I had been looking forward to visiting Red Rock Canyon Open Space for several weeks. Julie and I had been in search of "easy" sport climbing for some time. We'd been steadily improving at the gym and wanted to stretch our climbing muscles outside. I was starting to have success climbing 5.10's and Julie was continuing to improve at the 5.7's and was beginning to tackle some of the easier 5.8's. A couple weeks previously Kara and I had been to North Table Mountain in search of some easy sport climbing but found few routes that I had the courage to lead. What we needed were some easy sport routes in the 5.4-5.8 range. Red Rock Canyon Open Space looked to deliver.

We rolled out of bed at the usual time, had a quick bite to eat and then set of for Colorado Springs. We dropped the dog off at my parents' house in Littleton before continuing down to The Springs. We timed the drive just perfectly to arrive at the Mountain Chalet in downtown Colorado Springs at 10:00am when they opened so we could buy I guidebook. They were also having a huge sale so we spent a while digging through all the great deals.

With guidebook in hand (not to mention a couple of other goodies that we couldn't live without) we headed for the canyon. We arrived close to 11:15am and were a bit perturbed to find the parking lot completely full of at least 50 cars. We hoped that the climbing wouldn't be too crowded. We donned our packs and set off down the trail for the cliffs. The trail loops around and after about a mile or so it passes a little pond and enters the canyon. The canyon is about 100-150 yards wide and perhaps a mile and a half long. On both sides of the canyon there are sandstone cliffs rising 100 to 200 feet into the air.

The north wall is a little less vertical than the south wall and more slabby. We opted to try this side first. It took us a few minutes, and an inquiry of some other climbers, to align ourselves with the guidebook. Once we figured out where we were on the map we picked out a 5.7 route called "Blow Tube Envy" to begin the day. We scrambled up to the base of the cliff got our kit sorted out and I was ready to go. The route started out with an unprotected 15 foot dihedral. The first tricky move of the route involved exiting the dihedral and traversing out onto the slab. This was a bit scary as still had not clipped into a bolt and the hand/foot holds were sparse and tiny. I sucked up my courage and reached out for a ledge that had decent handholds. There was nothing for my feet as I hung by my arms and mantled up onto the ledge. After I had my feet firmly placed on the ledge I was able to clip the first bolt. With a sigh of relieve I continued on. The next bit was much easier and I quickly clipped two more bolts as I made progress upward. The slab got a little bit steeper and as I climbed I passed out of Julie's view. This made me a little nervous as she couldn't see if I fell and we'd never practiced catching a fall. The last 20-30 feet were much more vertical and were pretty intense. There were several holes in the rock which were obviously man made. I wasn't sure if they were where somebody had tried to but in a bolt and the rock had crumbled away or if they were made deliberately for hand and footholds. Regardless I needed and used them. With much effort I made the last couple of moves up to the bolt anchors and clipped in. I debated whether I should thread the rope through the rings so that neither of us would have to climb back up to the top to cleanup the anchor, but decided against it. I didn't think there was any way Julie would be able to climb it so I resigned myself to climbing it again.

Julie lowered me down and then it was her turn. She put on her shoes tied in and she was off. She made it easily up the dihedral, but had difficulty leaving the dihedral and getting onto the slab surface just as I had. Julie struggled with it for a couple of minutes - trying several different methods of attack - without success. Finally she resorted to a little aid climbing to make it up to the ledge by the first bolt. After that she quickly followed up the route cleaning the quickdraws as she went. Soon she was out of site. I seriously doubted she'd be able to make it to the top, but I continued to pull the slack out of the rope without being able to visually measure Julie's progress. After a couple of minutes I heard a triumphant shout that she had reached the top. I was really surprised! I thought there was no way she was going to make it to the top and so I had not told her how to clean up the anchor at the top. So I shouted instructions up to her. After our shouted conversation she cleaned up the anchor and I lowered her down.

With our first route of the day successfully climbed, we packed up our stuff and scooted down the cliff about a hundred feet to the base of "Red Venus" - a slabby 5.6 route. We had lunch and watched the climbers on the opposite side of the canyon. After lunch we geared up to climb "Red Venus". The bottom of the route was really run out, although not that steep. However, it was steep enough that it wasn't really comfortable to belay from. So Julie took a belay stance at the far end of the shallow angle slab and I set off. I made my way up the shallow angle slab and then got onto the steeper section to clip into the first bolt. This route wasn't near as difficult as the last and had lots of options. The route diverged in the middle where the left set of bolts was rated 5.9 and the right set was 5.6. I opted for the 5.6 but it made the bolts set apart in a zigzag pattern. This put a lot of drag on the rope and I had to pull it up behind me. Eventually I made it to the top and Julie lowered me. Julie had little difficulty on her turn and quickly made it to the top. I lowered her down and we packed up to go try something else.

Directions

The trailhead is located just off Hwy 24 on the west side of Colorado Springs - near Manitou Springs. Turn south onto Ridge Road and proceed to trailhead parking.

Photos

I wanted to try "The Rose" on the Whaleís Tail, but there was a large group of people down there with ropes on all the routes. I looked across the canyon to Westbay Wall but it seemed to have several climbers on it as well. Instead we decided to make our way down The Whale to some more moderate routes. We scrambled down to the canyon floor and then walked down the path. We passed Solar Slab on the way, which had a couple of short moderate routes, but there were climbers on them. When we found the correct trail we made our way back up onto the cliff which was essentially above Solar Slab. There we found several moderate routes that looked promising. First we decided to try a 5.6 route called "Big E". We geared up and I began the climb. "Big E" was fun and relatively shallow angled and I quickly made my way to the top and lowered off. By this time my shoes were just about done in. The rubber on the toes of both my shoes had worn through and I had a friend make a quick patch job a couple of weeks ago. However the patches had failed and the holes had ripped open and the seams in the toes were coming undone. My toe was beginning to poke through the hole that made climbing uncomfortable and I wasn't sure if I was doing irreparable damage to the shoe. I told Julie that I thought I had one more climb in my before she set off clean "Big E". Julie made quick work of it, cleaned up the anchor and lowered off.

We packed up and discussed which should be our last route of the day. I gave her the option of leading the 5.5 "Dreamtime" which was just a hundred feet down the cliff face, not expecting her to be interested. To my surprise she enthusiastically accepted. We collected our kit and headed over to it. Julie had never even practiced leading so I gave here the thirty-second lesson on z-clipping and backclipping and she began the route. She quickly made it to the first bolt and then on to the second. She admitted being quite afraid but soldiered on. She began to have some real difficulty with the third bolt. It looked like she had managed to get herself off route a little off to the left and couldn't reach the third bolt to clip in. I suggested she try to downclimb a little so that she could get back on route. She said that wasn't really an option for her. She struggled with this for several minutes before deciding that she would skip the third bolt. This made me really uncomfortable as it turned a potential 15 foot fall into a 30 foot fall. However, there didn't seem to be any point in arguing with her or cajoling her. If she felt more comfortable continuing up then that was probably best. After a tense couple of minutes Julie made it up to the fourth bolt and clipped in. We both breathed a huge sigh of relief. The last section was a little tricky but well protected and Julie made it up to the anchors, clipped in, and lowered off.

I gave her a hearty congratulation and we celebrated her first lead. She admitted to me that leading the climb was the scariest thing she could ever remember experiencing. I confided that I was scared to death every time I led too. Julie belayed while I cleaned the route and then lowered off. She asked me if I thought the route was really a 5.5, or did I think it was harder. I thought it was about the same as the last route we'd done, "Big E", that was 5.6. But everything I led felt much scarier than the grade would let on.

We packed up our stuff and headed back to the car as the sun began to set. As we packed our stuff into the car and began the drive home we both agreed we'd come back as soon as possible. It was well worth the trip down from Fort Collins.

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More Resources: Red Rock Canyon Photos, Colorado Springs Outdoors: Red Rock Canyon

All photos copyright Andy Leach

Contributed by Andy Leach
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