Best sport crag/area in the US

Yeah trad crags are cool but us gumby sport climbers need a place to spray too. I put crag and area cause sometimes you have places like the utterly classic exit 38 in WA in which most individual crags have less than 15 routes and it's kinda hard to call that the ultimate. So an area has one parking lot as in you can walk to all the separate crags, more or less, and a crag is one piece of rock. Also I mostly want to hear about the US since the Verdon gorge or the entirety of Spain might take it over and no one cares about Europe.

And don't forget that choss is classic so that opens up a lot of climbing for consideration.

Red river gorge, not even a question

Southeast. Red River gorge, new river gorge, obed.

Just here to watch the sandstone vs limestone fireworks ...

The Red River Gorge.

Daniel Chode Rider wrote:

So an area has one parking lot as in you can walk to all the separate crags, more or less, and a crag is one piece of rock.

This is a fairly strict definition for "Area", and would exclude consideration of the Red River Gorge in its entirety as an area. You can easily have 30 minutes drives between the different "Areas" within the broader RRG...region? If definition "Area" as above, then PMRP, Muir Valley, etc. would each be its own district area. Since one would not park at Muir Valley then walk 13 miles to the Motherlode. Similarly, at NRG, Endless Wall and Summersville would be considered separately. 

So, either the definition should get broadened up for the thread, or discussion should follow the stated definition. There is the question of how long one might walk from that parking spot.

If we roll with the "park in one spot" definition and are walking no more than 1 hour (this is sport climbing, after all), then a reasonable list might include:

Endless Wall (NRG)

Smith (whole area is easily accessible from one parking lot)

PMRP (RRG)

Rifle (park at the Bauhaus and walk, you lazy bum)

Rumney (whole area is easily accessible from one parking lot)

Mondo Beyondo zone & Nearby Crags (Tensleep)

If I have to be able to get to the crags from the same parking lot, Devil's Head may legitimately be in contention. You have almost 2000 routes within walking distance, stretching up to 10 pitches long, and many of them on bulletproof granite. And it's generally not a shitshow (as long as you're not climbing at the jungle).

JCM wrote:

This is a fairly strict definition for "Area", and would exclude consideration of the Red River Gorge in its entirety as an area. You can easily have 30 minutes drives between the different "Areas" within the broader RRG...region? If definition "Area" as above, then PMRP, Muir Valley, etc. would each be its own district area. Since one would not park at Muir Valley then walk 13 miles to the Motherlode. Similarly, at NRG, Endless Wall and Summersville would be considered separately. 

So, either the definition should get broadened up for the thread, or discussion should follow the stated definition. There is the question of how long one might walk from that parking spot.

Hmm I don't know. I was thinking of that rule because otherwise the area definition could be really large, like 'the area surrounding Boulder.' But the RRG is a gorge surrounding the red river, right? So that's obviously one geographical area. And I wasn't thinking like 'only one parking spot' Cause that could put weird limitations. 

I guess I wanted to hear more about crags than areas because obviously rumney, RRG, ORG, Smith rock etc will be on the list but I'm wonderin what you would consider the ultimate single chunk of rock for sport climbing. Especially where you might have a cave with 4 star 5.13s and next to the cave are six 1.5 star slab routes. I want something that has good moderate and hard routes on it. Which is a tall order but I know it's out there.

Daniel Chode Rider wrote:

Hmm I don't know. I was thinking of that rule because otherwise the area definition could be really large, like 'the area surrounding Boulder.' But the RRG is a gorge surrounding the red river, right? So that's obviously one geographical area. And I wasn't thinking like 'only one parking spot' Cause that could put weird limitations. 

I guess I wanted to hear more about crags than areas because obviously rumney, RRG, ORG, Smith rock etc will be on the list but I'm wonderin what you would consider the ultimate single chunk of rock for sport climbing. Especially where you might have a cave with 4 star 5.13s and next to the cave are six 1.5 star slab routes. I want something that has good moderate and hard routes on it. Which is a tall order but I know it's out there.

Ok I'm confused now. Question is about best individual crag/cliff then? If so, in the US its gotta be Endless Wall (NRG), in terms of quantity and quality of routes on a single continuous cliff line. For world, probably Ceuse.

Endless Wall is a fantastic crag, but is it really a sport crag? I think of it as a mostly trad crag with some sport routes. In the New area, Orange Oswald and  some other areas are much more sport crags than Endless. 

One US area not yet mentioned is Shelf Road, though possibly not in the same class as the Red or Smith.

Worldwide, at least of the places that I've been to, Ceuse definitely 'wins'.

Alan Rubin wrote:

Endless Wall is a fantastic crag, but is it really a sport crag? I think of it as a mostly trad crag with some sport routes. In the New area, Orange Oswald and  some other areas are much more sport crags than Endless. 

One US area not yet mentioned is Shelf Road, though possibly not in the same class as the Red or Smith.

Worldwide, at least of the places that I've been to, Ceuse definitely 'wins'.

No problem: Endless is a mostly trad crag that also happens to be the best sport crag in the US. Somehow allowing Endless feels unfair though...

Waimea @ Rumney is super inspiring but maybe fails the "has good moderates" criterion? Only one 5.10 and one 5.11 (there are technically more but they don't get climbed often.) On the other hand the 10 and 11 are both strong candidates for best of their grade at Rumney.

David Y wrote:

No problem: Endless is a mostly trad crag that also happens to be the best sport crag in the US. Somehow allowing Endless feels unfair though...

Waimea @ Rumney is super inspiring but maybe fails the "has good moderates" criterion? Only one 5.10 and one 5.11 (there are technically more but they don't get climbed often.) On the other hand the 10 and 11 are both strong candidates for best of their grade at Rumney.

Fair enough re: Endless. Both in terms of not being a purely-sport area, and also being a bit unfair for just being such a long cliffline. It is hard for a typical-size crag (no matter how good) to stack up against 3 miles of cliffline. A more fair comparison could maybe be made by choosing individual sectors at Endless.

The "has good moderates" criteria is interesting. Somewhere like the Motherlode is amazing, and is a top cliff for the 5.12 and up climber, but a pretty wide swath of climbers gets excluded from being able to climb much there. A cliff with amazing climbs at a wide range of grades - that is a cool and somewhat unique thing. There are some good examples though:

An option to  consider: the Main Wall at Sinks.Large quanity of routes, and grades from 5-easy to 5.14+. Climable 300 days a year is a big plus also. While the indiviual route quality might not be as amazing as some other cliffs, the density of routes, variety of grades, and very long season make up for it. If I had to choose one sport crag to climb at exclusively for the next 5 years, Sinks Main Wall might be it.

For Rumney, I'd actually maybe vote for Main Cliff (including Venus Wall, etc) over Waimea. Although Waimea is definitely the stacked hard crag, Main Cliff is awesome for the range of grades available. Good routes across a very wide spectrum - literaly 5.3 to 5.14 in a dense area.

The Dihedrals at Smith is also very diverse in grades, from Cinnamon Slab to To Bolt or Not to Be, and stacked with classic (heinous) routes. Really, the main front face at Smith is pretty close to being a contiguous cliffline, and it one could make the argument that it is all one crag. If making this argument, that would be hard to beat in the US.

If we allow the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) instead of USA, then I'd have to argue for El Potrero Chico, especially by the "one parking lot".  It is a narrow canyon, with several slot canyons branching off it, leaving an absolutely amazing amount of climbing within 0 minutes  (you can belay the 9-pitch, 5.10d Black Cat Bone from the back seat of your car), 2 minutes(Space Boyz, 11 pitches, 5.10d; Yankee Clipper, 13 pitches, 5.10b), or 10 minutes from your car.  You can change from a north-facing wall to a south-facing one, or the other way, to find or avoid the sun or wind in 20 minutes (or less).    

I don't know of anywhere else, and I really mean anywhere else in the world, with the absolute concentration of sport-climbing that is just so utterly close to the parking -- or the many places to camp or stay.

Now, what I would say is EPC's main weakness is a selection of climbs at the low end (e.g. below 5.8) and the high end (above 5.13).

The Red has the best density of amazing single pitch climbing in the country.  It's also got some of the least cooperative weather in the country, so your opportunity to enjoy all the goodness can be pretty limited.

Sure, a lot of rock stays dry in the rain.  Unfortunately the transition from "cold and dank" to "hot and sweaty" can happen in about a 2 week span.  You get used to looking at the walls and seeing from 200 feet away that they're unclimbable due to condensation based on how well the chalk shows.  

North Table Mountain. No question!

In terms of areas the RRG and the NRG are the only choices and its not even close. If you include all of Chattanooga‘s surrounding areas (chatt steel) then that would be up there too; but when compared, Smith lacks the diversity (you can’t easily find a large grade range and/or steepness at the same wall). I am a little surprised nobody said Red Rocks. I don’t think it’s the best, but worthy of a conversation given the multi-pitch and quantity. Ten Sleep and Wild Iris are also in my top 5. 

In terms of the “one parking lot“ rule then Smith and Rifle are back in the picture, as is Rumey and Shelf. 

Just my opinion, based on the places I have spent time. 

Daniel Chode Rider wrote:

Hmm I don't know. I was thinking of that rule because otherwise the area definition could be really large, like 'the area surrounding Boulder.' 

Even if you were to allow the "area surrounding Boulder", it still wouldn't qualify for this list.

Y’all can have the Red. Went once, not in a rush to go back. New is so much better. Fight me.

Will Maness wrote:

Y’all can have the Red. Went once, not in a rush to go back. New is so much better. Fight me.

You're not supposed to tell people that! There is a reason the New doesn't have a bunch of jabronis running around shitting at the base of walls....

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

You're not supposed to tell people that! There is a reason the New doesn't have a bunch of jabronis running around shitting at the base of walls....

I'll have you know I'm a jabroni and I've shit near the base of the wall in the New.  

Brennan VanDyke wrote:

I'll have you know I'm a jabroni and I've shit near the base of the wall in the New.  

yet...