Good Devil's Lake climbs to practice crack climbing?

Hey everyone,

So I've been trying to work on getting better at crack climbing. Right now I can do basic jams combined with face holds, but I'm looking to get good at pure crack climbing. While obviously a trip to Indian Creek would be ideal for this, that's not feasible any time soon, so I'm looking for recommendations from the closest crag to me, Devil's Lake. I'm looking ideally for continuous, straight (ish) cracks in the hand to fist size to start, things you can set up a toprope on and lap to really practice jamming and ideally climb the crack most if not all of the way up. Obviously, a range of sizes will be ideal to practice in the long run, so if you guys know any good finger (Congratulations), fist, thin hands, etc (no off-width yet, lol), that would be great as well.

I've actually been eying some of the stuff at Old Sandstone, as sandstone seems to fracture more cleanly/continuously than quartzite, but I'm interested in any DL crack climbs that can be done mostly pure.

Check out this discussion: mountainproject.com/v/devil…

My votes would be for Brinton's Crack, Lost Face Finger Crack, and Peter's Project.

Most of the moderate/easy "crack" climbs can be climbed without much jamming. You'll have to be intentional about jamming.

Sometimes Crack

Congratulations crack

Upper & Lower Diagonal

Birch Tree Crack

Yeah, Nsward...that's the idea. I'm not necessarily looking for climbs that NEED to be climbed in the crack, as there are very few like that at the lake (maybe Congrats for some parts), more climbs that CAN be climbed as a crack and are the ideal size. I kind of remember Queen's Throne followed a crack all the way up that was amazing for pro...anyone ever climb it just in the crack?

Queen's theone is pretty splitter. Goes at 5.4 with all the jug rails, but if you stick to the crack, it would most assuredly be a few grades harder.

Old sandstone area...

Some classic hand-to-fist cracks, in order of increasing difficulty:
Queens Throne
Brintons
Dippy Diagonal
Curving Crack
American Beauty
Upper D
Sometime Crack
Tarantula

Awesome, thanks...exactly what I needed!