My wife and I took our mountain bikes up the syncline trail on sunday. We unfortunately went down what I think is "hidden valley" which was too steep for us to ride. On the way down we came to a columnar basalt wall that obviously had anchors on top.

Any info would be appreciated.

Hidden Valley Wall Submitted By: skitch on Mar 6, 2012

Route with anchors, used phone so really crappy Submitted By: skitch on Mar 6, 2012

The area you stumbled upon is called Wankers columns. The zoomed in photo is the best warm up route there 5.9ish. There are a few more 5.9 ish leadable routes as well. The rest are in the 11 to 11 plus range. Watch for loose rock, bad anchors, ticks, poison oak and gumpy locals. Very thin cracks and stemming is the name of the game here. Nice sun exposure if the wind is not blowing which is rare.
Reed

gumpy= grumpy gumbies?

Or gimpy locals.

Is the climbing dry and fun? Do you lead the 10/11s?

There are four or five routes I will lead in the 9 and 10 range. Many of the harder ones are TR routes unless you have very small fingers and excel at placeing very small wires and cams(00 and 000) in slightly flareing cracks. Some of the anchors are placed above cracks that need cleaning still. Overall a fun little hike up to the crag, sunny in the afternoon and dries out very quickly. Gonna try and head out there tomorrow if your interested.

Reed, I sent you an E-mail, I can go with you. Let me know if you for sure can go.

scott
scotteagan@hotmail.com

Reply sent to your email. Lets climb.