Westworld Dome is a huge granite dome in the West Stronghold. From the end of Forest Road 687, it is the dominant feature on the right hand side of the left drainage. This 600' rock holds several good lines, including the classic Warpaint.
The rock on Westworld Dome is mostly good, but you better have the right shoes on. The face is slabbing in most places, barely low enough to call a slab in many others, and even overhanging in some. Westworld Dome is a fairly long approach, so plan on doing a long route while you are there, to make it worthwhile.
To descend from any of the top-out routes, rap either Dreamscape Buttress or Warpaint on 2 ropes.60M ropes are ok, 50M uncertain.
Getting There
From the popular parking and camping area at the end of Forest Road 687 there are a mess of trails. Some of them lead to the East Stronghold. Instead of these, find a trail which takes you North from the end of the road, in the leftmost of the two drainages. Follow this for 30 minutes (perhaps 2 miles) to a big old Cypress tree, from where cairns lead up and right to the dome. The trail here is faint and brushy in spots, but if you keep your eye on the dome, you'll make it there eventually, even if you depart from the trail.This dome is further up the drainage and across from the more popular Whale Dome.
This route was the best Christmas present I ever got.Imagine climbing a steep sunny granite slab on near-perfect rock for almost 700 feet of edging and smearing. Imagine being surrounded by a sea of granite domes and trees in 65 degree weather in the middle of winter. Imagine watchng Cotimundi's eating berries while approaching the base of the route and then rapping off in a beautiful Southwest desert sunset. Imagine all of that, or maybe just go...[more]
Hate to be disagreeable but edging shoes are the last thing you need on Westworld Dome. This is true for most of the slabs of the Stronghold. The routes are all slab routes. with the occasional steeper section. The best shoes for slabs have 5.10 rubber and allow your toes to extend rather than be crunched up. Normally I wear size 39 1/2 but on most everything I have done on WWD I use 41 1/2 shoes with socks. This allows your feet to flex at the ball and that puts more rubber on the rock. Remember for slabs, butt out, short steps, believe in the rubber!
Westworld dome is not a long approach, at least by Stronghold standards: 30 minutes, perhaps. It's one of the shortest approaches to a large dome in the entire area. It is consistently steep once you leave the drainage and head up to the dome.
Eric is absolutely right re: "edging shoes". Leave them at home... There are definitely some small edges here and there, but by and large this is a slab-fest. Regarding rubber: 5.10 is good, but I got some Acopa's recently with "RS" rubber, and I've been quite impressed with their performance. I've always felt like it took a few pitches for the 5.10 to break in, but the RS was good right out of the box.
Westworld Dome
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