One of the things that Justthemaid and I like to do is to explore new places . (“SPLORE!”).

Since we are in a new town, that has a lot of climbing, we decided to tour our local crags – sampling our closest local cuisine, so to speak.

Please bear in mind that we have been fighting hoards of gym rats on SoCal choss for years, so our expectations low - in other words, we are easily excited by any crummy crag of reasonably solid, uncrowded rock...

First stop on the tour: Little Egypt Wall.

Well, maybe not so obscure since it’s clearly visible from Hwy 168, but evidently not so popular with the locals. We had heard a lot of words thrown around about this place, "chossy", "not worth the hike", etc. There was one other car there in Memorial Day Saturday when we parked – turns out it was a couple of out-of-towners. ( No “weak hang” issues here Pine Creek whiners).


Good thing about Little Egypt is the shade during the summer – we got a bit of a late start, so it was nice and hot for the hike in. The creek crossing is the sketchiest part of the approach: moldy lumber, blown-out OSB scraps, and other plywood of questionable age make this bridge one to be approached with consideration:


15 minutes and much sweat, the crag comes into view, now only the sandy desert dunes (Of Doom!) keep us from our objective:


Climbed Arabesque, a fun 5.9 on the far right with good rock:
Then went over to Espresso, which I aided clean to check out, then found a fun 5.8 variation which isn’t in the book. Skip on TR:


Amazingly, I then sent Espresso (on top-rope – basically off-the-couch) first try!(Down-rated to .11b on MountainProject – Meh.)

We didn’t hit Lambada or Mussypotamia on this visit, which, apparently, is where the quality choss begins. Solid rock on everything we climbed!

Nice view on the hike out:


Next on the tour was “our Nearest Crag”, which is Windy Wall. Basically ½ hour to climbing (20 minute drive + 10 minute approach). “Nobody goes there” is mostly what we heard, and our three trips there have proven this statement correct. We have never seen another soul.


As usual, we found it to be awesome by our standards! We first climbed “Scoot” a 3-star 5.8 that was short but sweet:


Then onto “Cayenne Pepper” another fun 5.8. We then top-roped “Allspice”…or tried to...
Meh! 5.10c inobvious slab move at the top fail.

Regardless, we are excited about Windy Wall!

So a few days later we endured the grueling 10 minute approach (still no-one there) and climb a few more classics.
“Coyote Ugly” only gets one star, but we loved it! 5.6 chimneying and other easy crack tactics make this climb super fun!


Following this, I lead (what I thought was) Dr. Zine 5.10a, but in actuality, it was “Rubber Gloves and Razor Blades”, a hairy 5.10d trad line put up by Ken Yager and Grant Hiskes. This slightly over-hanging flared crack, with tricky but good pro makes the spicier than your average 60-foot .10+ crack!
Onsight, Woohoo! Was thinking it felt hard for old-school .10a…


I then tried to lead “Dr. Zine”, and got shut down 15 feet up…on a 5.10a. So much for my on-sight stoke. I got one good piece in at 10 feet, then a few feet later the crux hits…with no gear. It is techy/awkward to get onto the easier slab, but with no gear, I was not willing to risk a ground-fall if my only piece pulled. Another Yager/Hiskes climb (Ken later posted “I guess I was stronger than I thought!”). Cold comfort…


We wandered around and explored some of the other climbs, we are definitely going back to do the awesome looking arête “Make it Suede”, as well as the two fun-looking 5.9 huecoed routes “Hueco Thanks” and “Miles From Nowhere”.


A storm rolled through as we got back to the car, so we hung out and got some good post-storm pictures of Buttermilk Country.






Third on the tour was Wild Rose Buttress, a small, high-elevation area near South Lake. At 9700 feet, it was to be the highest elevation “crag” we had been to yet. What, pray tell drew us to this place? The approach beta had us at “heinous aspen-infested talus slope”. Crag description: “Bushy”


As we got closer, it got stormier, but we decided to just do the hike and check out the place…in the rain. Fortunately, the rain was warm and it actually felt nice to get soaked for the first time in ages. After 40 minutes of thrashing around in wet foliage, we found it and snapped some pictures of some of the cooler looking lines


Wet muppet on the hike down:


We went up to South Lake, and it was super low – the dam looks pretty much useless at this point. Boat launch to nowhere is pretty weird, and the defunct dam even weirder.

The storm dampened everything nicely, making for some nice alpine fall colors on the trip down:



Next stop on the tour was Benton Crags and Double Domes, with our friend Tom (Supertopo handle “MisterT”) – hey, wait a minute…

It’s kinda out in the middle of nowhere from Bishop, one covers a lot of winding landscape in finding the place. It’s not even really close to Benton, a lone town in itself. At 7900 feet, you start to feel the alpine exposure just dropping into the crag.

Even with the 4-minute approach to Locals Only.


Most of the climbs on this wall are 70-meter rope-stretching moderate trad climbs on wonderful rock. It really reminded Maidy and I of Holcomb Pinnacles on steroids and mood stabilizers.

We climbed “Locals Only” first, a stellar long 5.6, that felt old-school for 5.6. We then switched over 15 fee and climbed “Get Lost” a really fun 5.7 that felt easier, with natural anchors.

The next climb was “Surfin’ Safari” one of the funnest 5.9 climbs of a full 35 meters we have done in a while.



The sun came earlier than we thought it would on the wall, so we decided to find the holy grail of obscure - Double Dome. Off we set, hoping to find some north-facing clip-ups to round out our day with only some vague dotted lines on a not too detailed topo to guide us.


We missed the turnoff and followed sucker-cairns to nowhere of course. MisterT eventually saved the day and found it after much squinting at the map. Maidy had nicknamed it “Littlehorn Foreplay Grotto” during the endless search in homage to the (notoriously difficult to find) Bighorn Mating Grotto of J-Tree.



The climbs were disappointingly short and rubbly. 4-5 bolts, and graininess reminiscent of some of the mediocre Joshua Tree areas. Additionally, the starts on the two climbs we did were boulder-starts, stiff ratings and the 1st bolts are high.
On the upside… it is an exceptionally beautiful landscape in this area so we weren’t really that bothered by the endless wandering and still had our share of fun out there. We love the random, strange and obscure, as long as it is climbing - bring it!!
SPLORE!