This is great. Thanks for the great suggestion.

The Garden of the Gods is one of the most spectacular city parks you can imagine. Towering sandstone spires and fins and castles that rise above a pygmy woodland of pinyon pine, juniper, and scrub oak. It's one of the places that I learned to climb at, where I learned about balancing up on crumbling holds, where I learned to pull down, not out. Over the last 30 years though, most of the Garden's popular routes have cleaned up and are excellent afternoon outings...especially this time of the year when there is a chill in the air, snow on the ground, but warm sun on the rocks.

Expect good climbing on solid rock on the more-traveled routes, with lots of face moves--crimps and edges for the fingers and smearing friction holds for the feet. I like to tell folks that the Garden was the first "sport climbing" area in America. Back in the 1950s local legend Harvey T. Carter began drilling holes in the soft crackless sandstone and pounding Army angle pitons in the holes for protection. Most of the routes are protected this way so all you need for a fun day of climbing is a rack of a dozen quickdraws and a rope.

Recommended routes are: Silver Spoon; Mighty Thor; Potholes; South Ridge of White; Finger Traverse; Cowboy Boot Crack; Anaconda; West Point Crack; Credibility Gap; North Ridge of Montezuma Tower; New Era; Diesel and Dust; and Alligator Soup. You can get all the beta on these routes as well as the rest of the Garden's climbs in my Rock Climbing Colorado book (look for an expanded 2nd edition this time next year!) and Bob D'Antonio's Garden of the Gods book. Both are published by Falcon.

If you need a guide, contact Brian Shelton at Front Range Climbing Company at Brian@FrontRangeClimbing.com  He runs the best outfit in Colorado...I should know cause I guide for him sometimes, especially in summer.

I'm really interested in some weekend climbing in the Garden of the Gods. What's the climbing like there and what gear should I think to bring?