I grew up in Louisiana and went to college in Arkansas, but I never climbed there. When I moved to California after college, I learned to climb at Tahquitz, Suicide, and Joshua Tree. I’ve always heard that these areas are “sandbagged” and that ratings are typically more difficult than other areas. I never worried too much about this, since it’s all I’ve known, but I have enjoyed that sense of superiority for having learned to climb in such a “difficult” area. I recently took a trip back home to Arkansas to get married. While there, I was able to go climbing with a long-time climbing partner, Walt (who now lives in Wisconsin), for a day at Arkansas’ premier traditional climbing location: Sam’s Throne.
On this trip, I was excited to climb a different type rock and to see how the ratings in Arkansas stacked up to those out west. In Idyllwild and Joshua Tree I call myself a “5.9 climber.” I typically on-sight every 5.9 I attempt, on-sight about 50% of the 5.10b/c I attempt, and will work the occasional 5.10d/11a on lead with plenty of hangs and falls. With this in mind, Walt and I decided to climb nothing easier than 5.8, with most of our routes being 5.9 or 5.10.
Our first route was a 5.10a fist crack called “Arkansas Roofs 101.” It’s only about 60 feet tall and begins as a knobby crack in a shallow dihedral. Higher the wall steepens and the crack becomes more smooth. After about 25 feet, the wall bulges and the crack moves left through the bulge, forming a small roof, which was presumably the crux, after which the angle lessens and the climbing looks more trivial. Walt had the first lead and he made quick work of the easy crack and face climbing getting up to the roof. From below, the roof looked pretty easy. There were plenty of features on the wall for feet, and besides, there was a bomber looking crack running through it. Walt hesitated at the roof for a minute or two, before scratching his way through it, both his feet dangling in the air as he squirmed his way up the wider crack immediately after the roof. A few minutes later, the belay was set and I was climbing. Immediately I felt the steepness of the rock which wasn’t apparent from below. All those features on the wall weren’t as useful as they looked from below. As I reached the roof, the steepness increased and I sunk my fists into the bomber roof crack, cleaning the last cam. I leaned out and reached around the roof with my left hand, searching for a good jam but unable to find anything because the crack had widened slightly too much to accept my fists. No wonder Walt had struggled here! I tried a few different body positions, trying to work my feet up higher, fighting against the steepness and my growing pump. After struggling a minute or two, I was gassed and hung on the rope. I was pissed! I hadn’t hung on a top-rope 5.10a in my recent memory and for it to happen on some crack climb in Arkansas stung. On my second go, I worked through the crack differently, doing some arm-bar/offwidth moves with my right side while face climbing with my left side. With awkward and strenuous moves, I made my way up, jamming my shoulder into the wide part of the crack at the lip of the roof while reaching for higher holds and jams. I struggled my way through breathing hard, slowly climbing the next 30 feet of easier crack and face climbing. What a wake-up call!
The next climb was my lead. Just to the left of the climb we just completed was another 5.10a crack climb called “Swamp Thing.” This one looked a bit more friendly to my strengths than the last climb. Swamp Thing begins right above the entrance to a cave and follows a wavy crack up 70 feet through a couple of bulges, the first of which has a nice bolt protecting where the crack narrows and flares. Starting up, I could hear dripping water echoing from deep in the cave. Soon after, I reached the first bulge relatively easily, but not without some mental anguish. Not being familiar with the rock, I was doubting the quality of my placements, fooling around with the gear longer than normal. As I reached the first bulge, I realized how steep it was. It felt more like a roof to me, than a bulge. With gear at my feet, what looked like would be an easy clip from great holds turned into climbing up and down into the bulge multiple times until I got my body positioning in such a way that I could safely clip the bolt while hanging from a good hold. After clipping the bolt, I moved up on good a good hold and a bomber hand jam. The next jam was a tight hand in a muddy, grassy crack. I tried making it work until I was gassed, then I accepted another hit to my ego as I down-climbed to the bolt and hung. Sh#t, these Arkansas roofs were spanking me! After a minute or so, I was rested and began the sequence again. Before committing to the muddy hand jam, I concentrated on getting my feet right, and moved up past the bolt. Once my feet were above the lip, I placed a bomber cam and moved up to the next bulge. From below, this one looked like it would be pretty easy, but the crack was wide, flaring, and steeper than it looked from below. There was a bomber hand jam right below the wide flare, but the rock was pushing me out, making my feet difficult to trust. After a few up and downs, I committed, squirmed my way up, equalized the 2 bolt anchor, and lowered off.
At this point, there was no more underestimating Arkansas trad. These routes had challenging and very physical movement compared to what I was used to. I was also certain that my roof climbing technique wasn’t very good, probably because virtually every 5.10 and under trad climb in Southern California is less than vertical or only overhanging for a few short moves. Our next climb would highlight my inability to climb overhanging rock with anything resembling “style.”
It was Walt’s lead again and he chose an impressive looking climb called “I Like Being Alive,” a 5.10b climb rated PG with a “bulge” crux midway up. This was no bulge in my book, more like a huge roof. The climb starts on some low angle crack and face moves for 20 feet or so before turning steeply back out, making a huge overhang that was about 2 body-widths long. Walt quickly made his way up to the base of the overhang, placing a good piece at knee level before reaching up to some jugs for a blind small cam placement in a horizontal. Then he fired through the overhang, dislodging a small snake from its home in the crack down to the ground next to me! Unconcerned, Walt continued to push through, placed a cam another small cam the lip before moving up to a good jam for another placement. The snake and I chilled out below, waiting for Walt to finish. Higher up, the route turned into more of a slab climb that reminded me of every Zion big wall top-out: wandering, sandy, and unprotected. He persevered through the set up a belay and pulled me up. I made it most of the way through the roof on my first go, but fell at the lip and had to fight my way back onto route because I was hanging in space. The roof was full of massive jugs, but I was just too weak and lacked the technique to fully utilize what was available. After being schooled by the third “bulge” in a row, I finally topped out on the 20 feet of harder-than-appeared-from-below slab.
Feeling pretty gassed at this point and tired of overhangs, I decided to pick something more in my wheelhouse for my next lead. An easy crack! We walked down the cliff-line until coming up on a dihedral with a splitter fist and hand crack going up the middle 1/3 of it. The only real difficulty appeared to be the first 10 feet, which were a wide, stemming chimney leading to a #4 C4 crack before the crack turned into fists and hands. The route, “Bryes Corner,” was rated 5.8+ so it looked like it’d be a nice break from the harder routes we had warmed up on. I racked up and began climbing. Like all the routes before, it felt steeper than it looked, but it wasn’t too bad. I stemmed up for 8 feet or so before placing a bomber #4 and working my way up the just-wider-than-fists crack through the bulge. Finally, I was able to sink a solid fist jam and pulled myself up into the smooth, parallel fist crack that gradually narrowed to hands. After that, the crack joined another crack system and I wandered up easier climbing to the 2 bolt anchor without incident.
It was about 1pm after we finished our fourth route of the day, so we decided to stop for lunch and take a break. We explored the area a little bit after eating, scoping out the cooler routes that neither of us wanted to lead. “Arkansas Reality” was an impressive 5.11b with a 12 foot horizontal roof with a fist and hand crack splitting it. We also checked out a cool aręte called “The Natural,” 5.10a. The left side of the aręte was smooth with beautiful, lime green lichen on the orange colored rock. The whole area was filled with cool looking 5.10s, 5.11s, and 5.12s, most of which were traditional climbs with few, if any, bolts. The climbs were steep, colorful, and required a bold attitude towards protection. Most of the runout I do in California tends to be slabs, so I’m always on my feet and never pumped. Runouts here seemed terrifying because they were more pumpy and placements looked hard to get in the horizontal cracks and fissures.
We continued to walk around the cliff and made our way to an area classic, “Razorback Roof,” rated 5.9+. The climb follows a distinct crack that works its way up and through a few overhangs. It was Walt’s lead and he started up. The crack begins with a few steep hand crack/face moves into a recess below the first and biggest roof. As he neared the roof, its size came into perspective. It overhung about 4 feet and the crack splitting it moved left around it along a steep wall before turning the lip. Walt contemplated the moves before committing and pulled through nicely. After the first roof, the he was out of sight and made steady progress until I heard him yell “off belay.” I tied in and tried to mentally prepare myself for another roof. The climbing was easy up to the roof. When I cleaned his last placement before committing to the roof, I noticed the huge swing I’d take if I fell and got that uneasy feeling. I began jamming the roof on good fists. Half way through the roof, you can begin to reach around the lip. I felt around, getting pumped a bit, before finding a bomber hand jam and pulling myself around the steep roof on the best hand jams imaginable. Way cool! The angle eased for the next 20 feet or so before I encountered another bulge. This one appeared easier from below, but turned out to be very awkward. There were great jams at waist level, no feet, and the crack widened to 5 inches above. I noticed a nice chicken head at waist level way off right, so I put my right foot out on it and began working my body up. After a minute or two of incredibly awkward climbing with my body almost completely horizontal, I managed to get my left foot up and stand. The top-outs here are always weird! We rapped off and found ourselves 10 feet away from the base of the wall, giving perspective to the overall steepness of the route!
The Sun was getting low in the sky and we decided to do one more climb, one that had shut down Walt on a previous trip: a 5.9+ offwidth dubbed “Diet Pepsi.” Walt made quick work of the start, 10 feet of overhanging hand and fist crack with ample edges for feet. Then after a short walk on a ledge, the real business starts: a perfectly parallel 5 inch crack in a less-than-90-degree flare corner. Walt grunted his way up the 30 feet of offwidth in a few minutes, walking a #5 C4 up with him, topped out and belayed off the 2 bolt anchor. I followed up, making quick work of the overhanging hand crack. Once I got to the offwidth, I was bummed out to find I could not fit my knee inside the crack. Damn! I had been hoping to try “levitation” for the first time, but was unable to make it work because I couldn’t seem to get a bomber leg or foot. Instead, I climbed it like a flare chimney, pretty much ignoring the crack until it widened at the top. After rapping off, we walked around and back up to the cars just in time for sunset.
We then made the 2.5 hour drive back to Little Rock. I spent the next 2 days helping my soon-to-be wife make the final preparations for our wedding. My hands were a little beat up, but the wedding went through without a problem!
Sam’s Throne and Arkansas has a lot to offer a travelling climber. The place is littered with awesome looking trad lines from easy all the way up to 5.13. Compared to most granite climbing I’ve encountered in California and the sandstone trad climbing in Red Rock, the routes at Sam’s Throne feel very steep. The area has a strong ethic of ground up leads with little or no bolting. In fact, the first bolt at Sam’s didn’t go in until 1987. Since then a few sport routes have been installed, but the area remains primarily trad. In addition, there are handful of sport and trad crags less than 1 hour away from Sam’s Throne that, at least based on the guidebook photos, look really cool! The surrounding areas are being developed in both traditional and sport styles. Best of all, the camping at Sam’s Throne is free and located on the bluffs above the cliff faces! You can walk from your car or tent down to most of the climbs in less than 10 minutes. We had the cliff to ourselves during Spring Break, a testament to how few southern climbers have a rack! I highly recommend that any climber finding him or herself in Arkansas between October and May to check out the variety of climbing they have to offer. You won’t be disappointed!
