Deep Cut Guide

Humiliation Boulder

1 boulder problem · unconsolidated (Till of Bull Lake age) · 7,983 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

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

Till of Bull Lake age — unconsolidated. Late Pleistocene, younger than 126,000 years.

Subangular to subrounded boulders, cobbles, and pebbles in a silty sand matrix. Morainal form subdued in comparison to till of Pinedale age (Qp). Undrained depressions on this till are uncommon and it is more weathered than till of Pinedale age. Soils are 1-2 m thick. Thirty to 70 percent of stones in B horizon of soil are partially to totally rotted. Description from Gable and Madole (1976) and Meierding (1977). Patterned lines within unit indicate trend of moraines. South and southwest of Shadow Mountain Lake, the till is partly mantled by sheet-like deposits of fine sand or silt believed to be of eolian origin (Meierding, 1977, pages 41). Till of Bull Lake age may have been deposited between about 130,000 and 150,000 years ago (Madole and Shroba, 1979, pages 130). GRI Source Map ID 141 (I-1973).

This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (National Park Service Geologic Resources Evaluation program, 2006, National Park Service). 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: Till of Bull Lake age. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1915

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1915. 31 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1915 USGS sheet covering Humiliation Boulder
USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for Longs Peak, CO 1915 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1915 · 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, 1915 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.

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.

Rocky Mountain National Park in Winter (30870263815) · Bradley Weber · 2016 · 506 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Morning clearing (38380033021) · Christian Collins · 2017 · 518 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 61 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,253 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 60 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,254 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 62 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,257 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 133 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,284 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 132 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,303 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 91 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,310 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 87 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,311 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 88 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,311 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 89 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,311 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2014-09-28 Rocky Mountain National Park 90 · mark byzewski · 2014 · 1,311 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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18 more on Commons.

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 (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Partly enclosed: the skyline averages 8° above horizontal.
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 40.34418 N, 105.57727 W (Humiliation Boulder). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by Estes Valley Land Trust (non-governmental organization), in YMCA of the Rockies. It lies inside conservation easement.

The boundary is close. Land managed by National Park Service 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 Estes Valley Land Trust'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

Toilets
497 m away (map)
Mapped parking
344 m away (map)
Campsite
YMCA of the Rockies, 757 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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