Whilst Las Vegas is famed for Red Rocks, and Southern Utah for Moab and Indian Creek, between these two sandstone Meccas lies a tremendous wealth of less well-known climbing – and it’s LIMESTONE. Development has been relatively recent, but explosive, with the excellent 2021 guidebook Mojave Limestone already being out-paced by new routes.
The western extremity is the high climbing around Mt Charleston and Potosi, which we dipped into at the start of the trip, with Vegas temps in the mid 40s Centigrade.
Now they’re down dipping into the 40s Fahrenheit, so we’re after low-lying and south-facing options, and Suburban Crag on Lone Mountain fitted the bill for an afternoon hit after the drive from New Jack City. A quite impressive series of crags…
… in an extremely urban setting – the Strip looming in the distance and the sprawl of development encroaching almost to the foot of the crag.
Fun climbing, especially if Chert is your thing. Fans of Intake Quarry would love it here!
Here is Helen on Cactus in the Face, 5.9
I really enjoyed In the Spotlight, 11a, too. I suspect we’ll be back to sample some of the neighbouring sectors at the end of the trip.
Heading east, beyond Vegas and Mesquite, the Utah Hills is the complete opposite experience – you are way out in the boondocks! Sunset Alley must have taken a bit of finding, tucked away at the foot of a dry watercourse. It isn’t even that obvious with the guidebook so here’s a track (though the GPS coordinates of the start of the path are spot on).
You can save a few hundred metres with a 4×4 but it’s barely worth it.
A very well made path winds down until, somewhat relieved, you suddenly find yourself at the crag. The Blank Cave was still seeing some sun, so we took full advantage with D’zard, 5.9,
Oh Yeah, 5.10a…
… and Hell Yeah, a 10+/11- extension.
Across the other side of the valley, it looked quite chilly but really cool, so we swapped sides. There were a few strong teams in situ – friendly but also fairly noisy, but the most notable feature was that they were all wearing down padded leggings. Clearly these folks knew the crag and had come prepared. It was freezing, especially with a stiff breeze blowing.
I just about made it up the well-named Super Fun, 11a, with ice-cubes for fingers. Absolutely brilliant, sustained climbing on designer holds. One to come back for (preferably with puffy trousers!) with Sunset Lanes, 11d, and Three Pump Chump, 12a, on the to do list…
The Sunset Alley name makes sense as the end of the day draws in, with the spectacular vista of Red Mountain lit up by the setting sun (Blank Cave visible on the left of the valley)…
A bit lower, and also accessed off the old US highway 91, the Woodbury Road Crags offer a selection of three options with different orientations and characters. Bill and I had made a brief visit to Black and Tans Wall on the way to the airport on the final day of our Zion trip and I left a “note to future self” in the blog to say “may not be doable in a 25ft RV”. I’m delighted to say I was wrong, and we enjoyed a couple of days exploring the other two.
Kelly’s Rock is one (shady) side of an ancient stream bed,
and the water-smoothed rock is compensated by some highly featured runnels, like The Awakening, 5.9
I got a rude awakening on the nearby K-5, tough for 10b and mildly harrowing. Hubris, 11a, was much more to my liking.
Solstice is a complete contrast – bang on South facing and composed of a slightly hollow Chert-rich conglomerate. The friendly bolting makes up (somewhat!) for the suspect rock, and some interesting route names for added weirdness: Behind the Beige Vinyl Curtain, 10a, Catch 22, 10a, and Eve’s Testicle, 11a…
View down to the van parking / camping spot…
Most of the crags described so far would hold their own in Spain or Greece, getting a two or three karabiners rating (out of six) on the international gold standard Desnivel scale (Sunset Alley probably four).
Lime Kiln Canyon, a.k.a. The Grail, on the other hand, is a full on Destination Crag – worth a five at least! It does present a couple of issues though: as well as being largely north facing, it’s at the end of ten miles of dirt road (not a deal-breaker, if you are prepared to grit your teeth), however the last couple of miles are recommended for high-clearance 4wd vehicles only. It sounded so good that we decided to give it a whirl…
Before we even got to the tricky bit, we picked up a young Canadian couple, aspirant hitchhikers and would be climbers, who’d abandoned their SUV as its dashboard warning lights were having apoplexy.
It has to be said that there is a section around a mile out from the parking / camping area that is a bit touch and go. This photo (taken in hindsight on the way out!) doesn’t really do it justice.
Having successfully arrived at the campsite, we could sit back and enjoy the acclaim of our fellow climbers: “Hell of a job rallying that Winnebago up here! Kudos!” Even more rewarding were the looks of disbelief on the crestfallen faces of the ATV drivers (All Terrain Vehicle) who’d splashed out £300 for a half day rental of one of these annoying vehicles (moon-buggy meets Star Wars prop).
Gob-smacked doesn’t even get close!
Of course, the real prize is to access this brilliant set of crags – The Grail isn’t hyperbole.
Chilly on our first afternoon, we bagged a couple of routes on the only sunny bit of rock – the slightly less impressive North Wall. Fun climbing nonetheless, including Sunshine Acid, 5.7 and The Tyranny of Logic, 5.9.
The Back Wall has a couple of routes that post-date the guide, which get rave reviews on Mountain Project.
Unknown Arch Arete is a real belter, and one of the few 11a soft touches I’ve encountered all trip. Here’s Vince, a visiting Canadian, on it.
City Dwellers, 11c, is a much stiffer 4* offering on the same wall.
Tucked into the back of the main canyon, Redbud Canyon has a more Provencale feel, with more slabby (though still steep) lines, peppered with goutes d’eaux. Technical, thin climbing made feasible by the decent friction (get on them now, before they’re polished!) Dogfishhead and 23 Red are excellent but contrasting 11bs. Here’s Helen on The Shocker, 5.7.
Undoubtedly, the main event at The Grail is the centrepiece South Wall – around 100m high, with a number of multi-pitch routes going the full height, though the main style is for 50m endurance fests in the 12s and 13s, with an intermediate anchor around the 30m mark for entry pitches in the 11s and 12s. About 30 routes in all, on plonk-on vertical orange limestone, plastered in square cut holds.
Unlikely many mega-crags, even the entry-level “warm-ups” on the wings are pretty high quality, including Planned Obsolecence, 10a, and Eminent Domain, 10a/b
I did a couple of the stupendous lines in the middle of the wall. Homeostatis, 11b (a couple of great pics courtesy of Vince)…
… and Felicity, 11d (much to the disgust of some traditionalists, a few of the routes exhibit that deplorable Euro-import – the painted route name!)
Whilst the climbing is pretty special (hard to think of a better sports crag in the States – on a par with Smith Rock as my favourite) it’s the situation and vibe of the tiny campground that really sets apart The Grail. Another marvellous gift from the BLM, there’s space for a dozen or so teams at this free site, with all mod cons thanks to the recently installed pit toilet.
It’s 100% climbers, most of whom seemed to be visiting from further north to defer the onset of winter. With the altitude and northerly aspect, no one is in a rush to head up the hill until it warms up a bit, making for convivial chat at base camp. Mesquite, 10 miles distant, seems a universe away.
Late starts and short days lead to the inevitable descent in the gloaming (though we were never last off the crag).
… and with the pitch black sky, the star display is magnificent.
All good things come to an end, and our final day ended with a weather system blowing in, painting Mesquite a vivid pink, and bringing markedly chillier conditions.
Having successfully “rallied our Winnebago” back down the hill, we decided not to push our luck with a return visit, but have hatched a plan for a big 4×4 truck on a future trip.
After a sandstone and basalt interlude around St George (see next post) we returned for a final dose of the limestone around Mesquite, and with temperatures gradually falling we picked Sun City. This sister crag to Lime Kiln is only a couple of miles to the west as the crow flies, but in a different state (just over the border into Nevada) and time zone (confusingly!) Accessed via a separate 10 miles dirt road, this one is only tooth janggling rather than nerve wracking, and you’d maybe just about make it in a regular car.
Parked up amongst the tough trucks…
It’s half an hour’s gentle up hill walk up an ATV track before dropping into the wash (heading for a huge boulder) and then a faint zigzag path up to the crag. It’s a total suntrap! You could be excused for thinking you were in Spain, though the barrel cacti and sage brush are telltale Mojave signs.
The Chick Factor sector has the easiest selection of routes, but even the eponymous 10a is fairly stiff.
I struggled on the adjacent 10d and then failed completely on the 11c. I’m quite a fan of prickly rock and the odd velcro move, but this is literally the sharpest stone I’ve ever climbed on! Ouch!
If the climbing wasn’t a complete success, we got lucky with the camping. Just half a mile further along the dirt road, we had White Rocks Campground all to ourselves – primitive but pretty, and with a newly installed loo…
… thanks to Gold Butte National Monument.
Talking of camping options, in between the various magnificent (and free!) dispersed sites we used during our Mojave meandering, we also popped into the Virgin River Gorge Campground – great location, fabulous views and all mod cons for only $12 a night. There’s even nearby roadside cragging, but as the road in question is the I15 we gave it a miss. Apparently, if you can tolerate the noise, the climbing is exceptional.
RockAroundTheWorld 