SummitPost.org

Can anyone recommend a Class 3/easy Class 4 scramble in Red Rocks that I can do in 4 or 5 hours by myself?

There are a lot of little peaks in the Calico Hills area that would suit you, including Red Cap, the highest there. Not one will take 4 or 5 hours itself, but you can put several together to make a day of it.

The Calico Hills page here has Red Cap attached, and I also have a page for "Tinaja Peak," an unnamed peak out there. Both pages focus on scrambling routes.

From Calico Hills, you can loop over Kraft, over New, and over Redcap, then down the back of Redcap, and come out the way you went in. There are some scrambles in the slots E of Calico tanks, but I'm hesitant to recommend them as the routefinding is really tough.

http://hwstock.org/c5p/

White Rock Hills Peak is good too, but the routefinding is tough.

If you start in Calico, going up and over Redcap, then looping back through Gateway Canyon can take some time and give a wide variety of scenery.

If you have a GPS and can load tracks, I can narrow routes down a bit; but a lot of routes have obscured sky, at least part of the way. Jim Egan's SE route up White Rock Hills (on SP) gets you to a point where you can traverse up to some cairns, and there are descriptions (elsewhere) for the trek from there. I have lots of tracks on maps, but the scale of routefinding is generally much smaller than what you can resolve on a contour map.

If you go to Redcap from Sandstone Quarry, you can traverse east down the back side then over to Calico Tanks and back on a trail. That route requires one very sketchy section, so you would need a bit more detail.

These are all great suggestions. Additionally, I've had many terrific days out doing nothing more than scrambling randomly around the Calico Hills area. All the class 3-4 stuff you can sink your teeth into.

Here's a link to a fun canyoneering/scramble you can do at RR.

http://www.dankat.com/swhikes/hidfal.htm

Hyadventure wrote:Here's a link to a fun canyoneering/scramble you can do at RR.

http://www.dankat.com/swhikes/hidfal.htm

Commenting on the article: Wilson and North Peak (of sandstone peaks) are higher than Bridge.

I've been up much of the canyoneers' route; past many rappel slings. It's probably a lot easier if you are going up (as I always am). Still, it's hard to find the way, and the canyoneers' route tends to have the slings removed by other zealous canyoneers.

There's a class 3 route up Mescalito: http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock ... alito.html
We tried to use it as a descent route from the full Dark Shadows route but didn't have any beta. Sounds like a fun route-finding adventure at least to me.