Cynical Pinnacle
22 routes · granite (Pikes Peak Granite) · 7,947 ft
What's here
5.8 to 5.13, with no single grade dominating.
Counted from the 22 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
Position on wall known 22
No route here has its own point yet. The map pin is the crag. At the wall? Survey it: 30 seconds per route.
The order of the climbs along this wall is known from the open catalogue, so a few surveys go a long way: standing at Buffaloes in Space, Rap Crack, CMC Route (3 climbs, about 90 seconds) would place up to 19 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
Pikes Peak Granite. Mesoproterozoic, about 1,600 to 1,000 million years old.
White to orange-pink biotitic or biotite-hornblende granite, granodiorite, and quartz-monzonite. Weathers to disaggregated mass of constituent minerals (called grus). Age about 1.04 billion years (Hedge and others, 1967, p. 551).
This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (Trimble and others, 2003, U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Investigations Series I-856-H). 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: Pikes Peak Granite. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.
On the map since 1893
The USGS has mapped this ground since 1893. 33 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, 1893 to 1994: 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
Geological and geographical atlas of Colorado and portions of adjacent territory · F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories · 1877
Free to read: public domain or government work. About South Platte 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.
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.
Photographs near this crag
Taken within 1.5 km of this crag's map point and published under a licence that lets us show them, from Wikimedia Commons. The coordinates say where the camera was, not what it was pointed at, so some of these will be the creek or the trail rather than the rock.
Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Routes
- 1 Buffaloes in Space 5.13
- 2 Hand Job (aka West Face) 5.9+
- 3 Twist O' Flex 5.9+
- 4 Hand Job Direct 5.9
- 5 Monkey in the Forest 5.11a
- 6 Amy, Good Gorilla 5.9-
- 7 Only the Lonely 5.13+
- 8 Wunsch's Dihedral 5.11b/c
- 9 Center Route P1 Variation 5.10b
- 10 Center Route P3 Variation 5.10a
- 11 Center Route 5.9+
- 12 Green Project 5.12a
- 13 Rap Crack 5.10a/b
- 14 Rising Crescendo or Serpentine Crack 5.11c
- 15 Turf Spreader 5.11b
- 16 Tough Turf 5.11c
- 17 Rubber Ducky 5.10a
- 18 Rubber Ducky P2 5.13
- 19 Class Act 5.11b
- 20 Don't Fear The Boogie Man 5.11c
- 21 Off-width Route 5.10c
- 22 CMC Route 5.8
Also within 3 km
- Block Tower222 m · 8 routes · 8,246 ft
- Poe Buttress286 m · 8 routes · 8,023 ft
- Hall of Mirrors381 m · 1 route · 8,337 ft
- Sunshine Wall447 m · 34 routes · 7,940 ft
- Snake Buttress462 m · 15 routes · 7,284 ft
- Cathedral Spires Bouldering912 m · 7 routes and 32 boulder problems · 6,964 ft
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 Jefferson County Open Space (local government), in Cathedral Spires Park. It lies inside local park.
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 Jefferson County Parks & Open Space land
- Climbing permit
- Installing fixed hardware on a new route requires a permit: a Fixed Hardware Application, vetted by the Fixed Hardware Review Committee before the Climbing Committee decides.
- Hours
- Unlawful to be on Open Space land from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise, unless posted otherwise.
- Rules
- JCPOS does not install, maintain or inspect hardware related to rock climbing. Climbing ethics differ by park -- Clear Creek Canyon, the Cathedral Spires and the South Platte each have their own published guidelines.
- Overnight
- Camping by advance permit only, obtained online at least 24 hours ahead -- not at the park, headquarters or by phone. Only White Ranch and Reynolds Parks, tent-only.
- Dogs
- Dogs must be on a leash ten feet or less in length and under physical control.
Read on Jefferson County Parks & Open Space'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.
Approach trail, from Jefferson County
Cynical Trail in Cathedral Spires Park passes 40 m from this crag's map point. The county rates it most difficult. Pets: yes.
A segment the county flags as climber access, drawn on the Take me there map. Where it leaves the trail for the base of the wall is the guidebook's to say, not ours.
Nearby, from OpenStreetMap
- Mapped parking
- 886 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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