Deep Cut Guide

The Schoolyard

9 routes · siltstone (Eagle Valley Fm, with shale, gypsum) · 7,219 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

What's here

5.3 to 5.8, but over half of these routes are 5.8.

  1. 1 5.3
  2. 2 5.7
  3. 6 5.8

Counted from the 9 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 7  Crag only 2 

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 Shorty McFly, Kairaid (2 climbs, about 60 seconds) would place up to 5 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

Eagle Valley Fm (Eagle Valley Formation) — siltstone, shale, minor gypsum. Pennsylvanian, about 308 to 306 million years old.

Siltstone, shale, and local gypsum

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. Every crag on this unit: Eagle Valley Fm. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1957

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1957. 16 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1957 USGS sheet covering The Schoolyard
USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Leadville, CO 1957 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1957 · 1:250,000 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, 1957 to 1982: 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.

Rock formation along Highway 133 and Avalanche Road · Jeffrey Beall · 2025 · 1,407 m from the crag's map point
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.

Along the Crystal River, Colorado (5883298167) · cogdogblog · 2011 · 534 m from the crag's map point
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

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 09:00-10:20
Wall faces E (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Deep terrain: the skyline averages 30° 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 39.23224 N, 107.22882 W (The Schoolyard). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by White River National Forest (federal). It lies inside national forest.

The boundary is close. Land managed by Pitkin County Open Space & Trails 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.

Rules for all White River National Forest land

Rules
The forest strongly recommends dispersed campers pack out solid human waste using an approved disposable or self-contained system rather than burying it in a cathole.
Overnight
Camping more than 14 days in any continuous 30-day period is prohibited, counted from the first day of occupancy. Some places allow dispersed camping only at designated sites and some run a shorter 7-day limit in summer.

Read on White River National Forest's own pages, checked 2026-09-29 by John Crawford. What they require, in full, or their own climbing page. These apply to the manager's whole holding; anything specific to this crag is above.

Nearby, from OpenStreetMap

Mapped parking
116 m away (map)
Campsite
Avalanche campground, 2,287 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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