The Best Granite Sport Crags in North America?

I feel like shagg crag doesn’t have enough routes and specifically enough routes across the grade ranges to be really counted. Mountain project seems to love to fight over this but if we are making a list, and the list is for the general climbing public it should have good quality 5.9 and 5.10. Also everyone thinks their crags 5.13 is amazing so generally I’m skeptical of how great a crag is if we judge it by hard routes.

I feel like secret crags should be excluded. Listing a secret crag as one of the best places to climb is like saying your mom’s spaghetti is enough to lose yourself in. Like maybe she makes great spaghetti but 99% of the population will not experience it so it’s kinda pointless to include it. Also saying something secret should be included in a list of top 10 kinda defeats the purpose of the secret…

As for Miller river someone has been making awesome trails out there but their fixed lines looked just like normal index climbs to me. Also even if it has the best sport climbs ever, it will have more exacerbated issues of index.

slim wrote:

i haven't heard of much sport climbing in yosemite ;) 

it's hard to compare granite sport areas to limestone/sandstone sport areas, they are typically just so different. in general, for hard sport climbing i think limestone and sandstone are just so much better.  a lot of hard granite climbing boils down to conditions dependent slab climbing.  obviously there are exceptions to this, but it really weeds out a lot of granite areas. i am surprised about squamish area being a world class sport destination. i guess i haven't sport climbed there much, other than the pet wall (which is good but relatively small).

pine creek area is ~ok, but i wouldn't really put it at a world class level. i would definitely say devils head is better than the pine creek area.

shuteye is definitely super sweet, but the drive and approaches are a bit of work (which also probably helps keep the riff raff out). i think it is heads and shoulders above any other granite sport area i have climbed at though.

Re: Squamish. There's a lot more to it than Pet Wall. That's just one small piece. Its pretty spread out, so it takes a while to get a sense of the full scope of what's there. There's a lot of variety, with the old school vert granite at Pet Wall, steep blockiness at Chek, bouldering-esque granite around the Cacademon, and much more. Overall the sport climbing isn't quite world class (the trad is though), but it does now compare favorably to other major western North American sport climbing areas (which are also not quite world class either). It's a fair fight against somewhere like Lander or Smith. But it isn't anywhere close to the Red or Siurana. So its a "Western North American Class" destination. That seem reasonable?

Kinda same story with the Eastern Sierra sport crags, but maybe a step down. I'd agree that Pine Creek doesn't get the major destination category on its own (more like "Good Regional Crag"). But if you let it combine forces with the granite around Mammoth, and also consider the ORG and other volcanic crags nearby (even if that is cheating within the combines of this thread's topic), it's actually a pretty extensive and varied sport climbing area that is worth travelling a long ways for.

The drive has been the big thing putting me off from Shuteye. Can you get up there with a Subaru Outback?

A lot of the crags further down the list I think are in the "Good Regional Crag" class.

Princess Puppy Lovr wrote:

As for Miller river someone has been making awesome trails out there but their fixed lines looked just like normal index climbs to me. Also even if it has the best sport climbs ever, it will have more exacerbated issues of index.

Is there a guide or anything to this Miller River sport climbing area? This post is the first I've heard of it. The pics look cool, though. 

To add to the conversation: I don't think City of Rocks deserves a spot on the "best granite sport crag" list. There's no way I'd show up to the City for a week of climbing with only draws. It's a cool place and well worth the trip. I'd probably even head there for a weekend with only draws, but not often.

Chris Stocking wrote:

Is there a guide or anything to this Miller River sport climbing area? This post is the first I've heard of it. The pics look cool, though. 

If you listen to the nugget climbing podcast either drew or Ben Herrington talk about it or both? Ben Herrington FA’d a route called imagine out there, I think the guy is on something else. Imagine is above king slayer.

What I saw fixed lines on was kinda over by diamond engagement but I don’t know anymore than that, I went on a bush wack to recover in the middle of a bouldering session. There was a fantastic trail that seemed to just end…

My abs deeply hurt for whomever bolted the thing that person is climbing in the picture.

But Chris if your psyched on that photo, skull duggery/blade runner in the exits looks quite similar and there is easier stuff like that picture down past shangri la that needs to get bolted!

John RB wrote:

Because that place is horrible.  Awful.  Terrible.  NO ONE should ever go there. :(

Good point... maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. Well, it's too late now, but I'm still going to delete my post.

JCM wrote:

Is that at Miller, or somewhere else? Has MHL seen more recent development? I visited in like 2015, and is seemed good quality but kind of small, and not the "great savoir of WA sport climbing" it had been hyped as.  It was a pretty neat style though - it felt a lot more like steep granite bouldering feature climbing, rather than typical sport climbing.

Your impression is accurate - small and bouldery with a short season. It's not even a statewide destination. 

I was just curious if you would ID the location of the photo, you seem prolifically travelled.

blakeherrington wrote:

Your impression is accurate - small and bouldery with a short season. It's not even a statewide destination. 

I was just curious if you would ID the location of the photo, you seem prolifically travelled.

I passed the test! For sure an obscure backwoods area, but a pretty nice one. I imagine for Levy locals is a nice resource - adds something different to the Hwy 2 climbing options.

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I edited the ranking list (see first post) based on comments so far, adjusting the order. The stock of Shuteye and Devil's Head is rising. It seems that people like orange patina chickenhead granite (no surprise there). Let me know what you think of the changes, or suggest other changes if you think needed.

Comments so far maybe indicate that Devil's Head is more significant a climbing destination than it gets credit for. Right now it seems like it is mainly seen as a Front Range local crag - perhaps it deserves a bit more recognition as a "Western US Class" destination? Especially for density of sport climbing at the "everyman" 5.10 to low 5.12 grades, and decent summer conditions with altitude and shade options. I haven't climbed there since 2008, so can't comment much on quality; its been too long to remember much. What do you think - is Devil's Head road-trip worthy in its own right?

I hear there’s a few bolts up in Bocan that aren’t chopped yet

JCM wrote:

I edited the ranking list (see first post) based on comments so far, adjusting the order. The stock of Shuteye and Devil's Head is rising. It seems that people like orange patina chickenhead granite (no surprise there). Let me know what you think of the changes, or suggest other changes if you think needed.

Comments so far maybe indicate that Devil's Head is more significant a climbing destination than it gets credit for. Right now it seems like it is mainly seen as a Front Range local crag - perhaps it deserves a bit more recognition as a "Western US Class" destination? Especially for density of sport climbing at the "everyman" 5.10 to low 5.12 grades, and decent summer conditions with altitude and shade options. I haven't climbed there since 2008, so can't comment much on quality; its been too long to remember much. What do you think - is Devil's Head road-trip worthy in its own right?

I climbed a few times at Devils Head and thought the ambience was nice but the climbing was mostly generic and kinda forgettable 5.10-5.12-

It’s not a destination, but the sport climbs at Thunder Ridge are much better on average than at the nearby Devil’s Head. 

blakeherrington wrote:

I climbed a few times at Devils Head and thought the ambience was nice but the climbing was mostly generic and kinda forgettable 5.10-5.12-

It’s not a destination, but the sport climbs at Thunder Ridge are much better on average than at the nearby Devil’s Head. 

Except that Thunder Ridge is like 90% trad. Absolutely not a sport crag. 

Thunder Ridge looks really good, too bad it’s mostly trad. Gear is such a hassle to drag around!

Check out the article at the end of this issue about the Lost World on California's Sonora Pass Highway. Semi-secret in that it's not really on mountain project. And is still actively being developed. But it is well documented in a guidebook, not to mention included in this issue's feature article. 

Lord knows I love Shuteye, but this place definitely gives it a run for its money. Not nearly as vast as Shuteye, but more stacked than anything there. An impressive and concentrated collection of some of the most epic granite sport climbing I've ever seen. The rock is a mixture of everything awesome about granite face features. 

https://issuu.com/agrphoto/docs/cc18_fall16_master_1a_web?workerAddress=ec2-54-196-212-51.compute-1.amazonaws.com

One could definitely take a sport climbing trip to the Valley and be stoked. And then there's Tuolumne. Though maybe not on the easy side.

Brian Prince wrote:

Semi-secret in that it's not really on mountain project. And is still actively being developed. But it is well documented in a guidebook, not to mention included in this issue's feature article.

Secret is when only the developer and a few friends are given info.
Not yet widely known is when the local developers freely share their new routes with the local community and word slowly gets around to visitors.

Well documented in a guidebook is not secret at all. MP has not much business in the equation except as developers put their own info in, or let it be known they don’t mind. 

If there was a place with better rock than Devil’s Head within 3 hours of Denver I would’ve spent the last 30 years putting up routes there instead, but there isn’t. The rock at DH is pretty much the same as Thunder Ridge and Staunton, but there’s way more of it at DH. Staunton is growing, but will be limited by the process of getting new crags opened. The rock at DH has a lot of variety from patina plated faces, to huecos, some cracks and a few slabs. DH doesn’t have a lot of really steep stuff like the Red or Rifle, but few granite crags do. In my opinion DH is the best granite sport climbing in the US, no question, but I’m prolly not completely unbiased. I would like to check out Shuteye once the area recovers from the fire. 

I think you would really like it. It has a lot of similarities with devils head. Probably the most shocking thing about it is how few routes there are on a lot of the features.

City of rocks is amazing unfortunately the best hard crag The Dolphin is closed. But man there are good .10 everywhere. Miller high life is a great spot. Small but what is there is sweet feature climbing. Newhalem is so good but unfortunately has access issues and is  gneiss not sure if that "qualifys". Index is good but besides a handful of the steeper lines most things there are average imo. Squamish is a mecca. Hueco tanks has real good rope lines too. Shuteye is fire. And Yosemite is well Yosemite.

JCM, I'm not sure Shuteye should be ranked so high on your list because it's hard to get to most of the crags unless you have a real 4WD - high clearance vehicle.  Subies and the like don't cut it for most as far as I can tell.  If I'm wrong, I'm happy to hear it but that was the advice I got from my local friend in North Fork about 7 years ago.  Has this changed?  I did think the stuff I was able to access from the Big Sleep area, which is Subie accessible,  was gorgeous.

Surprised that there's not more mention of Yosemite/Tuolumne/Tioga/Mammoth Lakes. Camp near Lee Vining and you get Tuolumne/Tioga/Mammoth all within 45min-1hr, camp in the Park and get Yosemite Valley/Tuolumne/Tioga within a short to short-ish drive (depending on which campground). Admittedly the Valley is pretty limited under 5.11, and many routes are early sport era bolt spacing (just like early sport routes all over the country), but there's many hundreds of sport routes, variety, plus the scenery! Also Bishop is very close.

There are some hidden bay area granite crags that blow Squamish/Shuteye out of the water. 

Ranking list updated again. Shuteye drops to #4 based on difficulty of access. This is IMO a relevant consideration.