Lower Rock City Climbing

This digital Lower Rock City climbing guidebook gives you GPS navigation, verified topos, and beta for hundreds of climbs. Explore classics and hidden gems with offline access to maps, directions, and beta videos. Whether it's your first visit or fiftieth, KAYA makes your Lower Rock City days smoother, safer, and more dialed.

While people have climbed in Lower Rock City for a number of years, it has always had a slightly adventurous feel to it. Even though a trail goes directly to it, and it’s less than 10 minutes from the parking lot, people usually find themselves distracted before they wander out here. Even now, with climbs finally documented, it’s still a confusing maze of rock, and it’s easy to spend an hour searching for a boulder that was 50 feet from you the whole time. What this means is: no crowds, and possible first ascents. Or…if you are a less adventurous climber, this mean... Show more

This digital Lower Rock City climbing guidebook gives you GPS navigation, verified topos, and beta for hundreds of climbs. Explore classics and hidden gems with offline access to maps, directions, and beta videos. Whether it's your first visit or fiftieth, KAYA makes your Lower Rock City days smoother, safer, and more dialed. While people have climbed in Lower Rock City for a number of years, it has always had a slightly adventurous feel to it. Even though a trail goes directly to it, and it’s less than 10 minutes from the parking lot, people usually find themselves distracted before they wander out here. Even now, with climbs finally documented, it’s still a confusing maze of rock, and it’s easy to spend an hour searching for a boulder that was 50 feet from you the whole time. What this means is: no crowds, and possible first ascents. Or…if you are a less adventurous climber, this means a miserable day of getting lost and climbing dirty rock, but I prefer the more positive approach in life. With that being said, there are a few must-do problems that stand out above the rest. The highball offwidth Weakened State V2 is a contender for the best of its grade in the park, and its two neighboring lines are also of great quality. Cumulonimbus V6, while it can be a bit tricky to find, is an excellent benchmark for the grade, as is the arête of the adjacent boulder, Rock City Arête V2. If you want to get beat up on some old-school grit, step left for Weathered Morality V7, or slightly down the hill for the brutal sandbag Cruelty to Animals V7. Since you are apparently into highballs, top it off with the Slab Justice horror show, Walking on Whispers V6. As it is with the other areas in Coopers, LRC is riddled with classic boulders they are just hidden right in front of you. From the front gate, drive 2.6 miles towards the overlook. About 0.2 miles after passing the Tilted Tree Parking area, take the right fork as the road splits, heading downhill towards the Rhododendron Campground. Continue past the entrance to the campground, and pull around the cul-de-sac to the gravel parking area in front of Shelter #3 and the Mushroom Boulder. Head down the red-blazed Rock City Trail towards Ridge Trail for about seven minutes (0.4 miles) until you reach the Rock City Shelter. At the shelter, take a left into the “Rhododendron tunnel”. At the tunnel’s end, continuing straight will put you into a rock corridor called “Main Street”, but taking an immediate left around a large boulder will lead you to a clearing beneath a glaring white wall called Chalet Wall. The first problems mentioned are along the base of this wall. Continuing in the corridor along this wall (called “Second Street”) will lead you to a faint climber’s trail that ends at the Jekyll and Hyde area, which has the highest concentration of established problems in LRC. It would be wise to follow the coordinates for your first couple of times hiking here, as it’s easy to get lost amongst the maze of rock corridors.