us to the deep narrow notch between our proposed island camp and the canyon rim. Then half a pitch of bushy 4th and 5th followed by a hundred feet of easy scrambling got us to our spectacular camp. The only sign of previous human presence was one VERY old rappel sling in the ascent gully: grey rotting cotton of twisted (not kernmantle) construction. Probably 50 years old. On top we found well developed areas of cryptobiotic soil, which we did our best not to disturb. The views were amazing, and lonely. We were quite close to a developed viewpoint, and only one person -a lone motorcyclist- stopped there during our stay.
On Sunday, we climbed the Casual Route, 5.8. Supposedly one of the best "easy" climbs in the canyon. It only gets two stars on Mountain Project, and I think that's about what it deserves: Pitches 1 and 2 were good fun, if not overly memorable. Pitch 3 and 5 were bushy, discontinuous, and unpleasant. But pitch 4 was awesome: a beautiful, clean 5.8 finger crack leads to the base of a 5.8 chimney, which is quite secure and well protected. The chimney narrows as it climbs, so that to escape the top you have to make a solid hand jam below the roof and then just "huck your meat into the wind"* and start smearing and stemming to get up into the V-slot above. The final move over the lip stopped me cold, and I never did figure out how to do it free. I aided it. Unable to get his wrist-brace jammed into the crack, Ethan didn't have any chance of freeing it either, and resorted to prussiking up the rope. Above the chimney is a V-slot and a short steep slab that lead easily to a comfortable belay ledge. Hard to be sure weather this pitch is as hard as I found it, or if I just missed something! We unroped after pitch 5, and began scrambling up the steep bushy gully leading to the canyon rim. One more bonus pitch (25', 5.7) got us around a huge chockstone, and we were back to the car 6 hours after we left. 3 episodes of Wait Wait, and two of TAL kept us awake on the drive home. Great trip!
*Quote attribution: Dallas A.
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