BETA PHOTO: the painted bowls, from the shoulder with the big ...
Description
sunny area with similar aspect to the eagle wall. as the name would suggest, the main face is decorated with wild colored sandstone that looks as if someone painted the wall. it is quite secluded, the approach being even further than the eagle wall and the climbs less classic. most of it's traffic is probably people descending the standard single-rope descent from the top of Black Orpheus.
Getting There
There are many ways to get there. It is generally a 2-3 hours approach, and possibly more if you have never been to the area or have no idea where you are going.
The normal way to get there is to approach the lower painted bowl via your favorite way. You can go all the way up the canyon to the eagle wall ramp and drop down. Or, as i prefer, you can reverse the Black Orpheus descent. in a nutshell, you go 20ish minutes up the north fork, and look for super-polished slippery slabs for 40' out of the creek along the cliff base. paw your way up there, up a short 4th class broken step to ledges, ramps, and slabs going right.
3rd class right for a couple minutes until after the short but exposed 4th class slab going up and right, which takes you to a ledge. follow the broken ramp up and left for five minutes, gain another ledge, and follow occasional cairns on more ramp/slab/ledge for a while, trending right and up.
gain a shoulder with a prominent rounded boulder (the 'ibm' boulder in swain's guide), then head up the arete to your left, towards the eagle wall. you are now in the lower painted bowl.
continue up the arete to the eagle wall because you are tired from the approach and don't want to do adventure climbs, OR, strike right and up in the lower painted bowl to the far right side of the bowl where broken low angle cracks and chimneys rise from slabs to the upper painted bowl.
if you have done the original black orpheus single-rope descent (along the upper painted wall, above black orpheus), follow that rap line. scramble a hard 4th class step (well-maintained rap anchor at top if you're on route), head up for a dozen yards of broken rock and bushes, and then get to the base of a large flare-chimney thing.
this is a good place to leave your pack, i find, as doing the chimney with a pack on is annoying, and the route is only a 100 yards above you. scramble up the chimney (or rope it. its probably un-exposed 5.7 or so) until at a ledge, scramble up and right and jog back left under a boulder, and now you're in the upper painted bowl. you'll see a rap anchor atop an overhanging boulder above the chimney you just climbed. it's hidden from the descent, so take note because you'll use it on the way down.
finally, scramble up slabs and a few bushes for a couple minutes to get to the base of the bowl.
Of Note: The Uriostes recommend a more direct approach to the lower painted bowl. Basically, you walk up oak creek until you get to some deep pools a couple minutes before the fork. Look for the big varnished slab (see photo), and figure out some way to get to it. The best way I've found is to walk up the drainage until you're a little bit beyond the actual base of the slabs, then hop on decent trails and a little boulder hopping (no shwacking!) to the blocky base of the varnished slab. From here, some short 4th classiness takes you to easy 3rd class slabs along a crack. Eventually you step right into the gully, and then follow a ledge traverse left to the lower painted bowl. It will save time but is trickier and I've never been psyched about going down it. I can get from the parking lot to the base of the Eagle Wall in under an hour and a half with this approach. Your mileage may vary. Heck, mine might too.
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