A view of the 'Diamond' from Lake Marie in the ear...
Description
The closest alpine-ish climbing to Laramie, the Snowy Range (and all of its climbing) is visible from downtown Laramie. All of the climbing is on the east-facing slabs south of Medicine Bow Peak. Most of the climbing starts around 10,500', with many routes beginning above treeline. According to Jaquot's book, technical routes started going up in the 1950s, and continue to this day.
Long (up to seven 200' pitches), less-than-vertical quartzite routes, sometimes on bone-white stone. It's been said that higher grades are impossible in the Snowies, with their abundance of holds. Be prepared to run it out on all climbs. A standard rack is a single set of nuts, and a single set of cams from very small to 3".
Getting There
Take Snowy Range Road (Curtis Street) west out of Laramie to Highway 130. Follow this all the way to Lake Marie, where the shortest approach seems to start from the aptly named Lake Marie recreation area. A faint trail winds out of the picnic grounds to the edge of a scree slope, at which point it's cross country to the base of the routes. From the top of the routes, walk south until you reach the Medicine Bow Peak trail, and walk off from there.
By phil wortmann From: Manitou Springs, Co. Nov 21, 2007
A friend and I were just driving thorugh the medicine bow this summer and decided to onsight the dead center of the diamond. We knew nothing about established routes, or the history of climbing here. We aimed for the 200' tower running up the center of the diamond and hoped to find more direction from there. From the beginning, I noticed this tower was a house of cards, with huge boulders frictioned on top of other even bigger boulders. This pitch made the Black Canyon look like bullet stone. once on top of the tower, we glanced up the center of the face above and didn't see a place for gear for at least the first fifty feet, with possible .10+ climbing. We gained our senses and rapped off on directional gear. I have since found this handy website, and hope to return next summer.
Anything to the right of that pillar is dangerously loose since the major rockfall a few years back. Also, Skip's page is a little error prone as far as beta goes, and pretty error prone as far as names go. There's a guidebook available in Laramie at Cross Country Connection written by Ray Jaquot. The topos are pretty much impossible to read, but the route descriptions are pretty good.
Print a Mini-Guide - Includes Routes!
RSS Feed
