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| Cold Finger (5.7)   | 
| Page Type: Route Location: Wyoming, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 41.16600°N / 105.375°W Route Type: Sport Climbing Season: Spring, Summer, Fall Time Required: Less than two hours Rock Difficulty: 5.7 (YDS) Number of Pitches: 1
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| Page By: earthquakes Created/Edited: Nov 20, 2007 / Nov 20, 2007 Object ID: 358476 Hits: 719 Loading... Page Score: 88.39% - 9 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Overview  The Routes; Click for an explanation!
Vedauwoo. The name conjures up images of cheese-grater like rock, blank slabs that reach into the clouds and horrid off-widths that chew up and spit out intrepid climbers into contorted hamburger at their base. Just looking at the guide book for the area is enough to scare off most people. It seemed like every climber photographed in the guide was in some state of contorted agony. The expressions on their faces were anything but pleasant. Are all routes at the “Woo” like this? For the most part no, and lucky for you, Cold Finger is a nice face/slab sport route, albeit a short one. If you like slab, or you're like me and hate it, this is a good one to practice on! The entire route is crimps and tippy toes with 4 bolts between you and the anchor or ground!
Vedauwoo is an amazing place. A large granitic pile of rocks located in SW Wyoming. The pluton rises straight up out of the flat plains resembling some ancient monolith and shares this striking characteristic with Uluru in Australia. This route resides on one of the bigger monoliths in the park, Turtle Rock, and climbs a feature on the southeast side called the Fall Wall.
Getting ThereGet on Interstate 80 and take the Vedauwoo exit ~10 miles east of Laramie Wyoming. Take the park road to the entrance station and turn in (left) here, pay your day use fee of $5 and head down the same road until it dead ends into a parking area after ~1 mile. Hike up and to the right (east) and then bear back left towards Walt’s Wall which is directly in front of you. Scramble up a faint climbers trail over many huge boulders. You’ll be climbing before you climb! Head towards the SE around a large corner to your right and climb steep talus to the base of Fall Wall. This is a difficult approach! Be on the lookout for a rock called the Clam Shell, which resembles a clam shell with vertically oriented smooth grooves. The climbs are above this.Route Description1 Pitch, ~50', 4 bolts to a two chain anchor.
Locate yourself under the massive roof that covers four routes here. Cold Fingers is the 3rd route from the left, the second bolted route from the left. Begin climbing a really short thin finger crack for ~7 or 8 feet...after that the features run out. Smear up the impossibly blank slab and use your fingertips to find purchase on the smooth granite. Follow the bolts to the top. I felt the route was a bit runout/thin for my liking but for solid 5.7 leaders and slab lovers, it's probably a great climb. Keep an eye out for the bolts at the top because you could easily find yourself on the route to your right, Drop Zone (5.10a) if you're not careful.
Once near the 3rd bolt, the route seems to ease a bit with more features like small pockets coming into play. So don't give up!
Essential Gear4 Quickdraws
50 m rope
Rock Shoes
Chalk
Something to build an anchor with
PatienceExternal LinksMP.com's Cold Finger page.
Vedauwoo's own web page! Images
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