Big Cottonwood Canyon 

A road trip is perfect in SLC. The climbing (and skiing, from what i hear) is superb. It's also a nice place to live if you (a) are an ultra conservative right wing nutcase (b) just want to climb and don't care about the environment, politics, lack of work/livable wages, lack of a good drink at a decent price, repressive culture, etc., but don't knock the climbing.

Despite the prevalent population base, Utah is surpassed by very few in terms of rock climbing. A road trip to Utah, or Salt Lake City should not be avoided because of an assumed run in with religious locals or political ideology. If you purposely schedule a road trip away from Utah for this reason, you are ignorant. The fact is Salt Lake City and surrounding areas are home to beautiful granite cracks, and tendon popping boulder problems in Little Cottonwood Canyon, challenging and scenic quartzite routes, pro and bolted, in Big Cottonwood. There are complex sandstone boulder problems in Joes Valley, phenomenal and isolated routes and bouldering at Ibex, pocketed limestone in American Fork and pristine, fun, and challenging limestone in the scenic Logan Canyon, a definite must. Give it a try, but don't knock it till you have tried it.

Matt Stephens

I agree. I dont think anyone should move to SLC or stop on a road trip to climb. That way I can continue to climb on some of the best routes in the world and not have to wait in line or worry about crowds.

Lack of work and livable wages? Are you serious? You must not look too hard for a job, cause 20,000 people a year move to utah for work. There is tons of work, cheap cost of living, terribly bloating 3.2 beer, and a CRAPLOAOD of climbing, of all types. But oh yeah, the people, and the crowds, and the politics....ya'll best just stay away, you'll hate it for sure.

I explored and climbed most of the crags from 5-3 to 5-11 + in Salt Lake for a full 10 years. During that time I had the best climbing days of my life in Big Cottonwood Canyon, meeting and climbing with some of the great old timers like Jerry Stovall, Stan Cantrell, Merrill Bitter, Gordon Douglass, Bobbie Bensmen and others.

They were great times, and the routes are some of the best juggy nobby quartzite sport and trad routes you can imagine, all in a beautiful accessible location.

You can't beat Big Cottonwood in this lowly climbers opinion.

Actually, you should stay away from SLC if you are a religious bigot. The Mormons are nice and the climbing is spectacular.

WARNING! A person or persons has chopped the routes at Geezer Wall!!! At this point do not waist your time going up to climb at this crag. I am going to hike up and assess the damage done by the culprits this afternoon.

If anyone knows the individuals that went to the trouble to KILL this crag we'd like to have a discussion on why such a harsh measure was taken to KILL a little gem that had a host of SAFE sport and mixed routes for the 5.5 to easy 5.10 leader. To put it bluntly, you people are anti-climbing community and ought to quit climbing. The amount of effort (with significant cost) to put up these routes FOR THE SLC CLIMBING COMMUNITY and beyond, and the quality and well thought out nature of the routes, did not justify KILLING THE CRAG.

It's in the hands of all you climbers out there if you feel this was justified fine, call the Geezer Wall dead. If you feel this action was unnecessary and want the routes to go back up come together and make it happen prove to those freaks that did the deed this is uncalled for, will not be tolerated and unacceptable in this climbing community. Thanks for the support!

Localism sucks and like on the coast, those that adopt this elitist mentality need to be called out and punished. Banishment from climbing in the central Wasatch is the minimum these individuals need to receive: Yeah I'm really irked about this BS.

NO DOGS IN BCC!! its salt lake city watershed and i guess the water treatment plants cant handle dog pee. leave the pooch at home or in the car

Its not the dog pee, but the crypto that some dog/human crap carries--Dog in watershed=class B misdemeanor citation=$1850.00.

Apparently they'll cite dogs in the car, too, though it would be hard to stick in the summer when BCC is a through road to Park City. But in winter they do look for dogs sitting in cars and ticket because, again apparently, they have been able to get away with it. The entire situation in these canyons is horseshit. “Keep it pure”?! Are they out of their fucking minds or just trying to jack off the community so they can continually develop?

Let's be honest, a dog creates about a million times less pollutants than any single car and/or construction project in BCC. The treatment plant doesn't account for dog shit? Umm, yeah.... It appears some of you are drinking the Kool-Aid. It's all a bunch of ridiculous low hanging fruit BS that comes about because it's a lot easier to get people to banish dogs than confine construction, commuting, and/or recreation. And it doesn't do a damn thing for the environment.

All you dipshits who support this should consider that the very next piece of low hanging fruit is climbers. Sure, you say, how much damage could we be doing compared to, oh, say cars or developers or picnickers throwing trash all over and cleaning diapers in the creek et al? And the answer is absolutely none. But that is not the issue in who gets restricted next. The issue is funds, or funding, and we are next in line because, well, Jackie Treehorn draws a lot of water in this community and you don’t draw shit. So before you acquiesce to some sort of “environmental” mandate consider the actual facts (crypto?!!, what in God’s name are you blathering about? Yeah, none of those picnicker/skier/hikers are dishing out any of that.) and then contemplate why, in fact, this is happening. Then perform you activist duty accordingly.

I’m from California where, in many instances where I’ve worked on access far too late, we’ve lost it because of some bullshit reason where every single amount of scientific evidence points in our direction but we simply had the least influence. Conversely, I’ve been on the winning side in many situations where I’ve approached land use management earlier enough to get the rules written in our favor. The latter situations are not necessarily better for anything—especially environmental—than the former; I’ve simply been there first and held my ground as opposed to situations where they’ve pointed fingers at a group with little money and influence (think Cave Rock).

If you want to continue to climb in these canyons I suggest that you stop behaving like spineless dweebs. Get aggro and stand your ground. We have rights to recreate in the open space that we pay for and don’t need to act like schmucks who are willing to be pushed around.

Crypto's? Um, yeah, we got the boys down in the crime lab workin' on it. ....

We got 'em workin' in shifts!

Hahahahah...

Cryptos!

Hahahahaha....

I've noticed while perusing for sport routes in BCC that the search for "sport routes" turn up a lot of routes whose description says certain trad gear is needed.

Some say optional, but a surprising number just list gear. Why is that classified as a sport route?

Is it possible to climb these with draws only? Is it run out without gear? A more thorough explanation would help.

Thanks

When a new route is entered, you can check off TRAD/SPORT/TOPROPE or any combination of the three. Chances are, which ever routes you selected may not have been checked off as TRAD/SPORT when entered. That being said, if they were properly checked off as TRAD/SPORT, when you do a search for SPORT, all routes checked off as SPORT or TRAD/SPORT come up in the search.

Too many routes come to mind, but most of the mixed routes in BCC will require gear if listed.

Quick question. I saw a climb today just to the right (West) of narcolepsy at the top of the the loose rock that goes down to the road. Anyone know what the name of that climb is? I added a photo if that helps.

Whats this climb called up Big Cottonwood? Submitted By: chadhut on Jun 14, 2012

JHCOB Wall - Outside Corner

Another route in the area, Steort's Ridge, is one of the premiere multi-pitch climbs in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and it is popular because of the terrific exposure, the variety of skills called upon and the excellent protection...it is THE stand-out route on the crag. Consequently, many parties are forced to retreat when weather comes in, or when one in the party is over their head. Currently, there are no fixed rap stations (paired bolts with chains) on the route itself, forcing a retreat from webbing (which becomes crispy and unsightly tat) or sacrificed gear. I have a suggestion: erect quality rap stations at the top of pitch one and two. There is a single Leeper-Z and a single ring-less pin at each of these stations, and that fixed gear has been there for decades: fixed gear at these belays is nothing new. In most of the areas I have climbed (Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Tahquitz, Suicide Rock) popular moderates are all outfitted with rap anchors. It's a public service, and it eliminates the need to leave unsightly tat, or ones own gear in a forced retreat. I thought of going up there and simply putting this in, but I wanted to avoid any sort of bolt chopping issue. I think the raps could be positioned away, to climber's left, from where the anchors would routinely be erected, which would allow retreating parties to not interfere with those who choose to remain on the climb.

Steort's ridge is fine just the way it is. No rap anchors needed for convenience in my opinion. If someone gets in over their head and has to bail off gear that's unfortunately part of the learning curve. Climb long enough and you will soon collect more booty gear than you bail off of. As for the weather, if you can't trust the forecast wake up earlier or get better at placing gear so you can top out faster. It's 3 pitches, or 2 with a 70. And this classic sees enough traffic as it is.

Found LaSportiva shoes at the top of Steorts Ridge 4/28/2013. Contact me at pedacus at gmail dot com.