Ross's Crack 

Hi Min Climbers at Shovel Point . Just a bit of history on this area of rock . In I think it was 1973/4 I was working for a season at the Outward Bound school in Ely. I was asked to find a climbing area suitable for students on the shores of Lake Superior.I checked out Palisade Head and found this was not suitable for Outward Bound students . When on Baggy I noticed another sea cliff to the east that turned out to be Shovel Point. At that time we had to bush whack to the cliff as there were no paths ,and as with the approach the cliff was completely untouched. Over a period of three weeks with an assistant I spent long days cleaning masses of loose rock from most of the routes along the length of the cliff . This exploration continued between student visits thoughout that summer . Most were established by TR , but when cleaned we led some from the ground up.By the end of the summer we had climbed about 12/14 routes ranging from about 5.5 to 5.10.I remember a very difficult one from the beach area that may have been 5.11? I did leave a detailed topo of the climbs with the OB school , but I expect that is now long gone?.I see by the routes posted on this page ( apart from the one route that is credited to me "Ross's Crack")that Great Yawn ,Dance of the Sugar corner ,White Sheep etc are some of the routes we opened out. Glad to see the crag is still in use .. Paul Ross ....Colorado

hey paul

thanks for the small bit of history, i'm glad you posted. if you have time, check out minnesotaclimbing.com... it's the minnesota climbers' online crag :)

ross' crack is on of my all time favorite routes, did you guys actually lead it from top to bottom or just lowered off then lead up?

thanks again!

-=glenn=-

As of 10/7/2006, bolts at the top are still not present. The hole does take a brown tri-cam nicely though.