Natural Bridge Climbing

The Natural Bridge of Warm Springs Creek is a little-known wonder that offers incredible winter climbing in a secluded and beautiful location. The creek cuts a long tunnel through soft Madison limestone. Geothermal activity keeps warm groundwater flowing year round, making incredible travertine flowstone deposits on the walls of the tunnel, and keeping ice formation as reliable as it gets each winter. A logging flume was built in the canyon in 1928 to transport wood out of the Winds. https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/warm-spring-canyon-tie-flume

As for the climbing: This area is pretty unique for the region in that it features steep, 3-dimensional bolt-protected mixed climbing that is so thoroughly iced that you may climb through big overhangs without touching rock at all if conditions allow. There is pure ice, vertical mixed, and extended modern roof climbs with ice to start, ice in the roof, and ice daggers to finish. Grades range from top-ropeable WI3 to open projects on 60-80 foot roofs. People have climbed pure ice here for a couple of decades, but much of the sport mixed climbing was developed in the 2015-2016 seasons.

It's possible to get extremely wet, and then extremely cold here. Always have an extra change of warm clothes, extra socks, belay jacket, etc. Warm springs creek never freezes over, even in record cold spells, and many of the routes require some wading to get from wall to wall. Waders are reccomended to get around, though if you get lucky you can often stay dry rock-hopping across the creek. This is not a typical cragging experience, come prepared for anything. While the warmer pools are nice enough to bathe in, they don't quite qualify as hot springs (maybe 80-90 degrees at the warmest?)

The warm, mineral laden ground water creates some beautiful and delicate flowstone formations. Take care around these fragile features. It seeps pretty much all the time, and as such, probably doesn't offer much rock climbing potential. If something does seem to offer rock climbing potential, it is my feeling that it takes precedence over mixed climbing on a given route, being a less destructive activity. This could be the only real tufa climbing I've seen in Wyoming, IF it ever dries out, IF they're solid enough, and IF you don't mind starting routes in a running creek and belaying in waders. With that many ifs, it's probably not worth the time of rock climbers, but you never know, some people are pretty bored these days.

Take care with all bolts, this may be a pretty corrosive environment. Although we've used entirely stainless hardware, it may still experience rusting, and the rock itself is often of dubious quality. This should be obvious, but use a helmet. Overhead hazard is VERY serious, even if you're just there to hike through the tunnel. If you have a stick clip, take a moment to clear threatening hanging ice from an area to belay and tie in. Warm groundwater means that the hanging ice will often form, but isn't always well attatched. place the belay carefully, even for what seems like a straightforward sport pitch, you want to watch for overhead hazard and maybe even build an anchor. Features are diverse and always reveal themselves, every single route is all natural (to the extent that climbing with steel on soft rock is natural), don't manufacture. The rock is usually soft, with quality ranging from total porcelain to total chalk, so the established style is sport mixed. Even in a straightforward crack, of which there are basically none here, you wouldn't want to trust trad gear to hold any serious falls. 

All the steep routes were established in French DTS (no figure 4s/9s). There are ample footholds, it's more fun to use them! Modern dry tooling is an absurd sport anyway, might as well make the movement varied and challenging, but as always do whatever you want up there, as long as it's not destructive.

This is a special area: it's enjoyed and visited by many, not just climbers. Take care of it, practice LNT ethics as you would anywhere else in the winds.

Dubois local Josh Wagner first shared the potential of the area for ice and mixed climbing. Local and regional climbers kept it somewhat of a secret, mostly to protect access. Guides have regularly taken people here to toprope ice, but the mixed climbing hasn't really caught on beyond a few seasons of activity by a small dedicated crew of locals and semi locals. The approach and crag are on public land, and after discussing with others we'd like to share info.

Will update with more info soon.