Image 1 of 1
About the Book
Colorado’s Western Slope, where you can have a crag to yourself - or not! Climb limestone, sandstone, or granite. Trad, sport, multi-pitch. Overhanging caves, 5.6 slabs, or splitter hand cracks. There are super-popular venues such as New Castle’s Main Elk Crag, plus new gems like the Dipsensary in East Elk and the Burn on Clinetop Road. Over 30 crags in all — 1800+ routes — from Rifle to Glenwood Canyon, Carbondale to Marble, Basalt to Lime Park. Don’t waste hours fumbling with your phone trying to find weak knockoffs of this beta. Treat yourself to the source. Pretty darned sweet.
Areas included
New Castle area — Rifle Arch, East Elk, Main Elk
Glenwood Canyon — Puoux, Noname Canyon, Surgery Buttress, and more
Crystal River — Thompson Creek, Narrow, Marble
Frying Pan River — F Pan, Lime Park, Hagerman Pass
About the Authors
BJ Sbarra has called Carbondale home since 2001, when he moved to the area to work at Climbing Magazine. At that time, the only local climbing was at Rifle, the Puoux, and the Pass. He got into developing climbs when the magazine crew — including Luke Laeser, Matt Samet, and Jeff Achey — started exploring many of the areas that now grace the pages of this book. He estimates he’s put up around 130 routes across Utah and Colorado, though these days you’re much more likely to see him enjoying a simple day of local cragging with the family.
Jeff Achey moved from Boulder to the Western Slope in the late ’80s to teach math & science and run the rock-climbing program at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale. Once a loudmouth trad-climbing advocate, he reinvented himself as a rap bolter of West Slope choss, going on to establish over 300 of the sport routes in this book. Despite earning a Masters degree in education, “JA” did several long stints at Climbing Magazine in the 1990s-2000s, and with his wife Amber Johnstone now owns Wolverine Publishing. Jeff and Amber may be the only Rifle-area climbers who almost never go to Rifle.