Little Joe

BETA PHOTO: the Little Joe formation

Description 

Little Joe is basically a big boulder, nestled into the slopes beneath the Community Pillar wall. From the Pine Creek wash, it might not look too appealing, but there are several short (up to 70') fun routes on it that make it a neat excursion for the local who's done everything, or an extra pitch on the way down from Community Pillar et al.

There are three crack systems on it, a bolted face/arete, and some other face lines that might be worth toproping. The routes were first explored by Nick Nordblom, et al, sometime in the 80's, but route names and grades are unknown, so I've invented and guessed, respectively. Please comment if you have better beta.

The three trad cracks take hand-size cams to build anchors at the top.

There is a bolted climb which ascends the varnished face right of the southwest arete (looks like 5.12) and the rap anchor above that provides a friendly way to get off the formation. Be careful stepping down to the anchor.

You can ascend the east side of the footstool with ledgy scrambling and a couple easy fifth class moves on bad rock to gain the top of the formation and set up a toprope.

Getting There 

Little Joe is almost at the base of the Community Pillar wall. If you are contouring along the base of the wall, it is easier to access it from the right side (say, coming from Magic Triangle) than the left side (as if approaching from the start of Community Pillar). Or, you can take your favorite way into the left fork of Pine Creek (the braided trails to Cat in the Hat work) and then look for two stands of pine trees in the wash. The first stand is four trees, two dead. Just upstream are two more tall trees. The best path I've found yet starts near these two trees. It takes about an hour from the parking lot.

The Classics