The land is owned by the LDS Church; please be respectful of this. MORE INFO >>>
Unknown by many people, the land, from at the LDS Church record vaults up to and including the Gate Buttress is owned by the LDS Church. The privately-owned areas include The Fin, The Thumb Area, Green Adjective Gully, Schoolroom Area, and Gate Buttress.
Over the past 40 years there have been several closures of this property to climbing.
Currently, climbers are welcome visitors in part because of Utah's Land Owner Liability Law and the work of local climbers to preserve access.
In 1998 through 2000 this area was quarried and is presently under restoration and re-vegetation. The climbers' trail goes through part of this area. Please stay on the trail so that this area can recover.
The Schoolroom Area covers the western portion of the huge Gate Buttress and is just east of the Green Adjective Gully. As with most of the popular crags along the north side of LCC, the main attractions are hard face climbs and stellar cracks up excellent granite.
Most climbs descend from the Schoolroom rappel which is west-facing near the mouth of the Green A Gully. From the top of the final pitch of Schoolroom or Schoolroom West, scramble down 30 or 40 feet to a tree with lots of slings and a few rap rings. Rap down and veer left 60 feet or so to a pair of chains.
From here it is a solid 90 foot rappel to the ground&mdask;perfect for a 60m rope. If you're using a 50m rope, you can scramble down from a ledge but be sure you tie stopper knots in your rope ends!
Getting There
Park 1.25 miles up Little Cottonwood canyon. Right now (2003) the north-side pull out is fenced off. Go left (west) of the fenced pull out and you'll find yourself among the Gate Boulders. Follow a trail to the left into a talus field. Scramble straight up through the talus and eventually work your way along the west edge of the trees up to the base of the Gate Buttress. There are several trails up to the climbs but this is what I found easiest. The start of Schoolroom and Schoolroom West is at the left side before you go up around the corner.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Schoolroom Area:
Schoolroom 5.6 Trad, 5 pitches, 400 feet, Grade II
Bushwhack Crack is a very fine, beautiful jam crack on the right side of the Schoolroom wall. It is the obvious straight in splitter with several trees in it about 100' up. The first pitch is a 3-star pitch, too bad it is not longer!P1) 5.8 Climb the thin hands crack, passing the crux right off the deck. Continue up, with the crack turning to fists near the belay. The first pitch ends at a set of chain anchors and a small foot ledge. Many p...[more]Browse More Classics in UT
Once you finish on either the final 5.6 crack system or the movie variation please continue up and slightly left along a ledge with some trees. Here you will find a large pine tree with chains around the trunk for the rappel. It is very unpleasant to have a rope throw down on top of you when your leading hatchet, school room west or anything under the hook. So please do not rappel the face itself.
Hey whats with the overly bolted new routes above the schoolroom rappel. There all stupid easy and kinda pointless. Anyone have any info? Detracts from a great trad/hard slab area.
That would be the Heaven's Gate Area. With such classics as Sky Surfer, the route you downclimb all over while accessing the Schoolroom Rappel from Tingeys, Teacher's Pet and the poorly bolted Schoolyard Bullies. All of these routes plus many more used to be posted here, gone now. I am pretty surprised the bolts have lasted this long on a few of them.
By Brian in SLC From: Salt Lake City, UT Nov 4, 2009
Me and mine have always scrambled down to the standard Schoolroom rappel. Instead of rappelling from the tree mentioned in the descent description, climb slightly up and traverse over towards the west on a ledge with a handcrack rail (easy, maybe 3rd class). Then down climb the low angle chimney for 25 feet. Hike/scramble pretty much straight down low angle terrain and you'll hit the rappel ledge.
Climbers who haven't done this descent before, who may be a tad sketched, can easily be belayed from just about any spot, but, the traverse from the tree that folks rappel from has a comfortable ledge with a nice crack for medium to large size cams (#1 and 2 camalots, etc).
I'll attach a couple of pictures showing some details of the traverse and chimney.
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