Disappointment Valley Bouldering Climbing

The "Sandstone Flatirons" that split Big Gypsum and Disappointment Valleys hold many opportunities for those with adventurous spirits to get out, hike around, get lost, and find plenty of boulders to climb. Most often the best places to go are in the drainages that split the flatirons as well as the many cleaved boulders that fall off the steeper, north-facing aspects of the flatirons. To my knowledge, this area saw its first concerted development efforts in the 2006-2010 range by folks like Damon Johnston, Charlie Fowler, Paul Pierce, Jim Hurst, Andy Cook, Dan Goss, Ben Clark, and others from the motivated Telluride climbing scene. Damon's blog hosts a few posts from this era with photos and some area/route mentions - http://adventureswithnomad.blogspot.com/.

Along this few miles of spine, there are likely one hundred thousand boulders. In my experience, the majority are not climbable (too short, poor rock, no holds, death landings, etc). That being said, there are some concentrations of bullet sandstone and fun, climbable problems that you can enjoy in solitude. One must be ready to hike pads, food, and water for the day with the knowledge you might not find anything great, but put in enough of those days, and you'll surely be rewarded. Where the rock is good, it is as good as it gets. Where it's bad, it's miserable.

There are washes and out-of-use mining roads to help you travel off cryptobiotic soil, please work to minimize any damage to this soil. There is one private ranch on the south side of the flatirons. Please respect their property (fenced), and do not utilize their road for access. Bring brushes and lots of water and most importantly a hefty dose of psych for exploring.

If you have established lines here or know of problems done in the past, please feel free to add them - otherwise the area will remain mostly a vague temptation for west enders to come explore.