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Wedauwoo is about 16 miles from Laramie, which makes for about a 20 minute
door to climbing time. In 1999, I also did the trip on bike a couple of times, which
involves about a 1500' elevation gain, and can be done on some pretty neat
trails south of the Interstate (the Windmill Trail). We climbed here a lot, and enjoyed it.
Tape is pretty much a must, the rock is even rougher than at J-Tree, and large camming units are
also very, very useful. Heel and toe technique is also very handy ; the guidebook is
definitely aptly named.
As customary, I worked my way up the grades. Here are some of the climbs
we did (or not).
- Foolishness (5.4) -- way harder, I backed off, as it was the first climb
of the trip
- Walt's Wall (5.4) -- good climb for this grade, the
Left Exit (5.5) last
pitch is probably better than the regular route. Both climb a low angle
slab, but the regular route is not bolted
- Edwards Crack (5.7- **) -- one of the classic climbs in
the area, really nice, has very good pro. I wasn't sure how to get past the final exit move (an
offwidth through a roof), but with a #4 Camalot placed in close
proximity, I could work out the move without getting too freaked.
- Jaquot's Face (5.7 *) and
Edwards Right Exit (5.5) -- an alternative
finish to the Edwards Crack offwidth. There is one more bolt on the face
than shown in the guidebook. The short Right Exit dihedral is nice, but
I didn't think my pro was totally bomber. We didn't do the Left Exit (5.4)
variation, which may be the easiest way to top out.
- Glen's Crack (5.4) -- awkward, not recommended
- Cornelius (5.5 *) -- very nice finger crack on a slab.
Got some good practice in placing some of the smaller pieces, while using friction for
my feet.
- EO Layback (5.5 *) -- very nice. Stan led this, I think
it was his first trad lead, and actually pretty bold for a first lead (no ledges to stand
on).
- EO Friction (5.5) -- "easy" friction. It didn't feel
easy until I got to the anchors. It had three bolts for 50 feet of climbing.
- Slat (5.7) -- good moves, but too short
- Stinkzieg (5.6 ***) -- another area classic, has great
variation of moves, and all in all a great climb.
I backed off the first pitch, where I stupidly
tried to climb through an off-width chimney, after about 20 minutes
of thrashing, I didn't have it in me to do the balancy stemming move
required to get past that point (on the outside of the chimney).
Stan did do the move on lead,finished the pitch and brought me up. After a small
conference, he decided he didn't want to keep leading. Lucky, lucky me. The second
pitch was one of the nicer ones in recent memory, a fist-size crack,
followed by a layback / hand crack. Bomber jams and bomber pro all the
way.
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