Shelf Road

Running away from dust storms at Penitente

Cassie and Mojo walking into Shelf Road - The Bank Area

We had planned to climb for two weeks at Penitente, but after a continuous onslaught of wind and dust from the road and Memorial Day weekend visitors, once Monday morning arose as the windiest dustiest day yet, we were ready to move on. We packed up and drove to Canon City Colorado which is a beautiful drive along the Arkansas River. We arrived at Shelf Road after most of the weekend visitors had left and were happy to find nice campsites right on the rim of the canyon with a great view of the canyon. Even though it was still windy, we were thrilled not to have the dust of Penitente. A few people had warned us that Shelf would be too hot this time of year and most of the walls described in our book are south facing, so we were a bit concerned that it would be just too hot for us.

view from camp at Shelf Road

Fortunately we met Steve and Ashley the first night we arrived who were travelling in their nice Eurovan until they found nursing jobs. They offered us firewood they had collected from everyone's campsites after the long weekend, let us browse their more detailed guidebook and gave us advice on good climbs and where to climb in the shade. They had also travelled internationally quite a bit and had a few good recommendations of places they enjoyed. It was excellent to get such good firsthand information.

tons of climbing: the Bank and Cactus Cliff. 

The climbing at Shelf is quite different than Penitente. Penitente is searching for holds, balancing on tiny nonexistent feet, very short routes and very high first bolts. Routes at Shelf are much longer, steeper, and pumpier. We started out on the Cactus Cliff on a few moderate routes which were fun. The rock at Penitente is volcanic tuff, which makes for frictiony slabs, Shelf on the other hand is limestone and very very good limestone at that. The quality of the first few routes we sampled was exquisite. American Fork Canyon, while having some amazing limestone, is definitely steeper than Shelf, but as far as the sheer vertical rock quality I think Shelf has it beat. That being said the hardest route at Shelf is 13b while I think American Fork is somewhere around 14c. Given that the holds were so much more positive and chalked from a long weekend of crowds the climbs were pretty easy to onsight. We stayed in the 5.10 range and had a blast. At Cactus Cliff it's quite modern bolting with a bolt every 5-8 feet or so, which is in our opinion just right for sport climbs. We warmed up on a fun 5.7 called Crynoid Corner, did a fun 10b called Slicer just to the left of it. Then hopped on a great 10c called Alignment and finished the day on a 10d on the Vault wall whose name eludes me (we don't have it in our guidebook). By the end of the day we were crazy pumped in our forearms. The steepness of the rock puts a lot more weight on the arms. Over the next few weeks our endurance should start to increase.

trees at sunset

Today is Wendesday June 1st and we're writing this post from the Canyon City Centennial Park. It's a beautiful day outside and we've run some errands in town. Hope everybody had a great memorial day weekend.

view from camp

white flowers