Idaho's Castle Rocks

About 7 years ago I was working in Idaho and took a weekend trip to the brand new state park called Castle Rocks. I spent my first day in running shoes, sprinting from boulder to boulder and wandering around the sizable park. That day I hiked for about 10 hours and while the majority of the rock was mediocre I did find some gems here and there but it wasn't until the very end of the day that the hiking really paid off as I stumbled upon an incredible roof. I went back to that roof the following day, climbing one of the obvious roof climbs and bailing off the balancey topout of the most striking line on the boulder. Since that day I've had that boulder in the back of my mind, filed among the places I'd like to return to. Well it has certainly took awhile but I finally made it back to Castle Rocks.

That roof from years ago was of course discovered by others who dubbed it Taco Roof and established a multitude of problems that generally fall in the high end. My return trip didn't diminish the impressions lets from years early and the line I'd left undone went down first try (it's called The Smell and is one of the better problems I've done in awhile). My buddy Mike McClure then proceeded to showed us around to Castle Rocks other world class block just a couple minutes away where we spent the remainder of the day doing more classics and collecting projects for the next time we return. It was fantastic and made me want to spend more time in the area.

Here are a few pics.

Find Lina warming up

Mark on the Green Wall

Mark on the fun roof climb "Heart and Cock'n'Balls"

Mark on "The Smell"

Mike toward the end of the his heinously long project. He's about 15 moves and halfway through the problem.

Me on some unknown problem. Great line and movement but a bit crumbly. I encountered lots of good lines that required some cleaning and traffic. Too bad all the rock in Castle doesn't match the quality of Taco Roof and the Green Wall.

This one is actually from Swan Falls. Mike on one of his newer problems.