Teddy Bear Cove Rock Climbing

With more than 700 sport routes on mostly excellent stone, nearby Massacre Rocks has some of the best basalt climbing in the state of Idaho. However access is convoluted and requires either a float across the Snake River or driving about three miles on somewhat hard to find double track dirt roads.

There is now much more accessible climbing on the crags of Teddy Bear Cove (TBC); which are only a surprising two or three miles from Massacre Rocks.  The area offers *near* roadside climbing and often access is less than a 5 minute approach.  The parking is accessible for normal clearance and 2-wheel drive vehicles.  

Teddy Bear Cove gets its name from the profile of the area as viewed from Google Earth maps.  

Of particular interest should be the winter climbing potential.  TBC has year round access and excellent winter climbing.  Any day the sun is out in the winter, you can climb at TBC.  While Massacre's crags have similar winter climbing, the miles long access roads are significantly drifted in during the winter.  TBC has plowed access that gets you within a couple hundred yards of the crags and often it is possible to drive to the parking at the top of the crags.  Once at the wind protected, sun baked alcoves, there is a micro climate near the brown basalt.  The rock is warm to the touch and the air temp for the climber and belayer can be 30 degrees warmer than on the snowy, exposed prairie at the top of the crags.

Teddy Bear Cove was recently developed and are now home to about 150 sport routes. The rock is similar to Massacre but with a bit more choss due to the porous blocky bands between lava flows. During development loose rock was removed but it is still possible to dislodge blocks especially if you get a little bit off route. The upside to the overlapping lava flows is the rock tends to be steeper and have more roofs than Massacre.   The climbing is characterized as big moves on big holds.

Most of the climbing at Teddy Bear Cove is on Idaho State Land.  This includes the crags: The Nose, Send Town, JR’s Place, Head Wall, Juniper Wall, and the Pit. Power Line Crag and the Sandbox are on BLM land.  More than 150 routes were developed between 2016 and 2020 and most of them were created by the team of Chris Barnes, Vernon Phinney and Mike Engle.  Prior to this recent development, there were only 3 or 4 historic routes in the entire area – probably established in the mid 90’s.

Teddy Bear Cove is a sport climbing area and nearly every route is bolted so that the only gear needed is a rope and draws. All routes are less than 30 meters in height and most routes are outfitted with convenient sport anchors consisting of a steel carabiner and a steel open cold shut.  Nearly all routes have a small name tag on the first bolt with name and approximate grade (watch out for the occassional sandbag).

Feel free to lower off the sport anchor after your send, however if you intend to top rope with a big group please use your own draws.  Several splitter cracks are bolted. If you want to climb trad routes, bring your pro and skip the bolts. Please don’t chop the bolts after your trad ascent.   If you see a new trad line you want to get an FA on, it is strongly recommended to clean the route first as loose blocks to some extent have been present on many of 150+ routes established at TBC.

As a final note: the area has extensive sand dunes (much bigger than anything at the nearby Massacre Rocks).  The scenery is quite beautiful however the dunes are also extremely popular with motorcyclists and ATV’ers.  Weekends in the spring and, to a *somewhat* lesser extent, in the fall can be quite busy with the motorized recreation crowd and at times can feel like you're on the set of the Road Warrior.  If you seek privacy and a low key scene, weekdays and winter is the best time to be at TBC.

CAUTION

Climbing is inherently dangerous. Teddy Bear Cove (TBC) is a new climbing area and some routes have seen very few ascents.  Routes at TBC were engineered to be safe.  Before equipping with fixed hardware, routes were TR'd, bolt placements optimized for safety, and obvious loose rocks (sometimes big blocks) were removed. However, some routes can still be somewhat dirty and/or may have the occassional loose rock, especially if you wander off route (away from the bolts).

While new ½” bomber hardware is installed on every route and obvious loose blocks were removed, it’s possible fixed hardware could fail and rocks or large blocks could dislodge over time and maim or kill the climber or belayer.  Use your own judgement before trusting fixed hardware or hand holds.

Use of helmets by both climber and belayer is strongly encouraged.

Climb at your own risk!!!