Deep Cut Guide

Keyhole Rock

14 routes · sandstone (Lyons Formation fins; Fountain Formation also exposed) · 6,369 ft

Take me there Routes ↓ Directions

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

What's here

5.6 to 5.12, mostly around 5.10.

  1. 2 5.6
  2. 1 5.7
  3. 2 5.8
  4. 1 5.9
  5. 5 5.10
  6. 1 5.11
  7. 1 5.12

Counted from the 13 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 13  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.

The order of the climbs along this wall is known from the open catalogue, so a few surveys go a long way: standing at Borderline Direct, Keyhole Route (2 climbs, about 60 seconds on North End Pinnacle) would place up to 2 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

Mesozoic and Paleozoic rocks — siliciclastic. about 541 to 66 million years old.

Mainly as in Mesozoic unit (MZ) plus Permian and Pennsylvanian Fms

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. 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: Mesozoic and Paleozoic rocks. 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. 32 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1893 USGS sheet covering Keyhole Rock
USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for Colorado Springs, CO 1893 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1893 · 1:125,000 sheet
USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

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 1989: USGS topoView.

In print since 1877

Free to read: public domain or government work. About Colorado Springs 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.

Steeple Rock, Garden of the Gods
Steeple Rock, Garden of the Gods · C. Duhem & Bro. · 1869 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

[Rock of Ages, Garden of the Gods] · C. Duhem & Bro. · 1869 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Hilarious gods, Garden of the Gods, Col. · Kilburn, B. W. (Benjamin West), 1827-1909 · 1897 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Garden of the Gods, the Gateway, Colorado · Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942 · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Pikes Peak Avenue, Colorado Springs · Detroit Photographic Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Gateway-Garden of the Gods-Colorado · 1899 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

"Siamese Twins," Garden of the Gods · 1900 · postcard
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Cascade Avenue, Colorado Springs · Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942 · 1900
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Cathedral Spires, Garden of the Gods · 1900 · postcard
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs · Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942 · 1900
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

26 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.

Garden of the Gods, view on Pikes peak - panoramio
Garden of the Gods, view on Pikes peak - panoramio · Frans-Banja Mulder · 2001 · 25 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Garden of the Gods Colorado · Boyerhm74 · 2007 · 37 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Adventure to marriage (Unsplash) · Dylan Siebel siebelmotion · 2016 · 43 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Garden storm (23472923108) · Christian Collins · 2017 · 47 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Pikes Peak from Garden of the Gods · Ahodges7 · 2009 · 49 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 012 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 374 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Distant view of the Garden of the Gods, a public park in Colorado Springs, Colorado LCCN2015633453 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 417 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 015 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 613 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 016 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 624 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 013 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 631 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 017 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 637 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 018 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 648 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

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
Wall direction not known yet.
Rain & forecast
0 mm of rain in the last 48 hours.
11-11 63°/35° · 0.0 mm · 12 mph · pm storms 0% 11-12 61°/38° · 0.0 mm · 11 mph · pm storms 0% 11-13 59°/37° · 0.0 mm · 8 mph · pm storms 0%
Open-Meteo, fetched 2026-11-11 18:41 UTC

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 38.87880 N, 104.87000 W (Keyhole Rock). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

We don't know who manages this ground: PAD-US doesn't map this point as protected land, which most often means it is private. Find out whose it is before you go.

Managed by
City of Colorado Springs (Garden of the Gods Park)
Fees
Free to enter.
Climbing permit
A free climbing permit is required (online; good for all city parks that allow climbing); carry proof for any park official. Parties of 2 or more.
Hours
5am-10pm May 1-Oct 31; 5am-9pm Nov 1-Apr 30.
Rules
All chalk and chalk substitutes are prohibited. Do not climb sandstone when wet. Seasonal closures are marked with signs on the closed routes.
Dogs
The park asks climbers to leave pets at home.
County
El Paso County

Checked 2026-09-29 against source 1. Rules change: confirm with the land manager.

Nearby, from OpenStreetMap

Toilets
46 m away (map)
Mapped parking
62 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.

Keep Deep Cut Guide free

No ads, no paywall, no account. You can chip in directly to help keep it running.