Deep Cut Guide

Nautilus

3 boulder problems · sandstone (Fountain Formation) · 5,875 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.

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 (South Platte Formation, Lytle Formation). Mesozoic, about 145 to 100 million years old.

Consists of South Platte Formation and underlying Lytle Formation. South Platte Formation contains two or three yellowish-gray, well-sorted, cross-stratified, porous, fine- to medium-grained quartz sandstone sequences separated by dark-gray, silty, hard, locally carbonaceous shale, interbedded with thin quartz sandstone beds and gray to white refractory clay or porcellanite layers [see Bryant and others (1973) for more detailed description of members of South Platte Formation]. The South Platte is about 67 m thick. Lytle Formation consists of yellowish-gray, medium- to fine-grained sandstone and conglomerate; locally contains reddish iron stain. Well-rounded clasts in conglomerate composed of quartz, quartzite, chert, and some petrified wood; conglomerate generally near base of unit. The Lytle is about 24 m thick. In Fraser basin, combined thickness about 75 m (Taylor, 1975)

This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (Kellogg and others, 2008, USGS Geologic Investigations Series 3000). 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 1899

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1899. 25 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1899 USGS sheet covering Nautilus
USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for West Denver, CO 1899 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1899 · 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, 1899 to 1983: 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.

Denver Mountain Parks (Unsplash) · Natasha Miller tashography · 2015 · 1,249 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Morrison Schoolhouse · Jeffrey Beall · 2012 · 320 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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USGS Dakota Hogback Morrison 1926 · U.S. Geological Survey (Data Owner), Campbell, Marius Robinson (Photographer) · 1926 · 360 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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HABS COLO,30-MORR.V,1- (sheet 1 of 1) - Rooney Ranch, Rooney Road and West Alamdea Parkway, Morrison, Jefferson County, · Related names: Rooney, Alexander and Eunice Rooney, Otis Rooney, Alex and Evelyn Murillo, Paul M, photographer Gambrill, · 1933 · 444 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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HABS COLO,30-MORR.V,1- (sheet 1 of 1) - Rooney Ranch, Rooney Road and West Alamdea Parkway, Morrison, Jefferson County, · Related names: Rooney, Alexander and Eunice Rooney, Otis Rooney, Alex and Evelyn Murillo, Paul M, photographer Gambrill, · 1933 · 444 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Town of Morrison, est. 1876, Town Hall, Court, Theatre sign · Xnatedawgx · 2016 · 456 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Back of Morrison Town Hall · Xnatedawgx · 2016 · 458 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Helen Jordan bust, NRHP plaque, Morrison Town Hall · Xnatedawgx · 2016 · 460 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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MorrisonTownHall · Xnatedawgx · 482 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Morrison Historic District · Jeffrey Beall · 2012 · 542 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Neivamyrmex kiowapache casent0103462 dorsal 1 · April Nobile · 2006 · 576 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Neivamyrmex kiowapache casent0103462 head 1 · April Nobile · 2006 · 576 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates
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16 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
sun 09:40-15:50
Wall faces SW (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Deep terrain: the skyline averages 16° 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 39.65350 N, 105.18734 W (Nautilus). 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.

Nobody has yet read the land manager'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.

Approach trail, from Jefferson County

An unnamed climber-access trail in Mount Glennon passes 265 m from this crag's map point. The county rates it most difficult. Pets: yes.

A segment the county flags as climber access, drawn on the Take me there map. Where it leaves the trail for the base of the wall is the guidebook's to say, not ours.

Nearby, from OpenStreetMap

Toilets
1,074 m away (map)
Mapped parking
134 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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