This is likely the best of the climbing at Golden Gate State Park. There are at least 3 crags here. All are visible from the Panorama Point. These crags are up to 450 feet in height. The rock is decent to excellent granite, generally less than vertical, filled with many cracks. Access is via faint trails or bushwhacking from Panorama Point with hikes to 1+ hours. These are generally west-facing, so you can generally watch the weather come in. The views are pleasant.
This is a sub-alpine climbing area at an elevation of ~10,000'.
For now, the crowds are not here.
Getting There
From Golden, head N on CO Hwy 93, head W up Golden Gate Canyon Rd to the park, turn R up the road past Kriley Pond and switchback to a gravel road. Follow the signs to Panorama Point. Hike.
Per Lee Smith: instead of hiking directly from Panorama Point, head down the road (east) for about 1/10th of a mile until the crag is due north and then head into the woods. It is much faster than starting right at Panorama Point.
RE: the approach; instead of bee-lining, use contouring and target yourself to move around the base of the lower slab (as seen in the above-pic) moving from south to north (the rock-climbing is west aspect) to enter the boulder field; see the cairn fairy appear (we actually did pick up the faint trail). Use countouring to get back to Panorama Point, I found the hike an enjoyable short wilderness experience and free of loose scree/talus.
By Tim Stich From: Colorado Springs, Colorado Jul 16, 2007
From right to left in the beta photo you have the First Buttress, Second Buttress, and Third Buttress. The formation between and in front of the First and Second Buttress is Thorodin Slab.
Instead of hiking directly from Panorama Point, head down the road (east) for about 1/10th of a mile until the crag is due north and then head into the woods. It is much faster than starting right at Panorama Point. We had the whole place to ourselves all day on a Saturday. This is really a great and lonesome crag. I will be back.
I climbed several routes on the first buttress, roughly 150ft right of Twin Cracks in a left-facing alcove. Hubbel refers to this on p.94 of his Front Range Crags book as "steep, hard cracks in west-facing alcove" but didn't say if they had been done before or not. Anyone climb them before me? There's a pic above which lists all three routes, which go from left to right at 5.9, 5.10b, 5.10c
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