Piano Ridge
1 route and 36 boulder problems · sandstone (Dakota Sandstone) · 5,630 ft
What's here
V0 to V4, with no single grade dominating.
Counted from the 36 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 32 Crag only 5
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 Far North Slab (formerly "Unknown Slab"), Piano Traverse, Unknown (submitted as Moth Pocket), Gill Arrow Roof Problem (4 climbs, about 120 seconds) would place up to 28 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.
The guidebook for this area
Colorado Bouldering: Front Range - Phillip Benningfield, Matt Samet - 2020 every crag it covers
From the publisherBookshop.org
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The book has the topos, the descriptions and the local knowledge this page can't. Buying it helps support the people who know the crag best.
Rock, from the geologic map
Dakota Group — sandstone, shale, conglomerate. Mesozoic, about 145 to 100 million years old.
Light-gray to brown-gray, fine-grained, ripple-marked sandstone and interbedded gray carbonaceous shale in upper part, and chert-pebble conglomerate and sandstone in lower part; base is major regional unconformity. In eastern foothill belt, the Dakota consists of South Platte Formation in upper part and Lytle Formation in lower part. Sandstones are strongly cemented with silica and form prominent ridges; blocks of weathered Dakota sandstone litter slopes surrounding outcrops. The Dakota was deposited in fluvial and swamp environments during a major marine transgression. Thickness ranges from about 88.4 m (southeast) to 74.7 m (northeast) to 76.2 m (northwest) to 75 m (southwest) across the quadrangle
This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (Workman and others, 2018, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3399). 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: Dakota Group. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.
On the map since 1906
The USGS has mapped this ground since 1906. 31 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.
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, 1906 to 1980: 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
Geological and geographical atlas of Colorado and portions of adjacent territory · F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories · 1877
Free to read: public domain or government work. About Fort Collins 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.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
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.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
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.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
3 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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Routes
- 1 Far North Slab (formerly "Unknown Slab") V2
- 2 Far North Arete V0
- 3 Far North Crack (formerly "Unknown Crack") V1-
- 4 Bashie Line V0
- 5 Mid-North Parallel Finger Crack V1
- 6 Mid-North Lieback V1
- 7 Spread Eagled V1
- 8 Around the Bulge V1
- 9 Balance If You Can V0
- 10 Brian's Song V2
- 11 Slab Left of the Piano Boulder (formerly "Unknown Slab") V0
- 12 Piano Ridge Traverse V1-
- 13 Piano Traverse V5-
- 14 Unknown / Piano West Face V2
- 15 Piano West Face Unknown V3 V3
- 16 Unknown V4
- 17 Double Dipping V0
- 18 North Arete (Unknown Roof) V1-
- 19 Roof Crack V0
- 20 Roof Reach V1+
- 21 Bootie 5.8+
- 22 Handcracker V0
- 23 Unknown Bootie Traverse Variation V1
- 24 Bootie Crack Traverse / Low V0+
- 25 Unknown (submitted as Moth Pocket) V1+
- 26 Life on the Edge V1+
- 27 Continental Shelf V1+
- 28 Don't Get Stumped V0
- 29 Traction V2
- 30 Tango V3
- 31 Just Add A Pinch V2
- 32 Gill Arrow Roof Problem V4
- Fiction, Friction V0
- Hug N' Jug V1
- Sloper Traverse (aka Baby Grand) V4
- Sloper Traverse 2 (unknown) V4
- Undercling V0+
Also within 3 km
- Duncan's Ridge317 m · 40 routes and 9 boulder problems · 5,719 ft
- The Dungeon645 m · 4 routes · 5,220 ft
- Torture Chamber704 m · 31 routes and 8 boulder problems · 5,356 ft
- Marina Ridge1,396 m · 12 routes and 10 boulder problems · 5,621 ft
- Inlet Bay1,518 m · 10 boulder problems · 5,468 ft
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.
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.
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
The map point for this crag is on land managed by City of Fort Collins (local government), in Pineridge Natural Area. It lies inside local conservation area.
The boundary is close. Land managed by Larimer County 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 City of Fort Collins'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
- 1,375 m away (map)
- Mapped parking
- 90 m away (map)
- Campsite
- Inlet Bay Campground, 1,812 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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