Deep Cut Guide

The Upper Wall

8 routes · arkose (Hermosa Fm, with conglomerate, shale) · 7,945 ft

Take me there Routes ↓ Directions

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

What's here

5.8 to 5.12, with no single grade dominating.

  1. 3 5.8
  2. 3 5.10
  3. 1 5.11
  4. 1 5.12

Counted from the 8 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 8 

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 Romnesia, Under the Wire (2 climbs, about 60 seconds) would place up to 6 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

Hermosa Fm (Hermosa Formation) — arkose, conglomerate, shale, minor limestone, gypsum. Pennsylvanian, about 314 to 304 million years old.

Arkosic sandstone, conglomerate, shale, and limestone; gypsum and salt in Paradox Member present in salt anticlines near Utah border

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: Hermosa Fm. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1902

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1902. 26 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1902 USGS sheet covering The Upper Wall
USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Ouray, CO 1902 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1902 · 1:62,500 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, 1902 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.

Historical plaque for San Juan Miners' Memorial, Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632418
Historical plaque for San Juan Miners' Memorial, Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632418 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 207 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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San Juan Miners' Memorial, Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632417 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 214 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray Hot Springs, Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632415 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 266 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray and Ridgway, Colorado (14017068158) · Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA · 2014 · 273 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray, Colorado (14017071779) · Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA · 2014 · 273 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray Hot Springs, Pool. Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632406 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 284 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray Hot Springs, Pool. Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632409 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 285 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray Hot Springs, Pool. Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632413 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 292 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray Hot Springs, Pool. Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632408 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 296 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray Hot Springs, Pool. Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632405 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 305 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Sign- Ouray Hot Springs, Pool & Fitness Center. Ouray, Colorado LCCN2015632404 · Carol M. Highsmith · 2015 · 307 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Ouray CO · PCN02WPS · 2016 · 459 m from the crag's map point
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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17 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 09:50-15:30
Wall faces SW (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Deep terrain: the skyline averages 23° above horizontal, so the sun has to climb well clear of the rim before it reaches this wall.
Crags by sun and shade →
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 38.03072 N, 107.67112 W (The Upper Wall). 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.

Nearby, from OpenStreetMap

Toilets
334 m away (map)
Mapped parking
193 m away (map)
Campsite
Unnamed, 499 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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