Needle Rock near Crawford - Climbed?

Screams to be climbed from afar, looks like a chosspile up close. Anyone climbed it? Looks like there might be a secure path or two. A very short route could go up the back.

Yep, it's been climbed. Three different routes on it. Most folks climb the Northeast Gully AKA Brady Gulch, which goes at easy 5th class but is a loose, chossy, and bushy climb up a gully. The Southwest Arete 5.11, 4/5 pitches, is a steep intimidating route. Lastly the North Face 5.7, 1 roped pitch and 75 feet of scrambling. Needle Rock is a volcanic plug. It looks better than it climbs...better off going to the Black to have an adventure!

There ain't no walk-up on the Needle boy.

This summer two buddies and I tried to find one of the routes which we had previously heard of called, "the Cowboy Route" It was supposed to have a bolt or two and some other fixed pro, somewhere in the 5.9 range, but we never found any evidence of established climbs when looking around the backside of the Needle. As it turns out, we ended up climbing a new line, evidently located somewhere between the "NE Gully, Brady Gulch" and the "5.7 route on the North Face" (as described above) It topped out on the Northeast Finger, a short distance from the summit proper.

Looking through the descriptions of the Crawford Needle on Summitpost, I discovered that it was basically the line pictured in this photo, located on the NE shoulder. We named it "Tin Cup Pistol Tricks (5.7R)" and it follows an obvious blocky corner, on lookers left when viewed from the approach trail to the backside of the Needle. The photo below is Jeremy Hake's with his caption.

summitpost.org/hexagonal-ba…

...from the photo descriptions it sounds like these guys climbed the North Face Route (5.7) Sounds like there is a bolted rap station in the NE Saddle as well.

Tin Cup Pistol Tricks (the line in the photo) is about 5.7R - there's a fixed KB, then a bolt at about 70 feet, with small gear and rps everywhere else. The first pitch ends in a loose scramble to a ledge with another fixed KB at the anchor. The second pitch is short and ends at a cairn on top of the finger (Gully climbers?) Here you have the option of either a double rope rappel back to your bags, or downclimbing off the backside of the pillar and scrambling to the summit proper.

All in all, climbing the Needle is a fun and surreal adventure. The scenery you get is awesome. It's an added bonus if there's a rodeo taking place at the base... or if Joe Cocker is hanging out on the porch of his mansion. The rock sucks for sure, although it's often solid underneath. We cleaned about a half ton of blocks off the wall, which seemed to defy gravity in the way they were perched, inverted, like the scales of a snake. But it was definitely a worthwhile adventure.

This was our first pitch on the "5.7 North Face" route. There's a bolt somewhere in there!