Big Willow Cirque Rock Climbing

Ominous South and west facing walls surround the cirque. A great place for the adventurous or reclusive climber. Highly featured granite makes up these 500 ft walls. Routes are modest in difficulty and there is a lot of potential for new routes in the upper cirque and on the various walls along the way. Water is hard to come by in the upper reaches of the cirque, however, snow can be found at the base of the walls through most of the summer. Beautiful campsites can be had at a few flat spots a little ways below the cirque.

Lone peak can be accessed from the Big Willow Cirque by one of two ways. The first is to scramble the steep, unstable talus field to the south of the cirque. However, great care should be taken of large rockfall. I witnessed large rockfall twice within 8 hours of each other and continuous small rockfall in between. The second way is to scramble up the notch on the far north east, to the side of the wall that Giggles is found. At the top of the notch the ridge to the south can be followed until the col between Lone Peak and Big Willow Cirque is reached. The walkoff for all routes is to go east and south (north for "Close Encounters") until the notch can be obtained. Rap slings leading into the notch can be found by carefully heading south, however take great care of loose brittle rock.