The Crags (Woodland Park quad)-technical summit

[Kevin Baker]

I went on an exploratory hike to The Crags (interpolates to 10900') n.w. of Pikes, a soft ranked 10er on the Woodland Park quad. I remember John Prater telling me that he thought this summit was technical, but I noticed that 5 people have logged the summit.

It looks like folks might be thinking Pt 10817 north of the terminus of the Crags trail is the summit. The highpoint of this named feature is indeed technical unless there is an easier route on the north side that I couldn't see. That would be highly unlikely. It looks to be a highly exposed crack climb of 5.8 or harder from my vantage point, which would make it one of the hardest named summits in the state. Pt 10820 south of the summit was a nice consolation prize.

Mr. Mike Garratt, what rating would you give it?

[aaronvoth]

Well, I never noticed that, I have explored in that area around pt 10855 and assumed that was the summit. I didn't study the topo real closely or ever have one handy on my explorations. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Mike Garratt]

I went in one warm July summer day 4 or 5 or so years back to ckeck it out.
I went to the 10820 summit to the S first and the 10855 summit to the W to deteremine that indeed the 10900 point was the high point.

There was nothing doable on the W or S side so I went to the E side and found a body width jam crack. It comes out on top just to the S of the highest point.
Put on long sleeve pants and shirt and chimmied (another obsucre technical manuaver) up the crack. Not having a rope to rappel, I chimmied down the same crack. Never thought about a technical rating. It was a grunt though, so your assessment is likely correct - upper fifith class.

On my way out I visited the 10940 peak to the SW which did appear to be higher than the 10900 summit.

[Kevin Baker]

Wow, Mike. That's impressive that you downclimbed something that hard w/o rope! John, how about we give it a 5.8 rating?

[John Kirk]

Ok - seems like a guess, so I'll put a note on the peak's profile indicating this rating is not definitive. Also, I nuked the other ascents and sent an email to each person to re-enter if the technical summit was indeed achieved.