Penitente - Inner Canyon
78 routes and 1 boulder problem · Ash-flow tuff of main volcanic sequence · 7,990 ft
What's here
5.7 to 5.13, with no single grade dominating.
Counted from the 78 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 78 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 Dazed and Confuzed, Ranck E, Crack of Dawn, Unbound, Reptiles Lust and Dogs, Los Hermanos de la Weenie Way, Air Jordan, Concupiscent Curds (8 climbs, about 240 seconds) would place up to 70 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
Ash-flow tuff of main volcanic sequence — volcanic. Cenozoic, about 34 to 23 million years old.
Includes many named units
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: Ash-flow tuff of main volcanic sequence. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.
On the map since 1915
The USGS has mapped this ground since 1915. 18 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
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, 1915 to 2001: USGS topoView.
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 · 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
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
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
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
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
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
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 · found by place name, not yet checked
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
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
Report this item
Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
12 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.
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.
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.
Routes
- 1 Dazed and Confuzed 5.12a
- 2 Josie's 5.12a
- 3 Shear Strength 5.11b/c
- 4 Sheer Lunacy 5.11
- 5 Schizoid Way 5.12a
- 6 Sister of Mercy 5.12b
- 7 Black Jesus 5.12c
- 8 Apes in Estrus 5.10a
- 9 Ms. Cool 5.9
- 10 Shady Lady 5.10c
- 11 Anatomy 101 5.8+
- 12 El Dedo Es la Llave 5.10
- 13 Ranck E 5.10-
- 14 Nueve a Seis 5.9+
- 15 Hueco Mania (submitted as Huecos Rancheros) 5.9+
- 16 Pumping Huecos 5.10c
- 17 Animosity 5.12a
- 18 Bad Rap 5.11a
- 19 My Body is a Cage 5.12a
- 20 Creature Fear 5.11b
- 21 Dog's Delight 5.10-
- 22 Banana Slugs in Heat 5.10b
- 23 Hip Hop 5.11a
- 24 Colville Express 5.11d
- 25 Crack of Dawn 5.8+
- 26 Soul Boy 5.11c/d
- 27 Forever Young 5.12a
- 28 Candy Apple Grey 5.10d
- 29 Brown Sugar 5.11a/b
- 30 10,000 Maniacs 5.11c
- 31 Black Sheets of Rain 5.13+
- 32 Unknown 5.10d 5.10d
- 33 Unknown (5.6 ramp) 5.7
- 34 Slabbo 5.11d
- 35 Unknown 5.10a 5.10a/b
- 36 Jack and Diane 5.10a
- 37 Unbound 5.11+
- 38 BVB American Hero (submitted as New Dihedral) 5.10a
- 39 Jewel of the Mild 5.10c
- 40 Heaven Can Wait 5.10b/c
- 41 Children Of A Lesser Grade 5.10c
- 42 Ordinary People 5.9+
- 43 Vapor Trails 5.12b
- 44 Golden Years 5.12a
- 45 No Sweat, No Vapor 5.12a
- 46 Unrepenitente 5.11b
- 47 Bob's World 5.10a
- 48 B1 or V5 5.12d
- 49 Reptiles Lust and Dogs 5.11b
- 50 Santa Cruz 5.8+
- 51 Omnipenitent 5.11-
- 52 Jabba the Hutt 5.11c
- 53 I'd Rather Leia than Jabba 5.11d
- 54 True Penitence 5.11a
- 55 Innocent Mission V5
- 56 Intimidator 5.12b
- 57 Freddy's Nightmare 5.12c
- 58 Friday the 13th 5.12a
- 59 Morada 5.12a/b
- 60 Los Hermanos de la Penitente 5.12c
- 61 Los Hermanos de la Weenie Way 5.11c
- 62 The Virgin 5.13a
- 63 Not My Cross To Bear 5.11a/b
- 64 Bullet the Blue Sky 5.12c/d
- 65 Tanks for the Hueco 5.10d
- 66 Breakdown Dead Ahead 5.10d
- 67 Passion Play 5.11c
- 68 Harvey's Wallbanger 5.10
- 69 Handle with Care 5.11
- 70 Breaking Bob 5.12a
- 71 Mourning in the Creak 5.11a
- 72 No Intent 5.12a
- 73 Air Jordan 5.12b
- 74 7/11 5.8+
- 75 Tao of Gymnastic 5.10d
- 76 Head Over Heals 5.12a
- 77 How The West Was Won 5.9
- 78 Concupiscent Curds 5.10c/d
- Jesus Wouldn't Climb It 5.10+
Also within 3 km
- Penitente - Entrance Area161 m · 63 routes · 7,971 ft
- Rock Garden718 m · 61 routes and 7 boulder problems · 8,052 ft · Rock Garden
- Canyon Road Cliffs825 m · 13 routes and 1 boulder problem · 8,074 ft · Witches' Canyon
- Main Canyon825 m · 17 routes and 1 boulder problem · 8,074 ft · Witches' Canyon
- Sidewinder Canyon1,819 m · 6 routes · 8,170 ft · Sidewinder Canyon
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 Bureau of Land Management (federal), in San Luis Valley Field Office.
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 Bureau of Land Management land
- Fees
- Developed campgrounds are fee sites: at Shelf Road, Sand Gulch is $20 a night for an individual site and $40 for a group site, with no drinking water, hook-ups or trash service. Where a fee area is posted, you must register and pay within 30 minutes of entering it.
- Overnight
- Camping more than 14 days in any 30-day period at any one location is prohibited, including in a campground, and afterwards you must move at least 30 air miles. Personal property may not be left unattended anywhere on public land for more than 48 hours.
Read on Bureau of Land Management'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
- Toilets
- 317 m away (map)
- Mapped parking
- 332 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.