Climbing - Castlewood Canyon

Hooked up with a new climbing partner this weekend. Tim found my plea on rockclimbing.com for someone to show me around Castlewood Canyon, common referred to as "The Wood".

Tim was coming off a long break after a busted femur injury, and me being a noob we were at about the same level of climbing. It was great to have someone show me the area and how to setup a top rope anchor.

When we got there we headed over to the Grocery Store Wall, where the highest concentration of top rope routes are. The problem is, most of the routes are pretty tough and there were a couple groups of people working the easier routes. We finally decided to cut our teeth on Rat's Nest, a tough 5.8 that was a lot harder for me than the 5.9 I did down in GOTG last September.

Not sure if it's just one of those things, or if I just found the worst way up the route. Tim had a tough time with it too, and it took us each 3 tries to get it. Tim was able to red point it, but I had a fall at the crux on my ascent.

We were pretty smoked after struggling with what we thought would be a moderate to easy climb. So when the people to our left were packing up at Peaches and Scream, a nice little 5.6 route with and interesting layback, we moved our rope over. This one was fun, if a little on the easy side. There is a couple reaches after the layback that can be a bit hard if you're on the short side.

Top of the lay back flake.

Bit of a reach.

Just about there.

We both flashed it without too much trouble. Would have been nice to start on this one and I would recommend it for beginners.

We left vowing to return soon and try some more routes and check out some other walls in The Wood. A great way to spend a beautiful November afternoon for sure.