Ten Sleep, WY Climbing - August 9, 2010

Anja felt pretty exhausted from climbing Devil's tower the day before, but Ken wouldn't let Anja pass up Ten Sleep's limestone sport climbing that was just off the highway on our drive to Yellowstone. The cliffs were clearly visible from the road, and there were several convenient pull offs beckoning us to park and climb. Ken was also excited to check out a new climbing area. We climbed at Antarctica, Zappa Corner, and Metropolis.

Antarctica had a really cool looking 11b that Anja very much wanted to climb! Well, ok, maybe just the last 15 feet which was pretty steep. But overall it was a pretty amazing looking climb, and it seemed quite popular.


Antarctica also had fairly tall wall with four climbs labeled "5.10/5.11" in our guidebook. We did two of these and then moved on to Zappa corner.

Ken led a steep 5.10-, which was ok but reachy at the top.
Then we moved on to Metropolis wall which had several bolted cracks. It was a bit odd to climb bolted cracks, because there was certainly gear. Ten Sleep is apparently 100% sport climbing. After leading a "5.9" corner (that Ken said was 5.7), Ken moved on to finessing a "5.10d" crack climb. Ken said "it never got narrower than hands or wider than fist. I guess sport climbers have no idea how to rate cracks. It was probably only 5.9 many places." I guess it would be 10d if you didn't use the crack for a single jam?

Both climbs were a lot of fun -- Anja favorite climbs at the crag -- and we had fun with the grade inflation. If it hadn't been dark by the time we finished the 10d crack, Ken would have moved on to his first 12a. :)