Raspberry Rocks

Description 

Raspberry Rocks is a highly secluded ridge of high quality rock. Most routes are around two pitches long. This is a great place to go for a high concentration of cracks. A lot of crack climbing in the Needles is little more than crack protected face climbing. But here, many true jam cracks are available for fingers to offwidths, chimneys and even vertical caving on Carl's Bad Caverns. Another plus for this area is the lack of crowds. There is little to no bolted routes here, so bring a standard rack.

Getting There 

From Keystone, head out of town towards Mt. Rushmore. At the highway 244 and 16a junction, take a left on 16a and measure the distance from this point. The road is hard to find, so make sure to keep an accurate odometer reading. After 4.5 miles, you will pass the high point of Iron Mountain highway. Continue an additional 4.1 miles to the Raspberry Rocks road. To find it, watch out for a overgrown dirt road heading right as the highway veers left. If you see a small paved parking area on the left side of the road, then you just missed the turn. The turn is a very hard right from the highway.

From here, either park or drive (probably need at least a Subaru Outback or something similar) for 1 mile to the end of the road. This is at the top of the hill, and Raspberry Rocks is to the right. Find a faint trail, and then traverse around the rocks on talus, losing 100 or more feet of elevation. The main area is several minutes of hiking away. Keep walking around the base until the rock gets steeper and less fractured.

Featured Route For Raspberry Rocks

Raspberry Corn Flakes 5.10a  SD : Raspberry Rocks : West Face

This route follows the left side of a large well attached flake below a roof. The route ascends a rightward diagonaling corner into a flared hand crack. It may seem strange for a hand crack to be bolted. After the first couple of jams a nice layback edge appears in the right side of the crack. This forms a very large flake that is only about one foot thick. Placing gear in this crack would not be a good idea if one had to test it...Hence the bolt...[more]