This is a pleasant adventure route tucked up along the No Thoroughfare Canyon base. It climbs a crack which was created in a recent (10-20? years ago) rockfall, which cleaved a huge flake away from the wall. Liberal Fantasy climbs the right side, while the left side can be scrambled up to a shorter, wide crack. The crack edge is laser cut and offers the best layback I have ever experienced! The crack widens from 0.5" at the bottom to 5" at the top (no offwidth required), and a few key footholds can be found on the face. Jam or layback until you can grab the ledge and mantel up.

Liberal Fantasy

Layback

Crunch Time Tower

Mosaic Tower

Red Iguana

Over the Edge Spire-Child's Play

Unknown-aka the Hershey Kiss

Bobble Head Tower

Ceramic Tower

Chocolate Corner

Nubbins to Nothing

Mosaic Tower - Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down

Cinco De Mayo

Butt Crack Tower

Acrylic Tower

This is on the Lost Arrow Buttress of Upper No Thoroughfare Canyon.  This is a challenging area to find from above (preferred).  It is a long hike in from below 4+ miles.  From the E entrance to the monument, go up Rim Rock Drive, go left on DS/East Glade Park Rd past the monument boundary.  Park in a large pullout.  Cross the road, hop the fence, head south 300+y.  You may find a cairn.  Find a drainage down with a large bowl at the top.  You can rap this or downclimb, carefully 4th class to a tree above a tighter slot.  Rap down here, pad the rope (or find significant rope wear later), reach a ledge.  Find another tighter corner and rap to the ground.  I recommend leaving the last 2 ropes fixed.  Bring ascenders.

A short distance from the rap line access.  This neat little route goes up a left-facing dihedral with desert varnish.  It goes out left around a little roof at midheight.  Hand-sized crack brings you to a ledge.  There is a little chockstone in the corner that may help or not.  Rap 50'.  Fun.

This is on the Lost Arrow Buttress of Upper No Thoroughfare Canyon.  This is a challenging area to find from above (preferred).  It is a long hike in from below 4+ miles.  From the E entrance to the monument, go up Rim Rock Drive, go left on DS/East Glade Park Rd past the monument boundary.  Park in a large pullout.  Cross the road, hop the fence, head south 300+y.  You may find a cairn.  Find a drainage down with a large bowl at the top.  You can rap this or downclimb, carefully 4th class to a tree above a tighter slot.  Rap down here, pad the rope (or find significant rope wear later), reach a ledge.  Find another tighter corner and rap to the ground.  I recommend leaving the last 2 ropes fixed.  Bring ascenders.

A short distance from the rap line access.  This little line is the right side of the flake shared with Red Iguana.  It has hand jams and then wider.  You can layback this, too.  Rap 50' or continue on To Bolt or Not to Have Fun.

P1 is an amazing OW dihedral. Start out with OW, then go into a nice squeeze to the notch. A gear anchor can be set up to the right off of fist-sized cams, 5.10.

P2 climbs the face to a short crack that takes you to the top. To reach the true summit, there's a little scramble of sorts from the anchors, 5.9.

Rap back into the notch, and then downclimb the hallway which leads to the base of the climb Master Chamber.

Mosaid Tower is not exactly quality climbing, but the summit is one of the better ones in the Monument. The route climbs the obvious crack near the notch of Mosaic and Acrylic Towers. It is more or less straightforward crack climbing with a bush here, some junk there. This leads to a funky crux, right above a slab, that will get you to a large ledge.

You could below off this ledge, but it's probably easier to just continue to the top. Step left of the ledge, and run it out on slab climbing to an anchor. A few dirty moves gets you to an amazing, dinner table-sized summit.

This is another one of the obscure towers of the Colorado National Monument.  It is located far up No Thoroughfare Canyon.

The climb starts in the hallway between the tower and the buttress up a fist crack.  Chimney/jam up and obviously move into the main chimney system.  This is where the climb gets exciting, run it out by stemming/chimneying up past some scary rock with no gear for a ways.  Towards the top of the chimney I saw two drilled holes to hand place a baby angle in.  (Desert Rock III mentions more holes for angles, I didn't see anymore besides an empty bolt hole.  At the end of the chimney, there is a fixed piton.  Now for the intimidating part (and beta, so stop reading if you want more of an adventure).

The last 15-20' requires face climbing one junk rock with a bad fall potential.  I took forever on this section, the line looks obvious, two big huecos to a scary, sloping mantle to a scramble to the summit.  I tried everything, even aiding up, but that didn't work at all.  Going straight up would be very hard and dangerous, instead traverse left on decaying rock.  This is much, much easier, a little more runout and definitely worse rock, but fairly easy.

Rap with two ropes off of 3 fixed pitons.

This climb is pretty fun and unique in a beautiful setting, but runouts, some horrid rock, and runouts on horrid rock keep this one from being a 4 star route.

There's an obvious, hershey kiss-shaped formation above the road as it winds up towards the tunnel from the east entrance. I'm not sure of the real name to this, if you know, please let me know, and I'll make the change.

The climb starts off with very simple OW climbing. When the crack starts to decay and becomes steeper, there's one of those moves that'll cause you to stop, stress a little, until you finally go for it and realize it wasn't too bad.  That's pretty much all there's to this one, but it leads to a beautiful summit.

The crux is heads up though, not something you'd want to fall from. It is pretty much a sandy slab type move.

Bobble Head Tower has an OK route with some fun sections and some dirty sections. The route starts several dihedrals to the climber's left of the tower. Look for the cleanest dihedral to the left of the tower that gets you to a big ledge covered in junipers, and that's probably the one we took.

P1 starts off with a little squeeze and then has some nice hands and fist climbing.

P2 starts behind the tower up the obvious OW. The crux is pretty junky rock, but it quickly gets better and is pretty feature to the top.

Ceramic Tower is a quick tick up some junky rock to a fine summit.

Start on the down canyon side, on the right side of the tower. Traverse to the left until you reach a short dihedral that'll get you moving up. This could all go free fairly easy, but at the top of the dihedral, there's a nice, loose block or two. I used the assistance of a cam to help move past those.

This area, Lost Arrow Buttress, is tough to find from above (preferred).  This may require fixed ropes/ascenders to exit.  It's a long way to approach from below 4mi+.  This is in upper No Thoroughfare Canyon.  From the East entrance to the monument, go up the Rim ROck Drive, turn E on DS/East Glade Park Rd, park beyond the monument boundary sign in a large pullout.  Cross the road, hop the fence, walk south 300y+ to a bowl/drainage.  There was a cairn here.  The upper part of this seems easy 4th class.  We rappeled.  The next rap is off a large ledge from a tree down a tighter slot. Leave this rope in place, pad the friction spots for the rope (or get a lot of wear on your rope).  From here, walk to find a good tree and rap down a corner to the ground.  It's easier to leave this rope in place, too.

This climb is downhill from the rap line perhaps 400 yards.  It ascends a left-facing corner of a pillar.  There are varied sizes, varnished crack wtih fingers, hands, offwidth, lieback moves to delight you.  It is easier than it looks.  There is a 2 bolt anchor.  Rap 70'.

This is on the Lost Arrow Buttress of Upper No Thoroughfare Canyon.  This is a challenging area to find from above (preferred).  It is a long hike in from below 4+ miles.  From the E entrance to the monument, go up Rim Rock Drive, go left on DS/East Glade Park Rd past the monument boundary.  Park in a large pullout.  Cross the road, hop the fence, head south 300+y.  You may find a cairn.  Find a drainage down with a large bowl at the top.  You can rap this or downclimb, carefully 4th class to a tree above a tighter slot.  Rap down here, pad the rope (or find significant rope wear later), reach a ledge.  Find another tighter corner and rap to the ground.  I recommend leaving the last 2 ropes fixed.  Bring ascenders.

A short distance from the rap line access.  This TR is squeeze between Layback and Red Iguana.  Follow nubbins upward before they erode.

This route climbs the steep side of Mosaic Tower. We thought it was a great route with almost all good rock except for one short section, which detracted it from being a 4 star route.

P1. Start up the chimney system with good gear until reaching a long, awesome, lower angle 5s and 6s crack. The crux is just before reaching an alcove. Belay off of either a #6 or #3s avoiding the guano, 5.9+.

P2. Squeeze up the semi-overhanging, semi-horizontal "chimney", passing one section of junk rock (the leader pulled on cams through this section) through a bulge and another grovelly squeeze up to the big ledge. You can belay off of some shrubs, or link P3 if rope drag isn't too bad, 5.10+ or 5.9 C1.

P3. Finish on the original route, stepping left and climbing easy slab to the anchor. The summit is just a short scramble away from here.

This is a challenging area to find from above (preferred).  It is a long hike in from below 4+ miles.  From the E entrance to the monument, go up Rim Rock Drive, go left on DS/East Glade Park Rd past the monument boundary.  Park in a large pullout.  Cross the road, hop the fence, head south 300+y.  You may find a cairn.  Find a drainage down with a large bowl at the top.  You can rap this or downclimb, carefully 4th class to a tree above a tighter slot.  Rap down here, pad the rope (or find significant rope wear later), reach a ledge.  Find another tighter corner and rap to the ground.  I recommend leaving the last 2 ropes fixed.  Bring ascenders.

Move downhill perhaps 400y.  Find a large flake-like pinnacle with a chocolate colored, left-facing dihedral.  Climb the less distinctive right-facing dihedral.  Awkward, weird moves with spots of loose rock present themselves.  Not sustained in difficulty.  2 bolt anchor is shared with

Chocolate Corner

.  Rap 70'

This is a very fun OW route up the backside of Butt Crack Tower. Once you're back there, the route is obvious. It's not your average, straightforward OW, but there's still plenty of squirming to do. The crux is above a chimney section.  There's a nice crescent hold to help get you through it. However, to make it a little more interesting, the hold is most likely going to snap off at some point!  When the hold breaks, it'll probably be around a 5.11 OW move.

Short, junky, a tad sketchy..it's more about a summit than anything else. From the down canyon side, there's a crack/seam that leads to the top. Some free climbing will get you to a pod of sorts that you can bury an okay cam into. Next is the crux seam.  This doesn't last long, and you can get into an easy trough of sorts and paw away at the dirt to the top.

Liberal Fantasy

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in No Thoroughfare Canyon