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Devil’s Kitchen, Wyoming

Posted on 11. Sep, 2011 by B3 in Devil's Kitchen

Labor Day weekend I was invited to the Lander, WY area to check out a “newly” discovered zone. Wyoming is a vast and desolate state that holds much undiscovered bouldering. Massive granitic ranges punctuate the otherwise inhospitable landscape. The most prominent of these ranges is the Wind River Range, where Davin Bagdonas, Jesse Brown, David and Ashley Lloyd and Chris Marley (among others) have recently been searching out and finding excellent new climbing. Most of their recent focus has been on an alpine area they refer to as the Falcon’s Lair.

My interest in visiting the Falcon’s Lair was strong, especially after good reports from Brian Capps that the area was of high quality. My visit was thwarted, however, by a phone call from one of my main climbing partners, Collin Horvat. Collin and local Jesse Brown had visited a wild canyon near Lander they said, “was similar (in volume of rock) to Chaos Canyon and comparable (in quality of rock) to the Poudre Canyon”. Jesse returned after their initial visit to put up a handful of new problems and was anxious to share the area with others. It was too much to resist and when I was offered a ride up for Labor Day weekend I jumped on board with Collin, Justin Jaeger, Cameron Maier, and Rylan Marshall.

A quick stop to stretch as the sun set on the Wyoming countryside.

The approach to the new area was somewhat complex and difficult. After heading out of Lander, we drove into the mountains on a graded dirt road for 70 minutes. This road traverses the Wind River Indian Reservation and to cross it we needed to purchase a fishing license (even though we weren’t fishing and we weren’t even stopping on the land). The permit was $30 to cross the road twice in a day.

On the drive in

It should also go without saying that 70 minutes is a long time to drive on a dirt road. Even more painful was the next 30 minutes, in which we bumped and jostled over the open land on a rough 4WD path. We escaped without a flat tire but the threat was ever-present. Our motivation at that point may have been weakened, but after hiking to the rim of the canyon, all of my negative thoughts evaporated immediately at the site of thousands and thousands of amazing looking boulders strewn about the valley floor.

We ran down the hill as quickly as we could and it took about 45 minutes to get there. At the time, only one other party had bouldered here and they had established 4 problems up to V7. There were no trails and the hiking was rough. By the end of the weekend I wore numerous long red gashes across my legs, evidence of my passage over the rugged terrain. When we reached the bottom, it was obvious that not only was this an amazing new area, but that most of my time would be spent exploring and hiking, trying to see as much as possible, and beginning the process of finding, organizing and prioritizing the quickly growing list of incredible new projects.

The first project we found, an outstanding sloping arete.

I was struck by three of features of the area.

First of all, the rock is of high quality. It varies in its composition from compact, fine-grained polished white granite (similar to that found on the Pearl Boulder in the Poudre Canyon) to wildly swirling rock found in RMNP. The texture on almost all of it is excellent.
Secondly, the amount of rock is staggering. It will be years before the area is fully explored.
Thirdly, the concentration is very good. From one problem to the next there seems to be never more than 50 ft and this pattern appears to exist for the several miles that the talus field runs along the Little Popo Agie (pronounced po po zsha) River.

I hardly put my shoes on the first day, but ran around, found and cleaned any number of outstanding projects. Several classic FAs were climbed including Jaeger’s Kill Shot V9, Collin Horvat’s Venus on a Half Shell V8, and Kilgore Trout V5. I climbed what was the hardest established problem, which was put up by local Chris Marley, called The Long Hall V7.

Posing on Kill Shot V9 Photo: Justin Jaeger

Rylan Marshall on Venus on a Half Shell V8 Photo: Justin Jaeger

Cam Maier on The Long Hall V7

Towards the end of the day I spent more time hiking. Near the end of my hike I stumbled upon a stunning roof project. I would put this problem immediately into the top 10 problems I have ever seen. It was an appropriate way to end to an amazing day. The roof is long, uncontrived and it climbs out an outrageous piece of banded rock on perfect pinches, slopers and underclings. The full line could be V14 or V15. Here are a couple pictures I took with my Iphone.

The rock and holds on the roof

Roof Project

One small sector where we developed, that represents perhaps 1/20th of the rock that is there.

Hiking out of this steep canyon at the end of the day, without a trail and in the dark was rough, to say the least. The elevation gain on the return trip is TWICE (yes) that of Lincoln Lake. After doing the hike, and the hour and half on a dirt road and not returning to Lander until 11:30pm we were all a bit skeptical that it would be worth it to go back.

But the next day we did, and again the quality and quantity of the bouldering overcame any hardships encountered on the approach. I took a couple more climbers back to show them the roof. One climber, commenting on its quality in regards to the star system said, “The fifth star is saved, or theoretical, because there might be a problem like this out there”.

Snacks for the Crew V8 FA Photo: Cameron Maier

I added a short but nice problem myself, which starts matched on an amazing sidepull rail called Snacks for the Crew V8.
As is often the case when developing a new area, another climber (Jaeger) spent much of the time cleaning this line. He repeated it immediately afterwards. The rock in this sector is vaguely reminiscent of that magical area in Switzerland Brione, with some Gandalf Area Poudre rock thrown in for good measure.

Local Jesse Brown couldn’t make it out the first day, but he did come this day. He is the one who has been spearheading the development of this canyon, and has named the place Devil’s Kitchen, which is a nod to the ranchers and local residents, as this was their original name to the area.

All in all it was a fabulously adventurous weekend in the mountains. For me these types of bouldering experiences are what I am looking for. A lot of new rock, a wild and rugged landscape, and a small crew of like-minded climbers to put up new problems with. I would also like to say that I have been astounded by the amount of new rock that seems to be cropping up out there in the woods, not only in Wyoming, but Colorado, Idaho and Montana as well. If you want to come up to Lander, by all means, come on up. But don’t think for a minute that there aren’t 20 other areas on the list waiting to be explored. There are thousands of boulders to be climbed out there. I have shared many new areas and problems on this site, with the intention that climbers will enjoy them. But as I often have said in the past, I would encourage boulderers to think outside the box, not follow the trends and get out there and find some adventure for yourself!

Other ranges in Wyoming that most likely offer new and good bouldering are the Absaroka Range, the Beartooth Mountains, the Big Horn Mountains and the Laramie Range. W3rd.

The Wind River Range

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