Walt's Wall has a good mixture of crack and slab climbs. Most routes on the wall are trad lines but there are a few bolted lines and several mixed lines. The rough granite of Vedauwoo typically requires tape but the crack routes on Walt's Wall have seen enough traffic in the past 60 years that they are pretty hand friendly when compared to other areas. This wall gets a lot of sun, which is good for an early start. The most common decent is a multiple rap from the top of Walt's Wall Route, at the far right end of the wall. This is often heavily trafficked as it is right in line with several climbing routes. If one is more adventurous an alternative two rope rap from the top of 4th of July Crack will get you down in stellar fashion. To get to this rap you will keep going to the right end of the wall as for Walt's Wall rap, but you will keep going and curl around until you're on top of the Coke Bottle (the rock forming the huge left facing dihedral with the wall). The must do super-classic route is Edward's Crack (5.7).
Getting There
From the main gate to the Vedauwoo Rec area, follow the signs to the Lower Parking. You'll be graced with water and a restroom. Locate the drainage just to the left of the restrooms. Follow this up and right but until you are just even with the left most edge of the Coke Bottle (that big bulbous rock sticking out of the middle). Pick your way through the boulders to the base of the routes. Edward's Crack is the obvious crack in the center of the wall.
There are actually two lines of bolts on the right side of Walt's Wall - one goes pretty much directly up the water streak and one is just left of it. These two lines seemed pretty forced (ie squeezed-in), but the one directly up the water streak seemed nicer. At the top, I continued to stay right on what I assume is the "Kopischka Finish."Climb up a nice flake system and then into the Walt's Wall dihedral before finally stepping left onto the ...[more]
Regarding the 4th of July Crack rappel--I've gotten ropes stuck two out of two times on this rappel. I wouldn't recommend this rappel--unless of course you're planning on climbing Satterfields Crack--because there's a good chance that's where your rope is going to end up.
What I've found to work better is to rap down to the anchors at the top of the first pitch of Walt's wall (anchors + chains) instead of all the way to the bottom. This puts you on a big ledge further to the left of Satterfield's and about 15 feet from the chockstones that the rope usually gets stuck on. Most likely your rope will still land on the chockstones but I've never had a problem with it getting stuck because you are pulling horizontally instead of from underneath. If you have two 50m ropes this may be your only option anyway. I've done the whole rappel with a 50m and a 60m and it was just barely enough.
Definitely split it into two raps. You'd have to be born under a lucky star to not get a rope stuck in the flakes next to the top of the first pitch of Walt's Wall.
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