Bug Spring has two walls, east and a west wall. The west wall has nine climbs, the east wall has six. Grades range 5.7 to 5.10. This area faces northwest and doesn't get sun till noon. A good place to climb in the spring, fall and winter when we have moderate temps and not too much wind. The rock is granite that is mostly solid with some small loose stuff here and there. Horizontal cracks offer lots of handholds and gear placements.
Getting There
Park in the small parking spaces at the entrance of Prison Camp. Walk across the street through the gated dirt area that is used for road crew machinery parking. At the far east end drop into the wash. Follow this wash till it forks. Stay in the right drainage following cairns along the way going up two steep "dry waterfalls" with a lot of boulder hopping. Continue till you see the tallest most dominate 100 ft. tall cliff band on the right. Approach time 35 minutes.
Well, we finally made a trip up here last weekend. The area is a little farther up the drainage than the description suggests. The "tallest, most dominant [sic]" 100' wall is NOT where the climbs are, nor is it the best place to exit the drainage. Keep going past that until you come to a flat, essentially boulder-free (likely a consequence of silt infilling after the Aspen fire) area in the streambed past that. There is no mention of the 1-1/2" or 2" (approx) diameter metal pipes you walk under in the drainage shortly after taking the right-hand fork. There are two places you will encounter this. This confirms that you are indeed in the correct drainage. The GPS coordinates were very helpful.
The six routes we did (we started on the far end and worked our way back to climber's right) were all a least a number grade easier than the given ratings.That said, I thought it was a good area overall. It was nicely shaded until mid-afternoon. The rock is solid for the most part, and the routes were fun. Thanks to Andy for putting these up.
Yeah there's a cliff off to the right about 30 minutes in that's easy to mistake for this area..I made that mistake, but even subtracting the time spent on the detour, it was still about 45 minutes to get to this area. Fun climbs though. All I noticed about the ratings was that "It's About the Six" felt sandbagged to me (I'm 5'8")
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