Rifle

It seems that everybody has heard of Rifle Mountain Park, and the steep and difficult climbing there. What most folks don’t realize is that in recent years a good number of easier routes have been going in as well. The city of Rifle lifted the bolted ban and now allows new routes to go in on a permit system. Part of the agreement to allow bolting to continue stipulates that for every hard route, an easy route must go in as well. Check out some of the new routes here, or you can purchase the new Rifle Mountain Park Guidebook.

Rifle Arch is a sandstone area just north of town that offers enjoyable climbing from 1 to 3 pitches in length. Sporadic route development has occured on these sunny slabs, and the word on the street is that the rock ranges from good to really really bad. Check it out and see what you think.

The New Castle boulders are a small collection of blocks minutes from the town of New Castle. The sandstone is very user friendly and there are some good problems here. It also tends to be a fairly warm spot, good for colder but sunny days in the early and late season. There may be other blocks in the vicinity on the surrounding hillsides.