Deep Cut Guide

South Gateway Rock

25 routes and 1 boulder problem · sandstone (Lyons Formation fins; Fountain Formation also exposed) · 6,541 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

What's here

5.4 to 5.12, mostly around 5.10.

  1. 1 5.4
  2. 1 5.6
  3. 1 5.7
  4. 2 5.8
  5. 3 5.9
  6. 9 5.10
  7. 7 5.11
  8. 1 5.12

Counted from the 25 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 26 

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 Sign Of The Times, Pure Energy, Crescent Corner (3 climbs, about 90 seconds on East Side) would place up to 13 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. 34 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1893 USGS sheet covering South Gateway 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
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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

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 · C. Duhem & Bro. · 1869 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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[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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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"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
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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
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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
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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
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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 (36686928634) · Matthew Dillon from Hollywood, CA, USA · 2017 · 49 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 030 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 55 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 029 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 57 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 031 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 58 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 032 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 58 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 034 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 58 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 035 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 58 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Garden of the Gods (36679542834) · Matthew Dillon from Hollywood, CA, USA · 2017 · 59 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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2015-04-05 Garden of the Gods - 036 · mark byzewski · 2015 · 61 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Garden of the Gods (23517360398) · Matthew Dillon from Hollywood, CA, USA · 2017 · 61 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Sentinel Rock Garden of the Gods Colorado 2024 · Larry D. Moore · 2024 · 61 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Formation in the Garden of the Gods, a public park, but also an international tourist attraction, packed with red-rock f · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 62 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · 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
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 38.87784 N, 104.88019 W (South Gateway Rock). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by City of Colorado Springs (local government), in Garden Of The Gods 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.

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
324 m away (map)
Mapped parking
277 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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