High Altitude Adventures

Hidden Falls Ice Climb

A few weeks ago I decided to go check out the ice climbing at Hidden Falls in Rocky Mountain National Park.  This is accessed from the Wild Basin entrance, which is the southern most entrance in RMNP located off of Highway 7; this is the same entrance for Mount Alice from a previous post.  From the Wild Basin entrance follow the road all the way to the dead end.  This is where the winter trail head starts, from here it is just an easy mostly flat two miles into the falls.

These are great falls and usually hold ice most of the winter.  This area also offers a variation of mixed routes along the wall as different ice curtains form.  The main attraction here though is the main fall, which is approximately 24 meters tall and contains mostly WI-3 routes.  On this main flow there is roughly for different routes that all top out in the same area. There is also an easier section to the left of the fall that is great for beginners or the less experienced.  Also the top of all of the ice can be accessed by foot so it is great for top roping with plenty of trees for anchor building.

Since this is such an easily accessible area and not particularly large it can get very busy on the weekends. My advice is to get there really early in the morning and enjoy it before it gets crowded or, as I prefer to do sleep in and show up later in the afternoon when everyone else is getting tired and heading out.  You can climb until dark and then make the easy hike back out.

As far as our trip it was great.  We showed up later in the day and had only one other group on the falls.  We were able to climb a few variations of different lines on the main falls, which were in very thick. We also played around bouldering on the easier ice on the left, which was very plastic or soft.

Cheers!