A Break from the Bubble
Fremont Canyon Trip Report
We bumped down the state road deep into the heart of the sagebrush steppe of Wyoming, blasting Sierra Ferrell and Bob Dylan from the speakers of Andrew’s Tacoma. All we’d seen were prairie dogs, wind turbines, and fescue for the four-and-a-half hour drive from Boulder to Alcova, WY. I remained unconvinced we were in the right place.
Passing the reservoir by the town, we spotted some cottonwood trees and, more importantly, some granite boulders, providing a hint that there was, in fact, rock to be climbed here. After a few more bends in the road and cresting a hill, Andrew and I finally saw what we had been promised: the majestic Precambrian granite walls of Fremont Canyon standing sentinel hundreds of feet over the North Platte River.
We continued along the road to our rendezvous point: a bridge over the canyon with a parking lot and bathroom. There, we met Josh and Thomas. After the first of MANY hacky sack sessions in the parking lot, we started rigging ropes to get a taste of climbing in the canyon.
The style here is top-down: generally, the way to access the routes is to rappel down into the canyon and climb back out. You see a lot of solo toproping. The routes often have a bolted belay station at the base of the climb, hopefully on a ledge, but sometimes hanging. The name of the game here is crack climbing, with splitter granite cracks galore.
After warming up on Carpenter's Corner (5.8) on the north side of the canyon, we walked over the bridge and got onto two of the classics of the Bridge area: Dillingham Blues (5.10+) and All Time Loser (5.11). I’ve written before about my affinity for bridge climbing, but this setup was a totally novel experience. As we built anchors on the bridge supports, more than a couple camo-clad Casper locals called out to us from their trucks, assigning us well-earned epithets of insane, or ballsy, or both.
Andrew and Thomas cleaned up on the bridge routes, likening them to classic Yosemite crack climbing. I myself, being a bad crack climber, struggled, but enjoyed the prusik practice to get through the crux. Josh was in a similar boat to myself; we all got some reps setting up a haul system to provide an assist to get him back under the bridge.
After some equivocating between camping on top of the canyon rim or at a couple other spots, we claimed a campsite west of the bridge—critically, per Thomas’ request, with a river view. He ended up being totally right.
That night, over campfire Tecates, the boys jammed on their guitars. Calling it early, I drifted off to sleep with their rendition of Ween’s Boys Club mixing beautifully with the song of the river.
The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, the fellas headed to the Wine and Roses crag. After some exploring, we found the routes we were after and began rigging ropes once again. The eponymous climb of the crag, Wine and Roses (5.11a), was a hit with Andrew. We also climbed a short but quality crack nearby, Cashew Corner (5.9), which refilled my stoke on crack climbing. I made a lot of progress in reading Moby Dick as we chased the shade around the one boulder in the area large enough to cast a shadow.
Rock climbing often takes you places where humans don’t often (or, as my dad would say, “shouldn’t”) go. But lowering into this canyon made this fact especially salient. There was life all around: a colony of cliff swallows swooped from their mud nests hanging under roof features, filling the air with birdsong as they fed on the hatch of midges buzzing over the water; a trout lurked in the water below; lizards skittered across the rock face; I even saw a chipmunk making a bold first ascent across the other side of the rim. But before climbers arrived, no human ever stood on this incut ledge in this bend of Fremont Canyon.
We had a lunchtime river swim session—and by swim, I mean dunk, because the water was frigid—before heading back to the Bridge to play more hacky sack. We lowered into the canyon again and did a bit more swimming and climbing before returning to Wine and Roses crag to grab some gear and for Thomas to have a go at the classic climb. More hacky sack and dinner took us to bedtime.
The next morning, after a late start and some faffing around, Thomas and Josh started the trek back to Boulder. Meanwhile, Andrew and I went questing for an area called the Narrows to sample some multi-pitch climbing. We hiked maybe half a mile, through a meadow and up a thin, rocky climbers trail that hugged the edge of one of the tributary canyons.
Eventually reaching a cliffside overlooking the North Platte, we found what we thought were the rap chains for “Hang On Loosely.” We fixed a line and rapped down a gully into the spectacular canyon, with beautiful clean granite hanging over us in every direction. Upon reaching the riverbank, though, we realized our error: the water was so high that the base of our target climb, the Slab Route (5.10c), was inaccessible.
Rather than just ascend our fixed line, we opted to do some adventure climbing up the obvious crack we saw rappelling down the line. Andrew took the sharp end and navigated up the canyon with style. He didn’t drop as much as a pebble on me—an achievement, I learned, as I scrambled up the chossy start of the climb. The last half, though was a surprisingly enjoyable hand crack that widened at the top to fists and a few offwidth moves. Meeting at the top of the climb, we agreed that it was a surprising two stars.
We explored around a bit, finding the top of the climb we had originally targeted. We gazed admiringly at the wall on the opposite side of the canyon, spying a few sneaky bolts and some king lines. Declaring that we would be back, we struck back toward the car, and to the Front Range.
Some things I learned:
The good ice cream is at the Sinclair gas station with the general store, not at the marina, despite the signs.
Always get the river view campsite.
Get the Fremont Canyon guidebook. We looked for it in two gear shops in Laramie without success. We heard it was in Casper, but that was out of the way for us. Not even Neptune in Boulder had it! There is so much climbing here, and almost none of the beta is online.
Yeti coolers are pretty unreal. I don’t understand how they keep stuff so cold for so long. I don’t have one but I am close to being bought-in on the hype.
It’s possible to be sore from hacky sack. In fact, very sore.
It was nice to get out of the Boulder bubble. Seeing the Wyoming locals at the marina, the Bridge parking lot, and the gas station made me feel like I was back in North Carolina. It was refreshing to interact with people for whom climbing is an alien novelty, and even better to see my friends from California’s reactions to the local culture of gasoline, big trucks, and redneck yacht club-style boating. The locals even gave us a fireworks show on Friday night—Happy Fourth of July!
Fremont Canyon was absolutely not on my radar before this week. Unlocking a new crag, especially one in such an unlikely setting, gave me such an appreciation for how many stunning places there are speckled around the landscapes of the West. Keep roaming, reader, and I look forward to getting tips on more places to check out from you all.
This post kinda took me back a couple decades, especially with the hackysack gif, I love it. And yes, completely agreed: Always get the river view campsite.