Spring is finally here in the Wasatch! While the peaks are still decked out in their winter coat, the canyons (or their sunny sides, at least) are beautiful, warm, and dry. A few weeks ago, I hit up some uber-classic Little Cottonwood trad lines and had a thoroughly fantastic time. With lots of sun but still slightly cool air temps, now is the perfect time to climb these routes.
The new trail that starts from the Park and Ride makes the approach to the Crescent Crack Buttress a piece of cake. First we hit up Crescent Crack, a classic three pitch 5.7. The first pitch involves pleasant stemming in a wide corner, followed by some nice parallel hand cracks. Keep climbing past a large ledge with a couple small trees to another ledge with a couple fat bolts. The second pitch climbs the infamous chimney right above the belay. Apparently there’s an easy way and a hard way to climb this pitch. I’m pretty sure I climbed it the “easy” way, but it still was pretty horrendous. I’d call it 5.7+++. Above the chimney, you can traverse down and right to finish the route, or you can set up a gear belay to continue up Crescent Crack Direct, which is what we did.
Crescent Crack Direct is a 5.9 pitch that connects Crescent Crack with the beautiful slab of Final Link higher up on the Crescent Crack Buttress. Crescent Crack Direct follows a finger right-leaning crack to a short dihedral underneath a protruding spike. Mount the spike and make a couple slab moves left (protected by a bolt or two) to the two-bolt belay at the base of Final Link.
Final Link is a stunning slab pitch that takes you to the top of the buttress. The six bolts are standard LCC slab distances apart (far apart enough to make things exciting, but you won’t get hurt if you fall). A couple more bolts at the top of the pitch make up the anchor.
We wanted to add one more classic climb to our day, so we rappelled down to the right (using a single doubled-up 60m rope) to the base of The Coffin. This mouth-watering 5.9 splitter crack has got to be one of the most beautiful lines in the canyon. The start is a bit thin and tricky, but it’s cruiser thin hands the rest of the way. At the top of the crack, you can traverse either to the left or right; there are anchors on both sides. We went to the right, but the left is supposed to be really good, too. Either way, you might want to do a couple more laps on this pitch to soak up every ounce of glorious jams you can.
At the end of the stellar day of climbing, I looked back in my rearview mirror as I drove west to I-15. The setting sun turned the white granite to gold, and I smiled at how lucky we are to have such an awesome climbing area right in our backyard. Now wouldn’t it be a shame to not play in it every once in a while?