You have heard the name and seen the massive Horseshoe Wall. This might just be the most spectacular line on Mount Wilson in all of Red Rock. Huge shout out to the FA team of Mike Lewis and Flyn Brian for making this route a reality! Down below I will be describing the pitches of ONLY the main Upper Headwall, the old topo still exists if you want to climb the lower half too.
Dogma can be described as taking the beautiful Black Velvet Wall and setting it 2500 feet off the Desert Floor, this route really shows the potential of Mount Wilson.
Harder than Levitation, and easier than Rainbow Wall
Upper Pitch Descriptions:
P1 (7): 5.11c/d, 110' - Start at the base of the huge wall to the left of a black water streak in a short corner, climb the steep corner for 50 feet or so and head left slightly to a brief rest, step right and blaze straight up and right the steep pumpy wall clipping well-spaced bolts through a thin crux to an anchor equipped with rap rings. Amazing pitch!
P2 (8): 5.11b, 100' - Start with a traverse that diagonals up and to the left, and continue up the sustained and steep wall to an anchor equipped with rap rings, this pitch earns the grade due to its sustained nature without much of a rest.
P3 (9): 5.10c, 100' - Continue up the beautiful wall on good holds, through the nice black varnish to an anchor equipped with rap rings.
P4 (10): 5.10c, 80' - Continue up the wall following bolts that eventually head right to a nice ledge with a new anchor (without rap rings, this avoids the old hanging belay another 20 feet up).
P5 (11): 5.11a, 130' - From the ledge belay head up and left through a short steep corner which then climbs past an anchor (with rap rings), climb the face above to a left-leaning crack, either climb the crack (harder) or the face to the right of the crack (easier), which leads to some thoughtful slab climbing with well-spaced bolts that leads to a massive pine tree with webbing and rap rings.
P6 (12): 5.11a, 110' - In reality, the crux is probably a bit stiff for 11a but it's so short that rating this pitch harder than 11a seems unreasonable. From the tree move the belay up and left along the ledge (there is no second anchor but the ledge is big), climb straight up and right through the boulder problem on the steep face until the grade eases off, and then climb the 5.8 face to an anchor on a ledge equipped with rap rings.
P7 (13/14): 5.8, 150' - Continue up the nice face past a first anchor to a second anchor. Note: the rock quality is better than it looks.
P8 (14/15): 5.8, 160' - Continue up the final face past an anchor through some bulges keeping an eye out for the next bolt(s) to stay on route, pull over the top of the wall, and take in the magnificent panorama. Congrats you climbed Dogma!
Rap the route with a 70m rope using the anchors every hundred feet or so that have rap rings.
Descent: Retrace your steps down the approach gullies.
denver, co
Sep 27, 2005
denver, co
A 70m rope should reach with room to spare, but I think the relatively straightforward First Creek Canyon walkdown descent (which I have done a couple of times) is a much better option than hours of rappelling. Apr 30, 2007
My rack:
14 quickdraws (4 of these tripled up 24" runners)
5 medium stoppers (maybe BD size 4-8)
#0 (purple) tcu
#1 (blue) Mastercam
Yellow, Red, Gold: Aliens
Red Camalot
Pitch 4 is exciting with an opening thin section followed by a great crack and ending with a crazy chimney to a sandy face. The crux is one of the best pitches I have done at the grade. The face above is continually engaging on amazing rock. The entire headwall is perfectly bolted- expect a little space between the shiny silver bolts.
Try to be at the White Riot Gully at first light on the approach- for us this was 6am. It is tricky and a little light is important.
The giant black water streak does not come into play. There are a few tiny water streaks just left of the big one. If these are shiny when viewed in the sun from below, then the last 2 headwall pitches will probably be wet and there will be snow on the ledge possibly barring passage. Give it a few weeks. Good luck. Mar 24, 2009
Salt Lake City, UT
CO
RE: Conditions. Until it snowed on us, the lower pitches appeared to be dry. The waterstreak on the first headwall pitch was dry, but the upper waterstreaks looked wet still from Sherwood Forest. Apr 29, 2010
SLC, UT
steve-edwards.blogspot.com/… May 18, 2010
Seattle, WA
Lafayette, CO
Superior, CO
Brian and I first saw the line when climbing Resolution Arete together with a couple Argentine friends. Pretty soon after, we opened the route. After climbing, we simul-rapped the entire route in 30 minutes. I've never seen someone move as fast as Brian did. In all the rappels, I could not get my gri-gri on the rope and do the transition faster then him one time!
Enjoy! Nov 1, 2016
COLORADO
I'm posting this to give clarity to future parties on the approach. We had to continue up Willy's Colouir much farther than we first had thought. Walk past the obvious chimney system on the left hand side of the large 200' triangle tower feature. One will have to continue up past large chockstones and ascend a couple ramp like features that are on the Horseshoe wall, the right side of the colouir if going up. There is one ramp feature that feels somewhat committing to climb and has a single bolt with quick link. After you have passed this single bolt keep ascending the colouir and eventually you will encounter the large chimney feature that is the first pitch of "Dogma"(pictured).
Besides wasting time getting on the wrong route we were able to salvage the day and got up to Sherwood Forest in time to both lead the crux pitch and rappel down. The 11a finger crack/ OW/ slab pitch was fantastic and one of the most fun pitches of climbing I have done in RR. It was so varied it kept me on my toes! The crux pitch is steep and is reminiscent of the climbing on the Black Velvet Wall. We sent the crux in full sport wanker style and I was glad to have my partner put the draws up for me. On 4/1/17 it was surprisingly chilly belaying on the Sherwood Forest ledge. I recommend bringing some sort of light approach shoe because of the amount of cactus, scrambling, and rappelling; it will save your feet. Can't wait to get back and summit this route and get a taste of the rest of the head wall pitches. Have fun, be safe! Apr 3, 2017
Missoula, MT
-Just before you get to the base of the route, there is a 30 foot ramp with a bolt and a quicklink at the top. I chose to lead this placing two pieces of gear, then belayed at the quick link. Honestly it felt like 5.7 at the time in the dark (sandy slab) and am glad I did not go up in tennis shoes and the backpack.
-All of the easier pitches before the Sherwood forest are incredibly runout. Easy, but runout.
-Getting onto the slab on pitch two (5.9) felt like mid 5.10 at least.
-The 5.11 chimney pitch is heinous with a backpack (even tagging it)
-All but one of the upper pitches have hanging belays
-All of the upper pitches (especially the 5.8s) are runout between bolts, and only some take gear. If you've made it this far though, you'll be fine.
-First creek canyon descent took around 3.5 hours going very slowly
Enjoy! Mar 31, 2019
Ideal rack for pitch 7 through 13: 14-15 draws/alpines with single .4, .5, #5 and #6 nut or equivalent.
Pitch 7: same beta
8: same beta
9: climb past the rappel anchor and belay on ledge. 14 draws and 1 finger piece. 160 feet 5.10
10: climb past rappel anchor to big tree and ledge.13 draws 140 feet 5.11
11: 10 draws, 2 pieces of gear. Belay on small bushy ledge 115 feet 5.11
12: climb past rappel anchor and belay on ledge. 9 draws 130 feet. 5.8
13. Climb past rappel anchor to summit anchor. 9 draws 180 feet. 5.8
Double 60s would get you down to Sherwood in 5 rappels (skipping the intermediate anchors every 100ish feet). Dec 2, 2020
Blue Diamond, NV
Las Vegas, NV
As for the pitches
P7 did not seem unreasonable for 11c, I could see it being rated 11d but I think 11c is fair to sandbag your friends, plus if you're leading this route I'd hope you'd onsight it.
P8 seemed closer to 11b (either that or I climbed a little off route)
P9 and 10 were just about 10c
Pitch 11 seemed fair for 11a
Pitch 12 also seemed fair for 11a (it's really just a muscly boulder problem into 5.8 face climbing)
Pitch 13-15 are rad cruiser 5.8- face climbing!
Good day 9.5 hours Car2Car. Descent from Sherwood after rapping the route took like 1hr45min
Gear Beta: as far as gear goes all you need is some draws, I placed a 0.3 twice on the whole route but both spots were unnecessary. Apr 25, 2022
Las Vegas, NV
Seattle, WA
If you choose do this, you're basically approaching as for the route "Lady Wilson's Cleavage", except continuing up and climber's right instead of cutting climber's left to that route. You're aiming for a ledge that is down and right of an obvious "arch" feature on the face above. This ledge wraps around the arete, allowing you to very easily down climb (3rd/4th class, not exposed) climber's right from there to Sherwood. It seems improbable, but it all goes!
It took us 2 hours 45 minutes from the highway to reach Sherwood, with a bathroom break + one or two route-finding errors. If you were dialed + familiar with the area, you could definitely go highway-to-Sherwood in about 2 hours.
I don't have much of value to add about the climbing -- it's all really fantastic. Some of the easier sections/pitches can get a little runout, but most of the hardest climbing is bolted pretty well. We brought 14-15 draws and BD 0.3-0.5, as well as 2-3 small nuts. I think we placed everything at least once.
To descend, we rapped back to Sherwood and then reversed the Joey Louis approach beta. If we were familiar with Lower Dogma / any of the other routes up to Sherwood, it may have been faster to continue down by rapping one of those. Reversing the scramble was straightforward but still pretty time consuming. I haven't walked off Wilson via Oak Creek / First Creek, so I can't offer a comparison to either of those.
Also - I posted this in the Vegas Climbers Facebook page, but if you lost a Sportiva TX2 Evo (left foot, size 9) on this route I have it and I'll be in the area until 3/23/24. Mar 13, 2024
Blue Diamond, NV
All anchors have been cleaned up and equipped with fresh cord, no more excuses folks! Apr 22, 2024