Your Favorite City of Rocks Cracks

What are your top 5 or 10, of any grade?   And including not necessarily super well traveled ones are appreciated too.  I'm working on building a list for a future visit. 

For 5.7's, I liked Wheat Thin much more than Columbian Crack, even though the latter is much more of a pure crack climb. Bloody Fingers was the only 10a I've done at the City, but I thought it lived up to the hype.

Skyline 5.8 was my first 4 star trad lead and it lives up to the hype. Animal Cracker 10a is super rad flake into OW. I haven’t done it yet, but I always go and look at Crack of Doom 11c whenever I’m there, such a cool looking line.

For Multipitch, Theater of Shadows 5.6 and Sinocranium 5.8 are super fun and all bolted for an easy barrier to entry. Really good climbs to take people new to multipitch.

Sport wise, Tribal Boundaries 10a/b has some cool exposure, and Too Much Fun 5.8 is loooong but is exactly as the name says.

Hope this helps! You could spend decades there and still find new stuff, it’s a sweet area.

Bloody Fingers is deservedly popular, I found it pretty stiff for 10a. Next time I'm at the City I want to muster the boldness to try Thin Slice - it looks awesome!

Animal Cracker was my favorite out there. Bloody fingers (as already mentioned) is also a blast. Double cracks is real good as well. I remember the crux is a boulder problem at the bottom and the ground is soft sand (like a beach). So you could try pulling the crux before placing gear, and if you fell you landed on the soft sand. 

Most of the crack climbs there tend to be face climbing with a few crack moves, but still sweet lines. Depends what you like but wheat thin and rye crisp are good places to start, and hesitation blues is nice and pretty easy. My favorite climbs there by far are lost arrow spire, batwings, and the stripe route on stripe rock, not cracks. Actual crack climbing probably needed includes private Idaho route on bath rock, Fred Rasmussen, carols crack, and thin slice. There are some great harder cracks around including bloody fingers and crack of doom. A good easy area is east side of window rock. Have fun!

Seeing as you’re from Washington I’d recommend these as they are similar to some Washington/index climbs

3rd pitch of hospitalano on east face of castle rock is like battered sandwiches and diamond in the rough on the south side reminds me of NW corners

3 star corner is similar to plum pudding with a exciting traverse! and you can go adventure on other climbs on Great Wall.

Circus roof and no net at anteater  short but really fun, circus roof reminds me of Them 

these are ones I like but don’t remind me of anything in Washington 
Red corner  on comp rock  is really fun but gets no shade. If you liked thin slice and animal cracker this  is like both of them combined 

And if you don’t mind walking fiesta spire is really fun 

edit: also box top traverse it’s just silly fun

And there are numerous of fun ones on the breadloves but I’d recommend going there on a weekday as it pretty busy on the weekends.

Thanks!

How about favorite 5.11's?

I’m not strong enough yet to get any of the 5.11s clean on lead yet but I like awakening on king on the throne kinda bouldery( bring a pad if you’re worried about you knees) 

Comp splitter on comp rock is good and the one I feel closest to getting clean.

Harvest is good but very hard  for me Singapore too both are in parking lot area

Thin Slice is one of the cooler looking thin cracks around. Looks harder than 10a for sure. Climbs great. And it's pretty long.

Wheat Thin lived up to the hype at 5-7. If it's ever open, hop on it.

Top 5. Thin Slice, Terror of Tiny Town, Crack of Doom, Rye Crisp, and Bloody Fingers.

Not trying to be snarky, but are you finding something lacking about the graded list of trad routes and mixed routes, with star ratings, at the back of the Binghams City of Rock guidebook?

Interceptor! Overhanging hands at their best

caughtinside wrote:

Terror in tiny town 

Absuletly!  I saw this thread and thougt of it immediately, though it has been 25 years.

Conceptual Reality, the bottom part. Super short, very easy, offwidth to hands to fingers. Great if you're squeeky new to climbing. If someone runs a rope up the harder bolted top bit, you can top rope, place gear, teach, rinse and repeat.....and wonder if Elephant rock, just over there....could go in your lifetime after all.

On the other end, I was highly entertained watching a good friend make many attempts to even get going on an evil but fun looking thin tips 11sumthin, just around from Hostess Gully/Shock and Awe side. Put up by Ian Cavenaugh, by the way. (EDIT Bug City, 5.12)

Crack of Doom, to me, just makes me smile. That start...  Such a classic, badass, in your face thing of beauty!

If you're up for hard R, lol, El Castleton is just...beautiful.

Best, Helen

phylp phylp wrote:

Not trying to be snarky, but are you finding something lacking about the graded list of trad routes and mixed routes, with star ratings, at the back of the Binghams City of Rock guidebook?

No not at all!  I have the latest guide. I also really like hearing other's first hand opinions and brief comments. 

Some less-traveled suggestions:

Beef jello (10d) is a really fun splitter. It's a bit of a hike to get out to it though

Fiesta (10b) is also great. If you're gonna hike out for one, definitely climb both

Scar tissue!

white flake and humble’s tumble were surprisingly fun. 

Cool crack, comp splitter, terror, Singapore are the best 11 cracks by far

Not too much of a crack, but Beware of Nesting Egos is so so good. And not too much spice