This is short, kinda silly, and the climbing is not particularly memorable. However, the approach is a nice hike, with great views, the glade/meadow where this feature is located is a very cute little spot, and the feature itself is a ridiculous shape; a penguin with a blindfold. Maybe it's a labrador puppy. it's very friendly anyway.Approach by hiking up a ledge/stratum from your car. Up and up and up, until you summit the highest point of the ridge. Then contour down (north) and around to enter the penguin's garden.The route begins up a short crack. This is allegedly 5.5, in Bjornstad's book. Hmmmm. You can avoid this by a runout face bit to the right; much more pleasant. I chose the wide crack, and struggled. The final short face is steep, ledgy and fun. See how far you dare step out onto the penguin's bill...Enjoy.
Protection
A handful of quickdraws and a couple 4 to 5-inch cams for the start.
Yes, of course... Get the guidebook and completely eliminate the purpose of this site. Get a job, man. I support the climbing community as much as I have the opportunity to (mountain clean-ups and the like), but it seems to me the purpose of this site is to provide concise information about climbs in/near Moab. For those of us who don't live there and can't drive there every weekend, a guidebook is hardly a worthy expenditure. Plus, having a print-out from this site and other like it means having something of a souvenir for an on-sight or whathaveyou. And finally TuffGong, you didn't have ANY qualms with posting three routes on the site with beta so far. Why the anxiety/reluctance to help out a fellow cragger/crack-er (no pun intended)?
Sorry, I thought Peter Gram wrote out some pretty clear instructions as to how to get to Sunshine Wall. This is not in Arches National Park, it is just outside, immediately north. Simplest thing is to drive 17 (?-I forget exactly) miles north of Moab on 191 to get to the turn-off. The main parking spot is pretty obvious, at the far left end of the wall (the road starts to get rougher after this, and soon becomes real 4x4 after a quarter mile or so, and the hike approach is up the obvious slanting ledgey strata from close to the car up and right, just like it says. You can see the tower when you hike the bottom of the cliff, but you cannot access it from here.
Maybe you don't want to spring for a guidebook, but I'd expect folks to read the Sunshine Wall page with Peter Gram's instructions before demanding more info here. The Visitor Center in Moab will give you a free Utah road map too. Browse the guidebook in Pagan or the Visitor Center and put it back on the shelf. Please, if you expect to get much out of desert climbing, be prepared to have to invest something. Either money in guidebooks, or else some time and effort. This ain't Shelf Road.
Beter to think of this website as another resource for finding and enjoying desert climbs. It's not a guidebook. I don't think it's a replacement for a guidebook.
By RoadTripRyan From: Salt Lake City, UT Dec 11, 2005
When I did this, I placed a #4 Camalot at the top of the crack, a couple of TCU's in a horizontal crack below the drilled piton, then a quickdraw for the piton.
Sunshine Wall Routes
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