Panty Wall, Red Rocks

For our second day of climbing in Red Rocks we chose to have a shorty day so headed to Panty Wall, one of the areas easily accessible from the first pull-out of the scenic loop road. Panty Wall sits within an area of vivid red sandstone outcrops known as the Calico Hills that Red Rocks draws its name from. The climbing here is generally smaller with many single pitch routes compared to the larger ones that sit to west in the Rainbow Mountain Wilderness area where we had been climbing on the previous day, in addition many of the lines here are bolted sport routes.

Myself leading Brief Encounter, 5.8**.

Pant Wall itself is only one of many of the venues but perhaps the most accessible of near routes, so much so that a few hundred meters away you'll find tourists on day trip from Vegas gawking at you, and if your lucky perhaps even get the odd fly by from a helicopter giving a tour of the area! There are about 15 routes on the wall ranging from 5.7 to 5.12b but with most concentrated in the 7,8,9,10 area. We climbed most of bolted lines up to 5.10 which felt about French 6a/b. I had carried the rack up with us to venture further and try some of the trad lines but the day was exceedingly warm so by mid afternoon we decided to call it a day and head back to the campsite to find some shade. Climbing in the desert is not easy.

We had a couple more days climbing in Red Rocks after this, and for those and the two climbs I've documented already we used Jerry Handren's Red Rocks: A Climber's Guide. I found it to be accurate and reasonably comprehensive, at nearly 400 pages I'm not going to run out of things to do from it! The mixture of Rockfaxx style picture diagrams and classic North American topographic drawings of the routes is fantastic and well thought out. The only downside is you need to have access to, or have the foresight to photocopy the routes you intend to do as you might as well carry a brick around with you!