This is the sustained, tight-hands crack located on the climbers' right side wall at the entrance of the mountaineer's gully. There is no real crux to this climb, but if you've gotten through the first hundred feet you're probably on your way to the send. There used to be a loose flake in the pod about 80 feet up, but last checked it wasn't there. Make sure you have finger and thin-hand-size gear left after the last roof as the climb keeps going although difficulty eases. Set up a belay at the obvious shelf with finger-size pro. The scramble off is obvious from the belay. A photo of the route can be viewed if you click on the pic of the Turret on the Castle web page.

Rapunzel

Uncle Wiggly

Guillotine

Throne Room

Wiggins Route

The Dungeon

Southeast Gully

The Nose

Hardgumbi's Lament

Parapet Corner

The Camel Walk

Dewitt Route

Schmauser - Bohannon Route

Betterman

Winterlude

Great Chimney Route

You Can't Chop This

Dalke - Jennings

Castle Corner aka Unnamed 5.10

This route ascends the cleft between the two big chunks of the Castle itself. Look for a big chimney feature in a right-facing flake feature directly below some blocky roofs. All pitches are between 100' & 140'.

P1, 5.8. Chimney your way up miscellaneous stuff for about 125' to a ledge.

P2, 5.9-. Follow the main corner/cracks up and slightly leftwards to a belay ledge.

P3. Head up & right across the main chimney system to more a more appealing looking crack. Continue up to a roof which is passed on the right side (crux) and then up to a belay.

P4. Head left towards a right-facing corner and then up a crack system to the final slabs.

The first pitch climbs an easy crack to a left-arching dihedral.  Climb out the arch to a vertical, left-facing dihedral, and climb up to the stance (marked as 1 in the photo), 5.9.

The second pitch follows the crack straight up (crux) and then traverses left to another crack. The crack is fairly small (RPs/HBs) until you reach the traverse.  These are very nice delicate moves.  It is brass city.

I thought I'd put it on the map as a VFA (virtual FA). It was climbed in the late '80s/early '90s. If anyone has conflicting information, please let me know.

This is the next crack right of

Rapunzel

.   Carefully bypass a dubious flake (the namesake?) & aim for the nice hand crack above.  Rap off a fixed thread.

Climb the right hand crack starting at the base of the Parapet, the second major inset in.  This route goes to the top of the Parapet.

This is another stellar line at The Castle mixing crack (fingers to OW), stemming, and face climbing, leading up one of the more prominent lines on the left side of the SE buttress.

P1: Flake your rope just below the obvious, overhanging OW on the arete (The Dungeon), and head for twin cracks up a slightly overhanging bulge (crux). Continue up another corner/crack to belay atop a sloping pedestal, at the base of the splitter crack system heading straight up the face (10b, 175').

P2: Follow the beautiful (and sustained and burly!) hand crack, passing a short discontinuity where the crack fizzles out for a few feet, and top out on a big ledge (and catch your breath). Move up and right 15' to another (bigger) ledge, below the P3 OW and headwall, and belay and enjoy the view (10a, 140').

P3: Move to the right edge of the belay ledge and grunt up the OW formed by the left side of a large flake. From the top of the flake, head left across the face, passing 2 bolts (crux), and head up a lower angle (easy but not well-protected) scoop to the summit (10b, 110').

Descent:

Three raps down the gully behind the Parapet (left of the Throne Room). It is best to have a 70m rope for the first rap (although down-climbing and/or setting an intermediate rap looks possible with a 60m).

Begin just right of

Throne Room

and left of

Wiggins Route

. This route constitutes one of the Plattes wide adventures.

Pitch 1  Aim for a bombay chimney about 75 up reminiscent of

The Womb

at Looking Glass.  Climb up and through that to a belay stance  5-10+.

Pitch 2  Climb more wideness, albeit slightly easier than the first pitch  5.10-.

Pitch 3  More OW runs to the top of the right hand buttress.  Face climbing past bolts and intermittent grooves leads to the top  5.10.

The route follows the SE gully up to the summit.  The first "pitch" is a small crack climb 5.4, which Roach calls one of the cruxes.  Just to the east on the face, lots of good face climbing exists with the flakes and slabs of Pikes Peak granite.  This is a short pitch.  From there, the easiest line that exists to the summit is only class 3 until you get to the top of the hanging garden.  There, you can climb a tree to a crack (class 3) to another tree, and then from there to the class 5.4x traverse to the main summit.  This is an exposed little traverse, and a little scary, but many people free-solo it.  We roped up for the first pitch and summit pitch and used a 30M rope.  There are tons of different routes available all over the gully, and we kept the climbing at a more difficult 4+ (with a few 5.0-5.5 spots) all the way to the summit, just for the sake of spiciness.  The final summit block was climbed (FA?) by the SSE face - about 30' high, and a flaring off-width (5.7+).  We installed a new extra-long sling from the summit block over the east face with 2 new rap rings to rappel down using our 30M rope, which was just long enough.  Follow the same route down that you came up.

Begin just right of

Wiggins Route

& near a flat boulder.

Pitch 1  5.9 - Work your way up and somewhat rightward aiming for a left-facing corner above, at the end of the corner traverse right.

Pitch 2  5.10a  Ascend the right-facing book up through the major part of the wall above.

Pitch 3  Generally follow the last pitch of

The Dungeon

.

This is crack #1 in the photo, with a tree growing out of it halfway up.  Scramble up the gully a short ways and climb the first crack on your left. The rock is high quality, but since the Castle doesn't get too much traffic, there may be some gardening in the crack. It is fingers and thin hands, with abundant face holds.

Perhaps this crack and others on the Garrison were climbed decades ago, but I thought I'd put it on the map as a VFA (virtual FA). We climbed it in the late '80s/early '90s. If anyone has conflicting information, please let me know.

This is crack #3 in the photo.  Climb up the main gully and the dihedral between the Garrison and the James Brown Pillar.  Continue up the crack until it splits into 2 cracks and climb up to the left facing dihedral.  Sustained for a bit.  Climb the face to the left of the dihedral or the crack itself (a bit more difficult) to a small roof.  Continue to the ledge.

If anyone has FA information, please let me know.

This is climb #5 in the photo.  It is the obvious crack on the left side of the south face of the James Brown Pillar (6).  Excellent vertical rock face, with knobs on the face for fun.

Perhaps this crack and others on the Garrison were climbed decades ago, but I thought I'd put it on the map as a VFA (virtual FA). Climbed in the late '80s/early '90s.  If anyone has conflicting information, please let me know.

This is really a variation on

Wiggins Route

& takes a line in between

Wiggins Route

&

The Nose

.

Pitch 1  Do

Wiggins Route

's first pitch.

Pitch 2  5.10 - Begin off of

Wiggins Route

's pitch 2 and look for a roof that is followed rightward & then on up a crack toward and eventually intersecting with

The Nose

.

Pitches 3 & 4  Follow

The Nose

.

Follow the first two pitches of the

Dalke - Jennings

.  There are minor variations possible on these pitches.

Pitch 3 - 5.11 - Look for some sweet finger cracks above the belay.  Climb these until the interesting part is over and rap, or continue on to the summit.

This may be an even better variation than

Castle Corner

, at least it seemed that way to me.

P1  Climb the first pitch of

Castle Corner

.

P2  5.10c  Climb the crack that heads straight up the right wall of the corner.

P3  5.10b  Follow the right hand of two possible cracks on up the right wall of the dihedral to the top.

This is climb #2 in the photo, and starts up the gully a short ways.  Beautiful jams in excellent rock lead to a steep face where things get thin and you encounter a bulge about 100' up (crux).  Small cams/medium wires protect this well.  Continue up to the ledge.  The 2nd pitch is negligible.

Perhaps this crack and others on the Garrison were climbed decades ago,

but I thought I'd put it on the map as a VFA (virtual FA). Climbed in

the late 80's/early 90's.  If anyone has conflicting information, please let me know.

This is climb # 4 on the photo.  It is on the south face of the James Brown Pillar (6).  Start on easy ground for 30 feet until you reach a small roof.  Reach around to the left and place some blind brass, and then pull the roof (crux).  There is an alternate 5.9 method farther to the left, but the original leader went this way.  After pulling the small roof, there is a very nice jam crack leading to the top.

Perhaps this crack and others on the Garrison were climbed decades ago,

but I thought I'd put it on the map as a VFA (virtual FA). Climbed in

the late 80's/early 90's.  If anyone has conflicting information, please let me know.

Pitch 1 - 5.10a/b - Begin up a finger crack, and then surmount blocks and then another crack to a ledge.

Pitch 2 - 5.9+ - Continue up more cracks heading towards the

Great Chimney Route

.

Pitch 3 - 5.9 - Continue up the

Great Chimney Route

, or head right and find an offwidth that leads to the summit.

Castle Corner has 3 pitches of granite crack climbing. It is pure joy.

P1. Work your way up cracks and hollow flakes to the flake with many slings. The first time I climbed this, I stayed mostly left until the long reach below the flake, and then traversed to the right under the flake and back into the right crack until traversing to the flake. The second time around I found you could stem up for a good distance and the gear on the right seemed a lot easier to place then on the hollow crap on the left (although I followed it this time). SPICY! It is at least 8+ if not 9+.

P2. Head up 2 off width cracks strait up the corner with some interesting movement and fun climbing.  Up higher the left side crack squeezes out and you must stem between it and the now quite wide crack on the right. This felt pretty sustained and harder in the upper to mid-section of the pitch 5.8 - 8+.  Get some good gear in the horizontal crack at the base of the crux sequence. Then fire up the 10-15 foot crux boulder problem to the belay, 5.10-.

P3. Head up either of 2 parallel cracks to the upper section where you encounter the crux OW slot/roof exit to the top 5.9-5.10.  We took the left crack which was thin hands, hands and where the angle mellowed out it was a bit wider. The beginning of the pitch was somewhat sustained but the mid section was really cruiser, then you're kinda thrown off for the somewhat awkward crux.

Kevin's description of the descent was dead on, and it can mostly be seen the whole time while climbing, I made it down in my tennies.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in The Castle