Palisade Mountain

97 routes and 4 boulder problems · gneiss and schist · 7,399 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

What's here

5.6 to 5.13, mostly around 5.10.

3 5.6
9 5.7
12 5.8
10 5.9
30 5.10
25 5.11
6 5.12
2 5.13

Counted from the 97 climbs here that carry a grade. Shown only where there are at least 5 of them — below that the shape is noise.

How well located

Base placed (one source) 3 Position on wall known 93 Crag only 5

The order of the climbs along this wall is known from the open catalogue, so a few surveys go a long way: standing at Fall of the Republic, Preakness, Blondie (3 climbs, about 90 seconds on Horseshead) would place up to 18 more climbs between them. Survey the wall →

“Up to” because the estimate between two surveyed routes is only used when they turn out to be close enough together on the ground.

Rock, from the geologic map

Tonalite, Metasedimentary Rocks. about 4,000 to 541 million years old.

Light-gray quartz diorite consisting of plagioclase (predominant), quartz, and (subordinate) hornblende or biotite or both. Varies from medium-grained and equigranular to very fine-grained and porphyritic; nonfoliated. METASEDIMENTARY ROCKS (PRECAMBRIAN

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: Tonalite, Metasedimentary Rocks. 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 Palisade Mountain — **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

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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

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