High Altitude Adventures

Turkey Rocks

After a few of my fellow climbers and I decided that we did not want to spend the weekend up in the RMNP area and new that the local Boulder climbs would be crowded because of the long weekend we though we would take our chances and head to Turkey Rocks for some crack climbing. 

If you are unfamiliar Turkey Rocks is in the South Platte area near Deckers Colorado.  It is said to be some of the best crack climbing in the state and I believe it.  But from experience I can say that lots of the rock outside of the Turkey Rock area is rotten and crumbling.

After gathering up a group of people we headed for the Turkey Rock area on Saturday morning early hoping to find a camping spot before we started climbing.  We lucked out and found the last spot we could, it wasn’t the best camping spot in the area but just west of the approach trail I could not complain.

On the first afternoon we went over to the Turkey Perch area.  This is probably the most popular area but for a good reason, it offers lots of moderate cracks all in a row.  I jumped on Steppenwolf right away with a buddy.  This was a really fun crack that offered everything from finger laybacks to fist jamming and even a nice off-width.  As you climb up the face starts to blank out and really makes you commit to the crack, it is a fun route.  This can be down on a 60 meter rope, but you will have to bring your seconds up unless you are climbing with a 70 meter or longer. Another group of buddies climbing The Gobbler’s Cobbler, which is just to the left of Steppenwolf.  This is a nice 5.8 crack that starts out pretty blank and then moves up to nice fist jams.  It tops out with an almost chimney like off-width. Then some of the group decided to climb Liquid Acrobat which is a 5.12, and was very amusing to watch.  Although it took a few swap leads to make it to the top I was impressed to see them make it up this tiny finger crack.

On the Second day we decided to start our day out on a very pumpy crack at the Turkey Tail called the Quivering Quill.  This is an overhanging 5.10c crack that kicked my butt.  It starts out with very good fist and tops out with a big off-width squeeze. You can rap off the top of this just right of the climb. Also this is a short climb an can easily be top-roped with a 60-meter rope. From here we kind of took a tour de Turkey and walked south around the Turkey Tail to the Rightovers, which offers very steep cracks and lots of roof to choose from.  But finding ourselves in a lazy feeling day we opted to head over to the Turkey Rock and climb a fun 5.8 The Eastern Front. Although I did not climb this I was told it was really fun climbing and the roof at the top offered great hands.

Finally deciding to call it a day we packed up and headed home: hands cut, knees bruised and pleased to have done some great crack climbing.

Cheers!