Turtle Lake Cliffs
16 routes · sandstone (Morrison, Wanakah, and Entrada Fms, with mudstone, claystone) · 7,462 ft
What's here
5.7 to 5.13, with no single grade dominating.
Counted from the 16 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 16
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 5.8- crack, Left Leaning Radical Fringe, Fringe Dweller (3 climbs, about 90 seconds) would place up to 13 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
Morrison, Wanakah, and Entrada Fms (Morrison Formation, Wanakah Formation, Entrada Sandstone) — sandstone, mudstone, claystone, minor limestone. Jurassic, about 164 to 145 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: Morrison, Wanakah, and Entrada Fms. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.
On the map since 1898
The USGS has mapped this ground since 1898. 30 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
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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, 1898 to 1983: 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
Geological and geographical atlas of Colorado and portions of adjacent territory · F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories · 1877
Free to read: public domain or government work. About Durango as a whole, not this wall. More in the reading room.
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
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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.
Routes
- 1 5.8- crack 5.8-
- 2 Ichabod Direct 5.10d
- 3 Ichabod 5.10b/c
- 4 McVean and Pilon Rule! 5.11d
- 5 Robert Mason Memorial Route 5.11b
- 6 Coyote's Tooth 5.8
- 7 Howling at the Moon 5.11c
- 8 Regurgitator 5.11a
- 9 Green Arete 5.11b
- 10 5.8 Dihedral 5.8
- 11 Kuntz 5.10a
- 12 Black Arete 5.10a
- 13 Left Leaning Radical Fringe 5.10+
- 14 Ghost Boy 5.13a
- 15 Fringe Central 5.11a
- 16 Fringe Dweller 5.8
Also within 3 km
- Turtle Lake Bouldering266 m · 55 boulder problems · 6,946 ft
- Square 11,316 m · 10 boulder problems · 7,680 ft · Sailing Hawks
- Falls Creek Cliffs1,395 m · 3 routes · 7,115 ft · Falls Creek Cliffs
- Chipmunk Rock1,529 m · 7 routes · 7,130 ft · Junction Creek
- Chipette Rock1,587 m · 6 routes and 2 boulder problems · 7,221 ft · Junction Creek
- Lego Tower1,783 m · 4 boulder problems · 7,252 ft · Sailing Hawks
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 Tres Rios Field Office.
The boundary is close. Land managed by La Plata Open Space Conservancy 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 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
- 1,536 m away (map)
- Campsite
- Junction Creek Campground - Day Use, 2,764 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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