Humor me regarding Red Rocks

I have the Handren guide but it's packed already and i'm at work and bored. I'm going to be landing in Vegas at 11:30a.m. 1 week from Saturday for an 8 day desert sandstone binge. Our first day we plan on hitting the boulders, before moving on to bigger and better objectives as the week moves on. My question is, are the Kraft Boulders near enough to quality Sport and/or single pitch gear routes that it would be feasible and/or convenient to do both in the same afternoon? If so, which crags? As much as i like to boulder, i'm far more psyched on the rope climbing, and i think i wanna get my headspace clear on day 1. Again, i'm aware that i can answer my own question when i get home tonight, but that doesn't exactly help me pass my afternoon, does it? :)

Anything in Calico Basin is within a 30 minute hike from Kraft, most is closer than that. You could hit up Cannibal Crag for some sport and Moderate Mecca for some single pitch trad.

Lots of climbing in the Calico Basin Area.
Kraft boulders are a short walk from one of the parking areas so you are never to far from your car.
Options in Calico basin would be
Cannibal Crag (5min approach from different parking area)
Cannabis Crag (15 min hike from bouldering area)
Sunny and Steep (20 min hike from bouldering area)
Family Crag/Conundrum Crag (10min hike from bouldering)
Alternative Crag (20min hike from bouldering)
The Mall (5-10min hike from bouldering)

You could also drive into the loop road, the following areas have short approaches
1st pullout
Dog Wall
2nd pullout
Sweet Pain, Black Corridor, Stone Wall
3rd pullout (Sandstone Quarry)
Front Corridor
Wake Up Wall
Sonic Youth
The Pier

It would be pretty easy to do a half day of bouldering, followed by half day of sport at any of these areas.
This wall all off of the top of my head, so others may have more info.

Hell yeah!!

In Calico Basin/ Red Springs area:

Cannibal Crag for sport, Classic Corner is a fun single pitch 5.8 trad route nearby (super quick and easy walk-off). Physical Grafitti is an easily protected, mellow 5.6, 2 pitch trad route with a walk-off , and there's a new 3 pitch 5.8 sport route to the left of PG that's not in guidebooks - multi-pitch sport routes are rare in our neck of the woods (beta for that route is on Mountain Project). Moderate Mecca has an awesome single pitch 5.8+ called Valentines Day, with a thin 5.10 that shares same anchor. There's more but I gotta go. I'm sure others will chime in!

You can easily get in several pitches of trad, and sport in that area in a short amount of time; approaches are very short by RR standards.

Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada!

Edit: Damn...Tyson, and Darren type fast! : )

Awesome news. Thank you all for the replies. I am beyond psyched!

Since I look at my Handren guide almost daily as some sort therapy. Sunny and Steep and Winter Heat wall are the only stuff I have climbed on in that area. Both fit the description of what you are looking for. Ok now I am jelous. Theres so much rock around you'll have to be careful not to overdo it on day one!! Looking forward to my own sandstone binge in April.

Dude i know. I have so many objectives, 8 days simply won't be enough. Dream of Wild Turkeys and Epinephrine both have to go down. I wanna at least visit Zion for 1 day. I wanna do Unimpeachable Groping because with a name like that who the hell wouldn't wanna do it, dark shadows, eagle dance, the list goes on and on. I may just forget to come back home.

All on my list too. Did first 4 pitches of Dark Shadows years ago, Wanna do all of it! Add Inti Watana to your list! Did that a few years ago to Res. Arete. Most fun I have had in a long time. Long Day.

Epi, and DOWT's etc...? , Ooops , I gave you the easier routes in Calico. Oh well, maybe other MPers will enjoy the routes I had mentioned in that area. : )

There's The Fox, a 5.10 d that's a beautiful single pitch trad route in Calico Basin.

oh no, easy routes are great! I've been to Red Rocks once, for exactly 36 hours, and the only route i touched was Levitation 29. Believe me, i'm super psyched on easy routes. I want to sample everything (and probably nothing as hard as L29 again. Never so tired in my life). And for what it's worth i think the fox looks scary as shit, and i'll be following the chimneys on Epi becuase i'm a huge pussball.

Reed Fee wrote:All on my list too. Did first 4 pitches of Dark Shadows years ago, Wanna do all of it! Add Inti Watana to your list! Did that a few years ago to Res. Arete. Most fun I have had in a long time. Long Day.

Worst case, if you wanna give it a shot, you can walk to the top of The Fox, build an anchor and belay your partner up (or each other up, of course) ; it's a tall single pitch. I don't remember if we ended up needing a directional, or two to prevent a swing; I believe we may have - you'll figure it out. It's been awhile since I was on it.

Have fun!

I wanna do Unimpeachable Groping because with a name like that who the hell wouldn't wanna do it, dark shadows, eagle dance, the list goes on and on. I may just forget to come back home.

We tried Unimpeachable Groping last week, rock quality sucks something fierce and the approach is a bit longer than stated in the books. Also when we rapped off the left bolt of the anchor on pitch one is loose and moves when you rap. If you do it you should consider doing a bolt swap of that one if possible.

Clay- The bolt itself moves/wiggles? or the hanger spins? Large difference. Yeah, I thought the rock quality sucked too.

Bummer about the rock quality. Would you say it was bad enough that it completely ruined the climb for you? Or was it cool, except for some not so great rock?

Do any of you have a suggestion for a similar climb to do instead? I'm not too psyched on POD, but I would like to do a longish hard .10/easy .11 clip up.

Not too many true multi-pitch clip-ups in RR, contrary to popular opinion. The nature of the rock makes for good "mixed protection" style routes, or traditional face climbing, if you will. So there are plenty of routes here with good handfuls of bolts, but they are not clip-ups and should not be treated as such. That said, some great examples of that style of climbing that I can think of off the top of my head are: L29, Only the Good Die Young, Everything on the Velvet wall but Fiddler on the Roof is the best, Nightcrawler, Delicate Sound of Thunder, maybe Birdhunter Buttress (only 5.9 tho).

The Fox is in no way scary unless you've never jammed. I've watched crack nOObs layback the whole thing, but not really recommended if you wanna place gear. If TRing it, 2-3 directional pieces would be helpful. If leading, 1x blue metolius-6 camalot, with 3x 4, 2x 3,.5 would allow you to protect it just fine. If you've never been to the Creek, this is a little slice of it.

I've jammed, i'm just not the best at it (read: made a 3 hour epic out of fugging Reppy's Crack). Maybe i'll try the fox, the thing that sketches me out about it is the wideness at the top. Toproping it is out though, i don't really like toproping too much.

I've been on Levitation and had a blast, although we were too slow and made a few other logistical mistakes that forced us to rap after the crux. I'm considering trying it again one day while i'm out there, but it all depends on a lot of different things falling into place. The more i think about it the more i believe that if i hike up to Eagle Dance i should just try to finish L29 instead. As far as everything on the Velvet goes, I'm beyond psyched to get on DOWT, as that was one i wanted to do last year before i realized i'd be so sore i couldn't move after Levitation.

Anyway i guess i'll have to play it by ear on Unimpeachable Groping. Sounds like it might not be the best route for the entire group to get after, but i still might give it a whirl.

Sour Mash

I personally love Unimpeachable Groping - did it Oct. 2010 and still have found memories of it. The rock quality is not great in the mid-upper pitches - but that's what the bolts are for, right? It's a GREAT face climb with much more interesting moves than Prince Of Darkness. I would totally jump back on it in a heart-beat. It was the nicest cruise climbing day I have ever done. Most of the climb goes at around 5.9+ with only a few 10a-ish moves. I didn't have to hang or fall on lead once - I did have 2 or 3 foot chips crumble - but I also wandered a little to far right I think and I got back on line and it was pretty clean.

You should totally do it - the approach is not bad once you know that area - so do expect anything from 15-30 minutes from the Handren Guide the first time out to that area. If you want more beta for the climb the first 65 pics are all Unimpeachable Groping - picasaweb.google.com/108262…

We had a pretty slow party in front of us - so we didn't even start until past 10 AM and even with waiting at a few pitches for the above party we were done and rapping by 2:30.

Ming wrote:I personally love Unimpeachable Groping - did it Oct. 2010 and still have found memories of it. The rock quality is not great in the mid-upper pitches - but that's what the bolts are for, right? It's a GREAT face climb with much more interesting moves than Prince Of Darkness. I would totally jump back on it in a heart-beat. It was the nicest cruise climbing day I have ever done. Most of the climb goes at around 5.9+ with only a few 10a-ish moves. I didn't have to hang or fall on lead once - I did have 2 or 3 foot chips crumble - but I also wandered a little to far right I think and I got back on line and it was pretty clean. You should totally do it - the approach is not bad once you know that area - so do expect anything from 15-30 minutes from the Handren Guide the first time out to that area. If you want more beta for the climb the first 65 pics are all Unimpeachable Groping - picasaweb.google.com/108262… We had a pretty slow party in front of us - so we didn't even start until past 10 AM and even with waiting at a few pitches for the above party we were done and rapping by 2:30.