BETA PHOTO: Routes on the east side of Animal World.
P. The F...
Description
The Lower Animal World crag contains a good selection of bolted sport routes, as well as a handful of moderate crack climbs. The upper Animal World cliff contains about 15 superb bolted sport climbs, with most falling in the 5.11-5.12+ range. A few will require either two ropes to get down, or need to be done a couple of pitches (bolted belay stations are provided for these climbs). The rock quality is fantastic, and all of the routes are well bolted and are of the highest quality. The cliff is divided into two sides by an arete, and most of the climbs lie on the left side.
There are two ways to reach the Animal World cliffs. Park in the same pullout as the Boulderado (8.5 miles up the canyon, the parking is on the left just after a long sweeping right turn in the road), and walk up to the base of the Boulderado cliff. From the left (West) side of the Boulderado follow a trail straight up the hill until it branches right. Take this right turn (it should lead you above and behind the Boulderado cliff), until you see the Lower Animal World cliff up on your left.
To reach the Upper Animal World cliff, continue along the base of the Lower cliff (towards the right side of it) until you reach its end. The Upper cliff lies uphill and to the right of the Lower cliff. The upper cliff is almost 200 feet tall, and faces downhill.
A different approach can be made by walking right from the base of the Boulderado for 75 yards before heading straight uphill to the Upper cliff. Be EXTREMELY careful not to knock loose rocks down to the highway below. And while you're at it, try not to let yourself fall down onto the road either.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Animal World:
Global Gorilla climbs up a prominent arete on the Upper Animal World cliff. As you are walking from the left side of the cliff to the right, the route lies on the second arete on the wall. It starts by climbing up a thin seam in a small dihedral before moving up and right to the arete. This route is absolutely fantastic. Well bolted on fantastic high-quality rock, every inch is enjoyable. The first pitch (often done alone without continuing o...[more]Browse More Classics in CO
I have seen very serious accidents on these bends caused by rockfall. While the chances are these were due to natural causes, it's not worth the risk. Take the usual approach, and save someone's life.
When you are walking up to Animal World there is another small crag about 50 feet above the trail when the trail heads right over the top of Boulderado.
The rock has about 5 lines. The two middle ones share an anchor, the left is probably 9+ or 10 - and the right side is probably 12. Off to the right is an easy route, probably 5.6 The routes are maybe 35 - 40 ft high.
Does anyone know if these routes are on this site? They're not stellar, but not too bad.
The harder one was put up by Jim Hone and goes at 11d. He showed this route to me when I first moved to Boulder 4 years ago. I suspect he put up the other routes as well.
Look for those routes under "Mine Hole Crag". They are all reasonably enjoyable, with the 5.12 beyond my current limits. Make sure you finish off the visit with the 5.8 crack on the right. :)_
I looked up "Mine Hole Crag"... the route I was referring to is a different one: "Ruff Roof". Apparently there are more climbs up there than I thought.
I guess I made the same mistake as others here and went to Mine Hole Crag while looking for lower Animal World.
Lower Animal World is pretty much directly above and to the right of Boulderado. We initially went too far up and were traversing above Lower Animal World... To get to that crag, take the right just as you get to the top of Boulderado (I thought that right was just for the getting to the anchors of Boulderado and continued on...) Now that I know the way, it is only a 5 minute walk in, but I can see how people can easily go too far up.
To the Admin- It's nice the way the Animal World home page is organized w/ all the routes listed starting from one side of the cliff, even if there isn't a pg. specifically for every route. It helps immensely when trying to figure out the overall layout of the area. It would be great if more of the pages describing an area were organized this way. Just my 2cents worth. cheers, BA
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