The Gregory Canyon Amphitheatre is a classic climbing area. Thousands of climbers have had their first ascents on the gentle rocks that rest here. On sunny weekends, the inside of the amphitheatre is usually beseiged by climbing programs and beginners. The exterior of the amphitheatre has a number of attractive routes of varying difficulty.
Getting There
Park either at Chautauqua parking (on the south side of Baseline at about 9th street), or at the Gregory Canyon parking lot. NOTE: If your car tags aren't from Boulder County, definitely pay the fee ($3/d or $25/y) if you park at the latter. From Chautauqua, walk the Baseline trail until you join up with the Amphitheater trail. About 300 yards up, (to access the the N face of First Pinnacle or the E face of the East Bench) take the climbing Amphitheater Express trail, which loops around the north side of the Amphitheater. The regular route (Amphitheater Trail) continues up, and 150 yards later the Amphitheater (T-Zero, W face of E Bench, S face of First Pinnacle, E & S & W face of Second Pinnacle, E face of West Bench) appears on your right side.
From the inside of the Amphitheatre, there is an obvious roof and slot on the wall below the West Bench.Climb up to the slot, get into it, and grunt your way up a few moves until you can exit onto the face. Climb the face more or less straight up to a steep final headwall. Climb the obvious crux finger crack for a few moves to the West Bench.Rossiter calls this route, Slot....[more]
I set a toprope for the Inside South Face, and instead of traversing diagonally up and left, just headed straight up (to the right of the inside south face route). There is a nice left facing dihedral about halfway up (below the dihedral on the inside south face route) with very thin holds in the corner, and then I exited to the right to some reasonably thin face climbing.
I can't find info about it in Rossiter's (or old Ament's) guidebooks, or on this site. It felt 10-ish to me. There was a little bit of chalk in the dihedral, so it's definitely seen some ascents.
A while back (early to mid nineties I think) there was a bolt route added to the south arete of the east ramp as you enter the amp. If I remember it is titled "P.S. I'm blond" and given a .12a rating. Can anyone confirm, and has anyone climbed this one? This looks like a fun route as it traverses up and left along the diaginal south arete/face of the east wall. Anyway, I will probably climb this one before any feedback comes in. Thanks Young Doug.
The Amphitheater
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