Harmonica Dome Rock Climbing

Per Steve Crusher Bartlett:


I think we called that formation Arch Dome. My wife Fran and I actually climbed a long water streak that's on the far right [side of the dome]. We began somewhere under the large tree. There's an overlap that angles up and left. Our route followed a deep water streak that ascends just left of the far left end of this overlap. It is pretty easy climbing, super high quality, maybe 5.9-ish but very runout (called it "Joey's Nervous"). I have a note that I free-soloed a 5.7 called ‘Mysterious Today’ on the same formation. I have no idea where Mysterious Today is located, nor anything about it. I was poor, I have few photos from back then...and few notes.

I was about done at this time with first ascents in the South Platte and began pivoting to spending more time with desert trips. Strappo did a lot more exploring around there. Strappo and Noel Childs did a route on Arch Dome they called Lunatic Minge. This was very high quality. They may well have climbed, or attempted, other things there.

After Crusher & Co. explored the area, I suspect Harmonica Dome sat mostly dormant from a climbing perspective for 30+ years until A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines was put up in 2023. That wild route finds an unlikely way to climb the horizontal AND the vertical dikes that cross the dome's SW face. The challenge of "Madman" is how to reach those obvious features. One old lead bolt and 2 anchor bolts indicate an early direct attempt up the intro slab, but the climbing above the old bolts is either heinously hard tic-tac climbing on featureless granite (maybe Dawn-Wall hard?) or 5.impossible.

Fifty yards right of center, past a huge roof, is an incredible 165’ overhanging dihedral, topping out on a large perched boulder. I was not the first to attempt this dihedral crack either. About 40’ up, there is an old tricam - perhaps a bail piece? On my onsight attempt of that crack, I didn’t even make it to the tricam before the painfully sharp jams, mossy crack, bush navigation, and suspect rock deterred me, and I bailed from a sling around an unnerving chockstone. I later toproped the entire crack, and while it certainly “goes”, the sketch factor is far too high for my taste. It’s unfortunate, because it’s a striking line, but I don’t think the dangers justify it as a quality climb. I would love for someone to come prove me wrong though.

With the direct start and the dihedral out of the picture, an alternate way to access ”Madman” follows a much tamer (and still great!) crack a hundred feet to the right of the dihedral, which I suspect is also the start of "Joey's Nervous". Then an unintuitive traverse & downclimb grant access to the improbable dike traverse, the "bullseye", and one of the best pitches of 5.10 climbing I’ve ever done.