Ominous South and west facing walls surround the cirque. A great place for the adventurous or reclusive climber. Highly featured granite makes up these 500 ft walls. Routes are modest in difficulty and there is a lot of potential for new routes in the upper cirque and on the various walls along the way. Water is hard to come by in the upper reaches of the cirque, however, snow can be found at the base of the walls through most of the summer. Beautiful campsites can be had at a few flat spots a little ways below the cirque.
Lone peak can be accessed from the Big Willow Cirque by one of two ways. The first is to scramble the steep, unstable talus field to the south of the cirque. However, great care should be taken of large rockfall. I witnessed large rockfall twice within 8 hours of each other and continuous small rockfall in between. The second way is to scramble up the notch on the far north east, to the side of the wall that Giggles is found. At the top of the notch the ridge to the south can be followed until the col between Lone Peak and Big Willow Cirque is reached. The walkoff for all routes is to go east and south (north for "Close Encounters") until the notch can be obtained. Rap slings leading into the notch can be found by carefully heading south, however take great care of loose brittle rock.
Getting There
Refer to directions for Big Willow Canyon for information on parking and general trail info. The trail becomes faint in the upper reaches. Small red markers are found intermittently along the trail at this point. Gently curve south using the walls as a reference. Be careful not to get on the trail that heads more north to the saddle below Rocky Mouth Peak.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Big Willow Cirque:
Thanx a ton Tyler King; you kill it!!! I have long wondered about the actual climbing in this long, lost forgotten but beeeautiful cirque in the Wasatch. I have been in the cirque multiple times to ski the aprons and surrounding slopes, but have seriously wondered about the quality of rock up there and accuracy of routes after hearing a few sandbag stories of Giggles. I'm going to make it a point to get there this coming summer. Thanks again; you rawk!!!
In no way is Giggles a sandbag, for a Lowe route it is probably a little light in fact. I had feared this route for years due to the description in the Ruckman guide of an 8" crack. The rock is of excellent quality for the most part and the 8" crack is mostly avoidable by easy but runout climbing to its left.
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