Deep Cut Guide

Kafka on the Shore Boulder

1 boulder problem · gneiss and schist · 6,365 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

How well located

Crag only 1 

No route here has its own point yet. The map pin is the crag. At the wall? Survey it: 30 seconds per route.

Rock, from the geologic map

Quartzofeldspathic Schist And Gneiss Interbedded With Mica Schist And Gneiss. about 4,000 to 541 million years old.

Contains thin beds of knotted mica schist and granule to pebble metaconglomerate

This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (Colton, Roger B., 1976, U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Investigations Series I-855-G). The point can be a few hundred metres from the rock, a cliff often stands on the line between two units, and at that scale a line on the map is about 100 m wide on the ground, so the wall itself may be the neighbouring unit. The rock named at the top of this page comes from the public geology of this area; this card is the map's answer. Every crag on this unit: Quartzofeldspathic Schist And Gneiss Interbedded With Mica Schist And Gneiss. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1905

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1905. 23 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1905 USGS sheet covering Kafka on the Shore Boulder
USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Mount Olympus, CO 1905 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1905 · 1:62,500 sheet
USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Public domain, U.S. Geological Survey. The sheet shows the ground as the survey found it then, which is why a trail or road you know may be missing. Every sheet over this point, 1905 to 1984: USGS topoView.

In print since 1877

  • 1877 Geologic Map of Colorado (Hayden), high-resolution scan · F. V. Hayden; scan by the Colorado Geological Survey · 1877

    The whole-state sheet of the 1877 atlas, scanned at full resolution by the state survey and free to download.

    Colorado Geological Survey (publication HM-01-04) · Public domain · read it

  • Geological and geographical atlas of Colorado and portions of adjacent territory · F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories · 1877

    The first geology anyone drew of this ground. Hayden's survey mapped the state in the 1870s; these are the sheets, with the rock units coloured as they understood them then.

    Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it

  • Mountaineering in Colorado: the peaks about Estes Park · Frederick H. Chapin · 1889

    The first book of Colorado climbing. Chapin's 1887-88 ascents of Longs Peak, Hallett, Ypsilon and the Mummy Range, with the approaches as they were before the park.

    Internet Archive (Harvard University copy, Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston) · Public domain · read it

  • The story of Estes Park · Enos A. Mills · 1914

    Mills, the Longs Peak innkeeper and guide who pushed the park into being, on the valley's people and peaks. Published from his own inn at the foot of Longs Peak.

    Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it

  • Trail and Timberline, volume 2 (1918) · Colorado Mountain Club · 1918

    The Colorado Mountain Club's own magazine in its sixth year, with the club's outings and ascents as its members wrote them up at the time.

    Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it

  • Mountaineering in the Rocky Mountain National Park · Roger W. Toll, U.S. National Park Service · 1919

    The Park Service's own mountaineering guide, four years after the park was made. Peak by peak, with the routes of the day and the first recorded ascents Toll could find.

    National Park Service, scan at the Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it

Free to read: public domain or government work. About Estes Park Valley as a whole, not this wall. More in the reading room.

From the archives

Photographs of this area held by the Library of Congress, oldest first. Every one carries the Library's own "no known restrictions on publication"; anything else is left out.

Big Thompson Canyon. Loveland, Fort Collins and Estes Park Road, Estes Park, Colo. · 1908 · postcard
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Eagle Rock, Big Thompson Canyon, Estates Park, Colo. · 1908 · postcard
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

[Devils Curve, Big Thompson Canyon, Estes Park, Colorado] · 1909
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

East entrance to Big Canon on the Big Thompson River, Colo. · 1910 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Motoring past overhanging rook, Cañon of the Big Thompson (E.S.E.), Colo. · 1910 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Near west end of Big Canon on the Big Thompson River, Colo. · 1910 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Routes

Also within 3 km

Straight line between the two crags' map points, each of which can be some way from its rock. For when this wall is full, or the sun has found it.

Photos from climbers

No photos here yet. If you're at the crag, yours would be the first.

Pick a photo from your camera roll rather than taking one here: a picture taken inside a browser usually has no location saved in it, and we check that the photo was taken at this crag before publishing it. Photos of guidebook pages and topos are refused — they're the author's work. By sending one you're letting us publish it.

Nobody reviews these before they appear, so anyone can report one and it's hidden straight away — including you, if you change your mind, and including a photographer who finds their own picture here.

Taken at the crag by climbers and published as they sent them. Each one's own location had to be within 0.5 km of this crag before we accepted it. See something that shouldn't be here? Use Report this photo under it and it's hidden at once. Anything else, write to us.

Sun today
Wall direction not known yet.
Rain & forecast
No recent weather for this crag.

Conditions reported

Nothing reported recently.

Report what you see

Reports are dated and fade on their own: wet rock after 3 days, a bad bolt after a year. No names, no text.

Access & safety

Emergency: call 911. Read out your location: Works without signal. If GPS fails, this crag's approximate map point is 40.42157 N, 105.35365 W (Kafka on the Shore Boulder). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

We don't know who manages this ground: PAD-US doesn't map this point as protected land, which most often means it is private. Find out whose it is before you go.

Nobody has yet read the land manager's own rules for this crag and written them down here, so treat the above as where you are, not as what you may do.

Nearby, from OpenStreetMap

Mapped parking
549 m away (map)

Distances are a straight line from this crag's map point, which can itself be hundreds of metres off; a road may be much longer. Mapped by OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), so a toilet missing here may simply be unmapped. Parking here is what OSM has drawn nearby, not a guidebook's directions.

Keep Deep Cut Guide free

No ads, no paywall, no account. You can chip in directly to help keep it running.