Deep Cut Guide

Shark's Fin Wall

3 routes · Eocene prevolcanic sedimentary rocks · 9,989 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

How well located

Position on wall known 3 

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

Eocene prevolcanic sedimentary rocks (Echo Park Alluvium, Telluride Conglomerate, Blanco Basin Formation) — arkose, gravel, minor conglomerate, mudstone, sandstone. Paleogene, about 57 to 46 million years old.

South-central: Arkosic sand and bouldery gravel of Echo Park Alluvium. Southwest: includes Telluride Conglomerate and Blanco Basin Fm (arkosic mudstone, sandstone, and conglomerate)

This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:500,000 sheet (Horton and others, 2017, U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 1052). 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 500 m wide on the ground, so the wall itself may be the neighbouring unit. Every crag on this unit: Eocene prevolcanic sedimentary rocks. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1897

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1897. 29 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1897 USGS sheet covering Shark's Fin Wall
USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Telluride, CO 1897 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1897 · 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, 1897 to 1982: USGS topoView.

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.

Waterfalls in Tomboy, Colorado · Matt North from Chicago, USA · 2010 · 656 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Geranium richardsonii CO · JohnIngraham · 2006 · 515 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

They left the water running. (4800179311) · John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA · 2010 · 534 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Bridal Veil Power Station · Sam Dosick · 2011 · 611 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · 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

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 NE (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Deep terrain: the skyline averages 24° 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 37.92241 N, 107.77829 W (Shark's Fin Wall). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by Uncompahgre National Forest (federal). It lies inside national forest.

The boundary is close. Land managed by San Miguel County Open Space Program comes within 250 m of this point, and the point is not the rock — the wall itself may be on the other side of the line. Check which before you rely on either one's rules.

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.

Nobody has yet read Uncompahgre National Forest'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
713 m away (map)
Campsite
Unnamed, 2,656 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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