Sport Climbing in Utah...any suggestions??

My buddy and I are taking a trip from the Bay Area to Utah in a few months (early June), and I was seeing if I could get any good suggestions for sport climbing in the area. We'll be coming into Salt Lake on I80 and then heading south from there.

We'll be climbing in the 5.11 range and below. Any specific areas in Little or Big Cottonwood Canyons that need to be hit? Any other must see areas in the Wasatch Range? Or maybe a little farther south, St. George? Zion? Let me know what classics we need to hit!

Cheers!

in roughly geographic order north to south:
-Uinta Mountains. Good Medicine Wall in particular, and others. Great camping up there and excellent quartzite in a beautiful setting at 10,000 feet. Perfect in the summer. I have dealt with mosquitos up there, may want to pack bug spray.
-Big Cottonwood has good sport. No single destination crag but lots of scattered cliffs. Starting early and finding shade would be necessary.
-Little Cottonwood is mostly trad on granite, with the major exception of the limestone Hellgate Cliffs. Medussa and the 5.11s on Tower Two are very worthwhile. Bring a helmet.
-American Fork Canyon, ditto for finding shade, but very possible.
-Maple Canyon. Pretty much a mandatory stop, get pumped...
-Zion, you might want to go to Kolob Canyon and check out Namaste(if you can climb 5.10 and manage your pump you can do it) and the other routes on that amazing wall, plus there are bolted slab routes directly across the canyon if your arms get too tired. Otherwise, adventuring around Zion's various slot canyons for a few days is highly recommended.
-St George might be just a little warm for climbing in July, but I could be wrong.

Devils Castle in Little Cottonwood has some nice lines that can be done with just draws...I don't think we plugged any gear on Portable Darkness or Black Streak.

Jordan Drew wrote:My buddy and I are taking a trip from the Bay Area to Utah in a few months (early July), and I was seeing if I could get any good suggestions for sport climbing in the area. We'll be coming into Salt Lake on I80 and then heading south from there. We'll be climbing in the 5.11 range and below. Any specific areas in Little or Big Cottonwood Canyons that need to be hit? Any other must see areas in the Wasatch Range? Or maybe a little farther south, St. George? Zion? Let me know what classics we need to hit! Cheers!

Good sport climbing areas you might want to consider in your grade range include (from north to south):

Logan Canyon
Echo Canyon
Uinta Mountains
Big Cottonwood Canyon
American Fork Canyon
Rock Canyon
Maple Canyon

Of these, my top picks would be Maple, American Fork, Logan Canyon, then Uinta Mountains. Early July will be WAAAAY WAAAAAAAAY too hot for St. George or Zion. Good luck and have fun.

Industrial Wall in LCC is shady and next to a stream, so its good on hot days.

Andrew Gram wrote:Industrial Wall in LCC.

Good call!

Early July...might still be cold and snowy on Devil's Castle up at the end of LCC. Depends on how much adventure climbing you'd like. Hellgate would be great, though. But, not really awesome destination type climbing.

Uintas for sure. Fantastic. You could spend a week there.

Maple. You could do your whole trip there.

BCC has a bunch of sport (use the "best routes for me" option on the 'proj). Note that there's no dogs allowed.

American Fork...kinda local choss but some good routes in your grade range.

Crag(s) up high out of Cedar City might be sweet. Too hot for sports climbing in the Gizzle and there really isn't much in Zion. Canyons are fun especially mid week when its easier to get a permit for the popular stuff. Be a good diversion if you end up down there.

If you're coming in on I-80, easy enough to swing up to the City of Rocks/Castle Rock. Sunny aspects could be toasty but there's gobs of sports routes to climb. Worthy. You can cut off I-80 and go through Park Valley rather than head all the way into the SLC area.

Here are my recommendation in Big Cottonwood:
-Glass Ocean Area: Northwest Passage (highly recommended) and Glass Ocean
-Narcolepsy Area: Narcolepsy and Dream Slate
-Ambush wall: There are couple 5.8s and an easy 5.9 that I thought were fun, and it has a really short approach.
-Challenge Buttress: Better than Bitter (highly recommended), and Hollow man.
-S Curves Area: Has tons of sport routes in the 5.9-5.11 range. The pile is shaded all day. The upper and lower walls would be good in the morning, but might get too hot in the afternoon. It is not my favorite, but pretty popular for sport climbing.

The only place I have sport climbed in LCC is the Maybird Slide Area. There are 10-15 routes about 40-50' high, and mostly around 5.10. They were ok, but nowhere near the quality of the trad lines in LCC.

More of the same:

Uinta quartzite is really good. Ruth Lake is probably the most popular and with reason.

Big Cottonwood, also quartzite, has trad, bolted, and mixed routes, often on the same wall. Millstone is probably the best concentration of sport and would be good in July, but you'll hike about 45 minutes to get there. Really though, you can climb in Big on very hot days as there is plenty shade.

Little also has the Clamshell limestone above Hellgate in Alta. Soft rock but it gets tons of traffic and is way fun. Five minutes from the road. Higher up at 10,000 feet or so are the Cecret Lake quartzite crags if heat is an issue.

AF is completely doable in July and super fun. South-facing Hard Rock if its not too warm or north facing Division have lots of routes right by the road.

Maple has tons of options.

Take a look at the Jungle on the Aquarius Plateau info here. I've yet to go but it looks great.