Deep Cut Guide

268 Wall

2 routes · gneiss and schist · 6,791 ft · 30 min approach

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

How well located

Position on wall known 2 

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

Guidebook

Rock Climbing Clear Creek Canyon - Kevin Capps - 3rd ed. · p. 51 every crag it covers

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Every guidebook we have registered

Rock, from the geologic map

Gneiss. Paleoproterozoic, about 2,500 to 1,600 million years old.

Composed primarily of gray medium-grained foliated gneiss, consisting mainly of quartz, plagioclase, and biotite, and foliated micaceous schist. Includes large areas of migmatite and migmatitic gneiss near major bodies of Pikes Peak Granite, Silver Plume Quartz Monzonite, and Boulder Creek Granodiorite, as well as garnet, sillimanite, and cordierite-bearing gneisses.

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: Gneiss. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1899

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1899. 24 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1899 USGS sheet covering 268 Wall
USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for West Denver, CO 1899 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1899 · 1:125,000 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, 1899 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

    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

  • 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

Free to read: public domain or government work. About Golden 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.

Golden City, C.T. - looking west · Mathews, Alfred Edward, 1831-1874 · 1870
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
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Hanging Rock, Clear Creek Cañon · Photochrom Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hanging Rock, Clear Creek [Cañon] · Detroit Photographic Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Mother "Grundy", Clear Creek Cañon · Photochrom Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Mother Grundy, Clear Creek Cañon · Detroit Photographic Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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The Old Roadmaster, Clear Creek Cañon · Detroit Photographic Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Georgetown, Colo. · Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942 · 1901
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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The darling little equestrian - Clear Creek Canyon, Colo., U.S.A. · 1901 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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The picturesqueness of Clear Creek Canon, Colorado · 1901 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hanging Rock, Clear Creek Canyon, Colorado · 1903 · postcard
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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12 more at the Library of Congress.

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.

Clear Creek Canyon Park · Jeffrey Beall · 2026 · 1,081 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Clear Creek Canyon - panoramio · Thomson M · 2016 · 1,146 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Bridge 691 on the Clear Creek Trail · Jeffrey Beall · 2026 · 579 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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CCR Bridge area · Jeffrey Beall · 2026 · 628 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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CCR Bridge 2 · Jeffrey Beall · 2026 · 686 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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CCR Trailhead area general view · Jeffrey Beall · 2026 · 827 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Clear Creek Trail west of the CCR Trailhead · Jeffrey Beall · 2026 · 1,006 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Clear Creek - panoramio (1) · Thomson M · 2016 · 1,127 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Clear Creek - panoramio (2) · Thomson M · 2016 · 1,160 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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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
In shade all day
Wall faces N (Guidebook). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Deep terrain: the skyline averages 32° above horizontal, so the sun has to climb well clear of the rim before it reaches this wall.
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 39.74547 N, 105.28317 W (268 Wall). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by Jefferson County Open Space (local government), in Clear Creek Canyon 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.

Nearby, from OpenStreetMap

Toilets
1,391 m away (map)
Mapped parking
468 m away (map)
Campsite
Gennessee Ropes Camp Spot, 4,317 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 — those are above.

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