The Monument

Description 

This series of cliffs is located just outside the entrance to the Black Velvet Canyon, on the right-hand side as you look up the canyon from the parking lot. The best way to find the area is to locate the Desert Reality roof, which is a large triangular roof capping a thin strip of tan rock surrounded by darker desert varnish.

Most of the routes here are single-pitch, with 2-bolt rap anchors of varying quality. Many of the raps require 2 ropes. The cliff faces southwest so it's a good place to go if it's too cold to climb on the Black Velvet Wall.

The highlight of this area is the route Desert Reality, pictured on page 339 of the latest edition of the Swain guide. 15' or so of dead-horizontal roof, with a clean splitter going right out its center.

Getting There 

Start at the Black Velvet parking lot, and walk up the trail a quarter mile or so until you can clearly identify the Desert Reality roof to the right of the mouth of Black Velvet canyon. You can see the roof from the parking lot if you know where to look, but it's a lot easier to identify after you walk up the trail about 20 minutes. The triangular-shaped Desert Reality roof caps a thin vertical strip of light-tan rock within an area of darker rock.

After identifying the roof, leave the Black Velvet trail and diagonal right across the desert on faint climbers' trails to the base of the crag underneath the roof.

The Classics

Featured Route For The Monument

Desert Gold 5.13a PG13  NV : Red Rock : ... : The Monument

An inspired linkup of Scumby 5.8, Desert Crack 5.12D, and Desert Reality 11c. Classic route with a spectrum of desert climbing situations: chossy sugar cookie face and crack leads to a bolt protecting a circuitous traverse into a steep splitter defined by an overhanging ringlock crux to a 14-foot widening perfect hand crack roof. If it gets any better than this, I wanna know where!...[more]   Browse More Classics in NV