Amphitheater Wall

10 routes and 1 boulder problem · unconsolidated (Alluvium) · 7,600 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

What's here

5.3 to 5.11, with no single grade dominating.

1 5.3
2 5.4
2 5.5
2 5.6
1 5.7
1 5.10
1 5.11

Counted from the 10 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 11

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 The Slot, Performance Traverse (2 climbs, about 60 seconds) would place up to 9 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

Alluvium — unconsolidated. Quaternary, younger than 126,000 years.

Gravel, sand, and silt along courses of major and intermittent streams, and in alluvial fans along valley margins. Includes small bodies of till. Also includes unstratified deposits of fine sand or silt southeast of Shadow Mountain Dam believed to be of eolian origin (Meierding, 1977, pages 41). Deposits of considerable thickness occur in major river valleys upstream from terminal moraines of Pinedale age: 15- 25 m in Horseshoe Park and Moraine Park determined by drilling (Welder, 1971); 15-122 m in Kawuneeche Valley and 53 m in Big Meadows determined by seismic study (R.A. McCullough, oral commun., 1974). These thick deposits may contain lake sediments deposited behind dams formed by terminal moraines. Lake sediments composed of gray-blue clay interlayered with peat are exposed in stream cuts in Big Meadows (Meierding, 1977, pages 42). Several bodies of alluvium were deposited at margins of lateral moraines (as in Hidden Valley) when streams were dammed by the moraines. These deposits may contain lake sediments and alluvium of Pinedale and Bull Lake age. GRI Source Map ID 141 (I-1973).

This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (National Park Service Geologic Resources Evaluation program, 2006, National Park Service). 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. Every crag on this unit: Alluvium. 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. 30 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1915 USGS sheet covering Amphitheater Wall — **USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for Longs Peak, CO 1915** · U.S. Geological Survey · 1915 · 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, 1915 to 1984: 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

The whole-state sheet of the 1877 atlas, scanned at full resolution by the state survey and free to download.

Colorado Geological Survey (publication HM-01-04) · Public domain · read it
Geological and geographical atlas of Colorado and portions of adjacent territory · F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories · 1877

The first geology anyone drew of this ground. Hayden's survey mapped the state in the 1870s; these are the sheets, with the rock units coloured as they understood them then.

Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it
Mountaineering in Colorado: the peaks about Estes Park · Frederick H. Chapin · 1889

The first book of Colorado climbing. Chapin's 1887-88 ascents of Longs Peak, Hallett, Ypsilon and the Mummy Range, with the approaches as they were before the park.

Internet Archive (Harvard University copy, Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston) · Public domain · read it
The story of Estes Park · Enos A. Mills · 1914

Mills, the Longs Peak innkeeper and guide who pushed the park into being, on the valley's people and peaks. Published from his own inn at the foot of Longs Peak.

Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it
Trail and Timberline, volume 2 (1918) · Colorado Mountain Club · 1918

The Colorado Mountain Club's own magazine in its sixth year, with the club's outings and ascents as its members wrote them up at the time.

Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it
Mountaineering in the Rocky Mountain National Park · Roger W. Toll, U.S. National Park Service · 1919

The Park Service's own mountaineering guide, four years after the park was made. Peak by peak, with the routes of the day and the first recorded ascents Toll could find.

National Park Service, scan at the Internet Archive (Brigham Young University copy) · Public domain · read it

Free to read: public domain or government work. About Estes Park Valley as a whole, not this wall. More in the reading room.

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.

Pidgeon on rock in stream, Estes, Colorado · JGHFunRun · 2025 · 419 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY · the record · placed by its coordinates

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