Joshua Tree climbs for sissies?

So my wife and I are camping in joshua tree over MLK weekend (black rock campground) with our 3-month-old baby. Our primary plan is to hike around, camp, and have fun; but we are novice climbers (5.7 gym, 5.6-mmmaybe5.7 outdoors) and we brought equipment for toprope climbing. No nuts or cams, just slings and some decent lengths of webbing. If the baby is content to sleep in his carseat and we can set him down in a super-safe area right by us, we are hoping to try to climb just a few routes. So, we are looking for routes:

- with pretty tame difficulty levels (5.5-5.7)
- with incredibly short approaches
- with class 2-5.4 routes to the top to set a TR anchor
- with the potential to set TR anchors at the top without trad pro (bolts at the top, or something to sling webbing / slings on)
- with safe terrain at the bottom for a sleeping baby

Does anyone have any suggestions? If we don't find anything that fits the bill we won't be too disappointed, but we live in the midwest and jtree apparently has a lot of routes, so we wanted to give it a shot while we're here :)

It's tough to find routes that have bolted anchors in the park.
Look at Jaimes Rock for some possible options. I'm not sure on a lot of the TR options but it looks like some of the easier climbs have bolted anchors/ slung rocks at the top.
Good luck! It might be difficult with a new baby.

Indian cove campground > Short wall right.
Look at that area. You'd need a lot of webbing or rope to set up the TR but totally feasible. Fun climbing, lots of grades, parking IMMEDIATELY next to the routes and all of the area around the climbs is completely flat so if the little tike was inclined to roll around....so be it. The tops of the cliff are clean granite so rock fall wouldn't be a huge concern, and you can quickly walk around the backside to set up TR. more than likely there will be others sympathetic and understanding to your situation and if you've got a TR up that can be used for 2 or 3 routes, you can likely share and jump on a neighbors line to get more mileage. Kids and crags aren't generally a good mix but that's already been discussed in a few of the other forums.
Cheers.

Thanks for the tips! We've spent the last couple of days in Zion so at least we know that we'll be able to enjoy ourselves hiking regardless :)

Can anyone point to any "kids & crags" threads so we can inform ourselves?

If you go to Indian Cove also check out Morbid Mound, 3 minute walk from your car, easy walk up the back, sling some of the large rocks on the top & and have fun.

Just about everything in this area:
mountainproject.com/v/atlan…
You can walk to the top of the wall, and with long slings set top rope. There is so often people/crowds that the chance of jumping on set lines is pretty high. Good shade. Not a long approach by JT standards, maybe 10 easy minutes. Good trail. And fun, for the grade, lines.
Things like
mountainproject.com/v/solar…

Andi sent you a PM....Have fun!

Jeff

Icebox? The valley is an icebox; from here JT looks absolutely balmy!
HA!
But yeah, might be cold for a 3m old....

What about TRASHCAN ROCK ?

-A good selection of easy routes
-0 minute approach
-Easy top access
-The west face bakes in the sun
-Good terrain for the baby, in fact there are picnic tables

The only thing I can't remember is if you could set up TR anchors with only webbing (no bolted anchor I can recall). If my memory serves me right the terrain seems suited to it, but I've never been up there with eyes for that. Can someone chime in?

At any rate, it would be easy to go investigate, and not a bad place to hang out and have lunch (if you don't mind sharing the area). Who knows, you could probably ride someone else's top rope there if all else fails. I've often seen large family groups there having casual outings, with multiple top ropes up.

Thin wall has easily accessible bolted topropes.

If your climbing 5.7 in the gym, a 5.6 or 5.7 at jtree is going to be a real surprise
Have fun!

Thin wall only has bolted toprope anchors for a 10.a and (2)10.d's. In general, Joshua Tree is not a place that has many bolted anchors. If all you have is webbing and draws and you don't want to lead climb and you're climbing 5.7's in the gym, you're probably not going to get on many climbs.

Locker wrote:There are no bolted anchors on top of Trashcan Rock.

Just as I suspected. I was hoping someone would be able to tell the OP if there were features up top to wrap with webbing to build a TR anchor. Locker, do you know if there are? Thanks

Jon Hartmann wrote:Thin wall only has bolted toprope anchors for a 10.a and (2)10.d's. In general, Joshua Tree is not a place that has many bolted anchors. If all you have is webbing and draws and you don't want to lead climb and you're climbing 5.7's in the gym, you're probably not going to get on many climbs.

If you set up the anchor bolts on "count on your fingers" you can tr all but the last three feet at something like 5.6/7. But yes, jtree has limited options for 5.7 gym climbers.

Edit to add: on the right day, with a simple hello and a smile you can probably catch a lap on some else's trad tr at the thin wall.

Hodgepodge Rock in Indian Cove.

I'd say that Thin Wall is too far from the car for your purposes.

So we had lots of fun camping and sight-seeing, and I even did a random scramble that might have been 5.4 or 5.5 up Cap Rock and down some boulders on the other side. However, we never did do anything roped. It came down to baby wanting to be held most of the time that we weren't driving around in the car with him in the carseat :)

Thanks for all the advise though, we actually had dinner at Trashcan and breakfast at Short Wall and scrambled around a little bit at both locations and had a lot of fun. Maybe we'll be back another time under different circumstances and do some real climbs at those locations!

If anybody is ever in the midwest, if you like JT, be sure to check out the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma, it's pretty similar, just not nearly as vast, "only" about 300-400 routes...

-Jared

Glad you had fun. I thought that a 3 mo. old might be a little tricky, though I have seen folks with portable play pens to deal with that situation. Almost need a third person along. It gets easier though. I made it out there on Sat. with my 9 and 12 yr. old and a couple of their friends and had a blast. Great day. Pretty sunny and surprisingly not very crowded, which is always a pleasant surprise.

We've got 5 other kids we left with grandma this trip and they're all pretty great at climbing although they're a little bored of it from over-exposure :)

We weren't the ones looking for Pixie Rock, but if you saw anybody walking around with a baby in an adorable bear suit, that was us!

If you are willing to walk 10 minutes on an easy path - go here

mountainproject.com/v/west-…

there re two bolts at the top of every climb and they can be top roped with long slings and its a pretty easy 3rd/4th? class access to set them up.

though check the sun/season as we were there over new years and the rock was freezing in the shade in the afternoon.

Shelton Hatfield wrote: Just as I suspected. I was hoping someone would be able to tell the OP if there were features up top to wrap with webbing to build a TR anchor. Locker, do you know if there are? Thanks

it is a sketchy 4th class "jump" to access the top of trashcan and certainly no "plug and play" anchor areas for slings.. . not recommended in this case.

When did that happen? A few years ago...ok maybe it was 8-10, there were none on top.