Bottom of the Staircase
1 route · Henry Mountain? Granite · 7,531 ft
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
Henry Mountain? Granite. Paleoproterozoic, about 2,500 to 1,600 million years old.
Medium-gray to grayish-pink, coarse-grained, massive to strongly foliated monzogranite and granodiorite; locally porphyritic, with potassium feldspar phenocrysts as long as about 3 cm. Strongly resembles Elephant Rock Granite east of Arkansas River, but U-Pb zircon ages from two sites are 1,672±5 Ma (ID-TIMS age of Bickford and others, 1989) and 1,709±6 Ma (Moscati and others, 2017). Henry Mountain Granite (1,711±9 Ma; Moscati and others, 2017) near Gunnison is compositionally, petrographically, and isotopically very similar. Due to similarity to Elephant Rock Granite, contact between the two units has not been identified and is very approximate (indicated by queried contact). Similar rock tentatively interpreted as Henry Mountain Granite is also mapped in southwestern corner of map area, north and south of South Fork Arkansas River
This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (Kellogg and others, 2017, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3382). 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. Every crag on this unit: Henry Mountain? Granite. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.
On the map since 1956
The USGS has mapped this ground since 1956. 17 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.
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, 1956 to 1994: USGS topoView.
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.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
The map point for this crag is on land managed by Colorado Parks & Wildlife (state), in Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area - Browns Canyon. It lies inside state park, wilderness study area, wild and scenic river, national monument.
Land manager from USGS PAD-US (public domain), read 2026-09-29. It is the manager of the crag's map point, which can be a long way from the wall. What you may do on the rock is the manager's to say, not ours.
Rules for all Colorado Parks & Wildlife land
- Fees
- Every Colorado state park requires an entrance pass for motor vehicles. A daily vehicle pass is $4 to $17 depending on the park; an individual pass covers entry on foot or bike.
- Reservations
- Eldorado Canyon runs timed-entry vehicle reservations on summer weekends and holidays; see the park's own page. Other parks do not require one to enter.
- Permits
- A daily pass is valid until noon on the day after purchase. The annual Keep Colorado Wild pass is $29 and is bought with a vehicle registration.
Read on Colorado Parks & Wildlife's own pages, checked 2026-09-29 by John Crawford. What they require, in full, or their own climbing page. These apply to the manager's whole holding; anything specific to this crag is above.
Nearby, from OpenStreetMap
- Campsite
- Hecla Junction, 2,566 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.
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