A short and sweet recap from an adventure to waterfall cliff in Castle Rock State Park. I was there with my father in law, Kenton and a good friend of mine, Adrian. The crag has many good moderate trad climbs and we were getting some mileage on placing gear and just trad climbing in general. We had been to the crag once previously and had gotten a little lost the first time but had found the way eventually. This time we did not and knew exactly how to get to the rock face.
But to describe the approach, you follow the well maintained hiking trails of castle rock, then cut to a decent trail into the forest and you come to the top of the crag. You continue along the ridge until the trail clearly goes down and cuts back towards the wall. Then you reach the right side of the wall. There is also access to a few of the anchors from the ridge but I have not spent time to find out the exact locations from the top(see this article for my thoughts on most top rope accessible climbs).
We had gotten a few climbs in and had seen one party of climbers come down the approach and head past us to the left side of the wall. Well as we continued to climb we heard some rustling from the top ridge. This was in the fall, so many leaves were on the ground, especially on the access trails up on top to any of the anchors. We had been careful on the descent, as the dry leaves and loose dirt makes for some slippery footing. However, after hearing this rustling and looking up top we saw someone sliding down the rock face. After sliding for 10-15 feet, they stopped in the gully near the cliff edge. I’ll try my best to describe this gully. The crag on the right side is cliff until it runs into the hill. Then the gully splits the cliff from another large boulder/spire. Technically you can use the gully to reach the top but the approach trail is definitely the better option. So luckily for this girl, she slid into the hillside rather than 5ft to her right and off the cliff(later when we were leaving we went to check where she slid). A really close call from serious consequences. She popped right back up, scrambled up the gully and continued on to set up her top rope anchor.
It is crazy to think of the difference that 5ft can make. It could be a life changing amount. There are many small things in climbing that have large consequences. So as a wake up call make sure to not get complacent, do your safety checks, and be alert and aware of your surroundings. You might not have 5 feet to give. We would find that out a lot sooner than expected.
After finishing our climbs on the right side we wanted to try a couple on the left.
Unfortunately there are three routes on the left that share anchors at the top. The other group that we had seen earlier was on one of the routes. We figured we could set a tree anchor at the top of the trad climb we wanted to get on. So Kenton went on up. As he was trying to get to the right tree, a block about the size of two fists popped out of the cliff and came crashing down below.
“ROCK”
The words sounded down to the base. Our belay area was well right of the landing area. But the other group was definitely in the fall zone. None of them had a helmet on, and the cannonball rock came streaking down the cliff.
*THUD*
Once again, 5 feet is the difference. If someone had been standing 5 feet different. If Kenton had grabbed a rock 5 feet in either direction. This party of climbers, snacking in a circle, was split in the middle by this tumbling block. Another close call.
The rest of the day played out, Adrian made a few crack climbing jokes on the wall which helped lighten the mood and we went home happy to have a multitude of climbs completed.
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