Moab Climbing

This digital Moab 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 Moab days smoother, safer, and more dialed.

Moab bouldering features steep Wingate sandstone blocks, with the best conditions found in the dead of winter, and in the late fall/early spring. These areas generally get a lot of sun and can be a winter reprive from the snow for Salt Lake Climbers.

While the region is famous for big walls and crack climbing, the blocs of Moab provide incredible featured and powerful 3-dimensional climbing. The area is notoriously sandbagged which keeps it less popular than it's neighbor a few hours to the west, Moe's Valley, which has the opposite reputation. 

- Rock Type -

Wingate Sandstone: The b... Show more

This digital Moab 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 Moab days smoother, safer, and more dialed. Moab bouldering features steep Wingate sandstone blocks, with the best conditions found in the dead of winter, and in the late fall/early spring. These areas generally get a lot of sun and can be a winter reprive from the snow for Salt Lake Climbers. While the region is famous for big walls and crack climbing, the blocs of Moab provide incredible featured and powerful 3-dimensional climbing. The area is notoriously sandbagged which keeps it less popular than it's neighbor a few hours to the west, Moe's Valley, which has the opposite reputation. - Rock Type - Wingate Sandstone: The boulders are made of ancient red sandstone that creates steep overhangs, smooth slopers, and sharp crimps.Fragile Surface: Sandstone is very delicate. Climbers must wait 24 to 48 hours after rain for the rock to dry completely to prevent holds from breaking. - Best Season - Winter (December - February) This is the best time to climb here, in my opinion. The area get lots of sun and has perfect temps in the dead of winter. Spring (March to April): Mild daytime temperatures make this an ideal time to climb before real heat arrives. For casual or less performance oriented climbers, these months are very pleasant. Vacation-vibes! Fall (September to November): A really nice time of year. September is likely still quite hot but if you are just looking to move on stone it's a great time to romp moderates. Avoid Summer: Temperatures often exceed 100°F, making the rock too hot to touch. - History of Development- Rest-Day Roots: Early climbers in the 1970s and 1980s came to Moab for big desert towers. They treated the low-lying boulders near the river as a casual way to pass rest days. Development centered around the Big Bend Boulders along the Colorado River, where local climbers cleaned off sand and established hard lines. Visiting international professionals later tested themselves on local testpieces, helping put Moab's unique sandstone bouldering on the map alongside its traditional routes. Chaos, Hell Belly, and Dean Potter's Zen Garden, 3 of Moab's most famous testpieces, draw in ambitious visitors from across the country. In 2022, a number of the classic boulders in Big Bend were vandalized with grease. This has fortunately been cleaned up since.