The Rectory is the mesa in between Castleton Tower and the Priest. There are several very classic free climbs here that are among the most popular in the Castle Valley area. A good hardman linkup is to do a route on Castleton, the Rectory, and the Priest in a day - though that sounds pretty brutal to me.
Getting There
Hike up the Castleton trail to near the top of the talus cone. A trail continues across the ridgeline to the base of the Rectory. Fine Jade will be staring you in the face as you walk across the ridgeline.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for The Rectory:
This is a classic desert line to the top of the rectory. Some great varied crack climbing. This is a must do desert climb. To reach, hike up the trail to the base of Castleton and then traverse North on the ridge for a couple hundred yards to reach the base of the rectory. The route climbs the crack system on the Southern prow of the rectory facing Castleton Tower.P1- Climb a fist crack past a pod and make a difficult thin hands move right. Climb up to a ledge with anchors, pass them and co...[more]Browse More Classics in UT
Does anybody know why there is lumber on top of the rectory. While on top we found a 4ft 4x4 and some other smaller pieces. I know that the lumber on top of Castleton was the result of a car commercial does anybody know why there is similar stuff on top of the Rectory?
That's horrifying. Those butte and mesa tops are some of the last examples of relatively unimpacted, ungrazed desert vegetation available for study. It's crucial that we know what the environment is capable of becoming if we're going to make decisions about what we want to manage it to be. Doing a large-scale construction project up there basically destroys that opportunity. Yeah, yeah, climbers go up there all the time, it's not remote, etc etc. What can I say? One, I'm a climber and I like climbing things, but I'm not a Bon Jovi fan, so climbing takes preference in my selfish world. Two, climbers are mostly topping out, sitting on the rim for a few minutes, and then rapping down. I can't imagine the disruption to the vegetation and soil caused by filming that video. AND they didn't clean it up. BARF. The car commercial on Castleton was from like the late 50s/early 60s. By 1985 we knew better.