Deep Cut Guide

Rip Rap

4 routes · Biotitic gneiss, schist, and migmatite · 10,704 ft

Take me there Routes ↓ Directions

Help locate these routes: survey the wall

How well located

Position on wall known 4 

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 Option 1, Option 4 (2 climbs, about 60 seconds) would place up to 2 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

Biotitic gneiss, schist, and migmatite — biotite gneiss, schist, migmatite, minor gneiss, calc silicate schist, marble. Paleoproterozoic, about 2,500 to 1,600 million years old.

Locally contains minor hornblende gneiss, calc-silicate rock, quartzite, and marble. Derived principally from sedimentary rocks

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: Biotitic gneiss, schist, and migmatite. Geology data: Macrostrat (CC BY 4.0), serving USGS and Colorado Geological Survey maps.

On the map since 1909

The USGS has mapped this ground since 1909. 17 historical sheets cover this crag's map point; the oldest is below.

Thumbnail of the 1909 USGS sheet covering Rip Rap
USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for Mount Jackson, CO 1909 · U.S. Geological Survey · 1909 · 1:125,000 sheet
USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain · the record · placed by its coordinates
Report this item

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, 1909 to 1983: USGS topoView.

In print since 1877

Free to read: public domain or government work. About Independence Pass 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.

On the "Independence Pass Highway," about 10 miles east of Aspen, Colo. - looking north
On the "Independence Pass Highway," about 10 miles east of Aspen, Colo. - looking north · 1927 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

The "Grotto," near Independence Pass Highway, about 10 miles e. of Aspen, Colo. · 1927 · stereograph
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain · the record · found by place name, not yet checked
Report this item

Hidden as soon as you tell us, everywhere it appears, before anyone reviews it.

Highway across the mountains during early fall blizzard near Independence Pass, Colorado · Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990 · 1941
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.

Pine trees after early fall blizzard on Independence Pass, Colorado · Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990 · 1941
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.

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Highway across the mountains during early fall blizzard near Independence Pass, Colorado] · Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990 · 1941
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.

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Highway across the mountains during early fall blizzard near Independence Pass, Colorado] · Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990 · 1941
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

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 08:00-16:30
Wall faces S (USGS elevation). Shade from the surrounding terrain is counted.
Deep terrain: the skyline averages 18° 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 39.12992 N, 106.67446 W (Rip Rap). That point can be off by hundreds of metres, so say so.

The map point for this crag is on land managed by White River National Forest (federal). It lies inside inventoried roadless area, national forest.

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 White River National Forest land

Rules
The forest strongly recommends dispersed campers pack out solid human waste using an approved disposable or self-contained system rather than burying it in a cathole.
Overnight
Camping more than 14 days in any continuous 30-day period is prohibited, counted from the first day of occupancy. Some places allow dispersed camping only at designated sites and some run a shorter 7-day limit in summer.

Read on White River National Forest'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

Campsite
Lincoln Creek dispersed campsite #1, 2,116 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.

Keep Deep Cut Guide free

No ads, no paywall, no account. You can chip in directly to help keep it running.