Deep Cut Guide

North Lake North

3 routes · shale (Pierre Shale (Kp), Niobrara (Kn), and Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros (Kcg) Fms, undivided, with limestone) · 8,922 ft

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

How well located

Crag only 3 

No route here has its own point yet. The map pin is the crag. At the wall? Survey it: 30 seconds per route.

Rock, from the geologic map

Pierre Shale (Kp), Niobrara (Kn), and Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros (Kcg) Fms, undivided (Pierre Shale, Niobrara Formation, Carlile Formation, Greenhorn Formation, Graneros Shale) — shale, limestone. Late Cretaceous, about 97 to 84 million years old.

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: Pierre Shale (Kp), Niobrara (Kn), and Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros (Kcg) Fms, undivided. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1954

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1954. 11 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1954 USGS sheet covering North Lake North
USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Trinidad, CO 1954 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1954 · 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, 1954 to 1994: 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.

The Spanish Peaks · Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942 · 1879
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Spanish Peaks · Detroit Photographic Co. · 1898 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Colorado. The Spanish Peaks · Detroit Photographic Co. · 1899 · photochrom
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Spanish Peaks, Colorado. 12720 and 13718 feet above sea level respectively · 1906 · postcard
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · indexed to this place by the archive
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

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.

North Lake (Las Animas County, Colorado) · Jeffrey Beall · 2017 · 989 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 07:10-11:20
Wall faces E (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Open sky in most directions.
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 37.24206 N, 105.04754 W (North Lake North). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by Colorado Parks & Wildlife (state), in North Lake State Wildlife Area. It lies inside state conservation area.

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 Colorado Parks & Wildlife land

Fees
Every Colorado state park requires an entrance pass for motor vehicles. A daily vehicle pass is $4 to $17 depending on the park; an individual pass covers entry on foot or bike.
Reservations
Eldorado Canyon runs timed-entry vehicle reservations on summer weekends and holidays; see the park's own page. Other parks do not require one to enter.
Permits
A daily pass is valid until noon on the day after purchase. The annual Keep Colorado Wild pass is $29 and is bought with a vehicle registration.

Read on Colorado Parks & Wildlife'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
343 m away (map)
Campsite
Monument Lake Resort & Campground, 3,865 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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