White Ranch
4 boulder problems · Porphyroblastic quartz-biotite-muscovite schist of White Ranch · 7,733 ft
How well located
Crag only 4
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
Porphyroblastic quartz-biotite-muscovite schist of White Ranch. Paleoproterozoic, about 2,500 to 1,600 million years old.
Silvery gray schist layers composed mostly of fine- to medium-grained, foliated, locally porphyroblastic schist composed principally of quartz, biotite, and muscovite, with small amounts of sillimanite and staurolite (Wells, 1967). Porphyroblasts include andalusite, cordierite, and garnet; some andalusite crystals in central Ralston Buttes 7.5-minute quadrangle are as long as 30 cm (Sheridan and others, 1967). Where rock is relatively unstrained, original sedimentary structures (graded bedding and cross bedding) are visible. Locally contains lenses of meta-conglomerate and calc-silicate rock (Sheridan and others, 1967). U-Pb zircon ages from clasts in metaconglomerate are ≈1,750 Ma, which is maximum depositional age of sediments in basin that includes rocks of this unit
This is the map unit under this crag's map point, read from the 1:100,000 sheet (Kellogg and others, 2008, USGS Geologic Investigations Series 3000). 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: Porphyroblastic quartz-biotite-muscovite schist of White Ranch. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.
On the map since 1899
The USGS has mapped this ground since 1899. 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, 1899 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
Trail and Timberline, volume 2 (1918) · Colorado Mountain Club · 1918
Free to read: public domain or government work. About Golden 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 · found by place name, not yet checked
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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
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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
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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.
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Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · the record · placed by its coordinates
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Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · 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-SA · 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
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 Jefferson County Open Space (local government), in White Ranch Park. It lies inside local park.
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 Jefferson County Parks & Open Space land
- Climbing permit
- Installing fixed hardware on a new route requires a permit: a Fixed Hardware Application, vetted by the Fixed Hardware Review Committee before the Climbing Committee decides.
- Hours
- Unlawful to be on Open Space land from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise, unless posted otherwise.
- Rules
- JCPOS does not install, maintain or inspect hardware related to rock climbing. Climbing ethics differ by park -- Clear Creek Canyon, the Cathedral Spires and the South Platte each have their own published guidelines.
- Overnight
- Camping by advance permit only, obtained online at least 24 hours ahead -- not at the park, headquarters or by phone. Only White Ranch and Reynolds Parks, tent-only.
- Dogs
- Dogs must be on a leash ten feet or less in length and under physical control.
Read on Jefferson County Parks & Open Space'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
- 361 m away (map)
- Mapped parking
- 600 m away (map)
- Campsite
- Sawmill Campground, 374 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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