Continue with onX Maps
Sign in with Facebook
The Best Granite Sport Crags in North America?
|
Granite sport climbing in North America is a bit of a red headed stepchild. When naming top North America sport crags, the list is dominated by sandstone, limestone, and tuff. And when naming the top granite areas, its generally trad climbing areas (and bouldering) that come to mind. While it is true that in many cases granite is more suited to crack and slab climbing than steep featured sport climbing, when granite does form in a way to support good sport climbing it can be remarkably good. So perhaps granite sport climbing deserves a bit more recognition. So, what do you think the best granite sport climbing destinations are in North America? Tentative ranking list based on comments is shown below; will edit as votes accumulate. 1. Greater Squamish (Murrin, Squamish, Paradise Valley, Chek) 2. Devils Head 3. Pine Creek + Mammoth Lakes Area (Seemed reasonable to lump these) 4. Shuteye Ridge 5. Mt Lemmon 6. City of Rocks (+Castle Rock) 7. North Tahoe (Donner / Emeralds / Bowman) 8. Independence Pass 9. Mysterious San Diego Crags 10. Shagg Crag A few considerations: - Limiting list to North America so we don't get wrapped up in distinguishing between a bunch of Norwegian place names. - Can be a bit loose with the definition of "granite" to be inclusive of granodiorite, quartz monzonite, granitic gneiss, etc. Anything that is essentially granite from a climbers perspective, even if it isn't strictly granite from a geologists perspective. - While the area doesn't have to be all sport climbing (many spots have a mix of sport and trad), there should be a sufficient density and quantity of sport climbing that you could go for a trip there with only quickdraws and rope, and still have plenty to do. - Defining sport climbing along the line of typical modern sport climbing development (fully bolted to a "safe" level, focus of technical and physical difficulty, etc). Old-skool slab climbing is its own thing, even if it is bolt protected. - Some subjective judgement calls about when to lump vs. split nearby areas. Standard used here is that if it would be reasonable to go on a trip to the area, camp in one location, and flip flop between crags, it is reasonable to lump them. So you could go to Squamish and easily alternate days between Murrin and Chek, for example. |
|
Nobody wants to spill their secrets... Actually, I haven't sport climbed much on granite but the Tetons have some great crags I've been to. Some of the stuff in Yosemite is rad too. I also hear Colorado is okay. Now that I think of it... I'm excited for someone to say "Index" so everyone who doesn't know can get their panties in a bunch. |
|
Independence Pass |
  One of the only photos that exist, The Hammerhead Roof, 5.11, one of over 100 pitches on insanely featured and cast iron solid, fine grained granite, up to 200 ft A few 5.10 pitches, 75% 5.11, 20% 5.12, a few 13’s Aesthetics are off the chart, with a seasonal river, immense boulders, and giant trees just below the crags. Most routes are north or east facing and average vertical with roofs, or overhanging, a dozen overhang 10 to 15 ft in less than 100. |
|
How "granitic" does it have to be to qualify? Obviously the Valley is; what about Skaha? I vote Chek in Squamish. I believe it's granitic enough. Also Murrin Provincial Park. In the States, I will not type in the "I" word, but ya know.... |
|
Re: lumping areas together. I think its totally legit to lump City of Rocks + Castle Rock as one area. Same with Chek/Squamish/Murring sport crags. They're so close together that they are essentially one destination (closer together than different sections of the Red River Gorge, for example). Re: San Diego: If it isn't publicly known/accessible it doesn't count. At least show some photos of this mysterious super-crag. What's it like? Grade range, angle, etc? [Edit: Awesome pics for the San Diego crag! You have successfully defended San Diego's honor] Re: "Granitic Enough". Chek is IMO granitic enough to count. Its granitic gneiss - basically just lightly metamorphosed granite. Plus by virtue of being lumped with the rest of Squamish is just gets pulled in as a part of that granitic sport climbing region. Skaha, on the other hand, is way more heavily metamorphosed. Not even even sure what the parent rock is. Whatever it started as, it doesn't really look or feel like granite and probably shouldn't count here. Awesome crag though. What is the rock on Mt Lemmon? Granite? Metamorphic? Should it be considered here? Index - Is this whole thread just trying to start an argument about Index? Maybe... --- Notable granite sport crags that come to mind for me: Squamish/Chek; City of Rocks (+ Castle Rock), Pine Creek (Bishop), Indy Pass, Poudre, Devils Head, Rushmore, North Tahoe Crags (Emeralds/Bowman/Donner), others...? How do these rank comparatively though? Which one's qualify as major destinations that could rival the big limestone or sandstone sport destinations? |
|
I'm mostly familiar with CA and nearby. 1. Pine Creek, Bishop - From 5.6 to 5.14, Pine Creek has you covered. Hundreds of routes with easy approaches. 2. Mammoth Lakes area - If you include all the areas covered in the Mammoth Lakes guidebook, there is a lot of excellent granite sport. This includes stuff from Tioga Wall, everything around Mammoth Lakes, like Dike Wall and the base of Crystal Crag, all the very nice individual crags in Rock Creek, and other scattered smaller walls. All of this can easily be considered one destination because if you are based in the town of Mammoth Lakes, it's less than an hour to get to the parking of whatever wall you want. 3. City of Rocks/Castle Crag Excellent rock at all these places. Edited to say, maybe City/Castle wouldn't rank as an international destination simply because it's harder to get to and the local amenities are more limited. But the combo of Bishop/Mammoth allows huge flexibility in terms of weather flexibility, and there are tons of options for camping , hotels or air bnbs in the area. |
|
Shagg Crag, Maine. Overhanging Granite jugs! |
|
Prime Rib, 5.12 at Eagle Peak   Are those fulgurites?!  Eagle Peak in San Diego County, Soy Chango, 5.11, 3 pitches. EP hosts around 250 sport pitches, with routes up to 500 ft, few 5.9 & 5.10 pitches, 75% 5.11, 15% 5.12, some 13’s. Average rock quality is excellent, lots of steep slab, vertical face, a few outstanding crack pitches, 10 - 15 overhanging pitches  |
|
Rumney, if schist counts. |
|
If Squamish/Chek/Murrin/Paradise Valley get lumped together, its hard to think of anything that could compare. |
TaylorPwrote: I second that |
|
I think Shuteye could make it on the list. |
|
Devil’s Head, Colorado. 1500 routes on 130 Crags bolted properly not like the botch jobs at City of Rocks. |
Parachute Adamswrote: Specifically Wild Rock. |
|
Kevin- Great pictures for the San Diego areas! I'm convinced. That last picture of Eagle Peak is cool. Mikey- Seems like Shuteye should be on the list. I haven't been there though, so cant judge directly. Rock looks amazing. What's the quantity/density of sport climbing at Shuteye. Is there enough sport climbing density that someone could go for a week+ with just draws, and not feel limited? To me that's the minimum metric to be a sport destination. My thought is that somewhere like Pine Creek meets this metric easily (entire walls with high density of quality sport climbs). As do the Squamish sport crags in Murrin/Chek/etc. Etc. I'm not sure Index meets this metric though. There are some outstanding bolted pitches, but it'd feel pretty limiting to spend a trip there without trad gear. It could be done, but would take a lot of planning. Especially in terms of bolted warmups. So despite the quality of some of the bolted climbing I couldn't recommend that someone plan to go to Index for a pure sport climbing trip. But I'd be totally comfortable making that recommendation for Squamish - you could easily spend an entire summer exclusively sport climbing there without feeling limited. ------ Put into original post an initial ranking list based on comments so far. Some subjective judgement calls about when to lump vs. split nearby areas. Thoughts on list and the ranking order? Areas to add or remove? Changes to ranking order? What about somewhere like the Poudre - where does that fit on the list? Do we stoop so low as to add BoCan? |
|
I think great climbing is hard to compare to other great climbing. There are so many variables in the mix - personal taste, average weather, setting, popularity - “the best” is really impossible to assign to one venue Good thread tho, I’ve already seen a bunch of areas I didn’t know about. I realize I’m biased here in San Diego, but it has evolved hugely in the last 20 years, and there is an awesome collection of sport routes in the 5.10 - 5.12 range, not so much harder than that, but there is potential, all granite, nearly all high quality |
|
The Orifice on Mt. Lemmon. Could be lumped in with the rest of the Lemmon summit crags. |
|
Sandias have some solid hard sport routes Definitely mt lemmon |
|
The Sport Climbing Forum is dead.. Post it in General Climbing. I get it. One vote for The City 'cause it's close by and therefore the greatest. |
