How to do a UP rock climbing trip

In July, Brandon and I were in the UP for a week to spend time with family at Gitche Gumee Bible Camp. Brandon had heard of some rock climbing in the Keweenaw Peninsula near the camp and had even tried to find it once without success. I, of course, was intrigued and we decided to re-explore the area. 

With a little online research, I quickly found that UP climbing is not well documented at all. Thankfully, I also discovered that Down Wind Sports in Houghton had unofficial UP climbing information available at the store. Before we ventured deeper into the Keweenaw we stopped in. The guys working there were enthusiastic and helpful. They told us about some new sport climbing at Silver Mountain in Baraga and were able to print us some instructions. Baraga is not in the Keweenaw, but it was on the way home if we wanted to check it out. We also secured a more descriptive PDF of the climbing on Cliff Drive in the Keweenaw that Brandon had previously tried to find. We were warned that Cliff Drive was more adventure-type climbing that was poorly marked and required top belaying. But, armed with the paper copies and PDF we felt confident and excited about our climbing prospects. 

Before checking out these climbing areas we stumbled across some unofficial climbing at Devil's Washtub near Copper Harbor. This is an awesome roadside cliff jumping area complete with a tunnel to swim through after the jump. The tunnel rock also looked prime for bouldering, so Brandon and I had to try it out. I even had some old climbing shoes that I didn't mind subjecting to the water. Climbing over water is fun! If you fall off, you don't have to worry about hard ground beneath...you just get a splash! 

Brandon climbing the inside edge of the tunnel

Working on a similar section

Brandon eventually defeated this boulder and climbed all the way over the top! 

Climbing the outside portion of the tunnel

After our spontaneous bouldering at Devil's Washtub we went to Cliff Drive to scope out climbing for the next day. We were not successful. Our excitement about the PDF instructions quickly turned to disappointment. We managed to follow the first few directions (we think), but it became hazy quickly with instructions to follow seasonal stream beds (there were multiple) or climb over boulders (once again, multiple). Definitely not like the Red River Gorge in Kentucky where we're used to mapped out directions, labeled routes, and many fellow climbers. This place was deserted other than a bunch of metal detecting junkies searching for treasure among old mining pilings.  

But we didn't give up. The next day we went back and decided to just forge our way through the brush and rubble up to the top of the cliff. We did and managed to intersect with what looked like some legitimate trails. We still had no idea where the climbing routes noted in the PDF were. The area was, as we were warned, more setup for adventure climbing where you just make up what you want and hope it works out. So, we got into the adventure climbing spirit, built our own anchor (three actually, due to my nervous insistence), belayed one us down from the top (me first), and hoped that we could climb back up. Needless to say finding a good spot was among the more difficult tasks. But we did it and had a lot of fun along the way. 

Beautiful view from the top of the cliff where we could also see our car parked on Cliff Drive. We climbed a few feet north of that pine tree on the arete. 

Brandon looking over the edge of the cliff trying to see if this is a good place for us to climb

Preparing for a climb. You can somewhat see our set-up.

If you're interested in our set-up, we had three anchors at the top. We chose this location because it looked promising and because we found a sport climb bolt there. Our anchors were the base of an old tree, a thick root, and the sport climb bolt. We had brought webbing along which we ran through our anchors and into locking carabiners we usually use for cleaning sport routes. Our rope then went through the locking carabiners between the belayer and climber. The belayer was clipped into the sport bolt with a clip and several slings we looped together. We did not want to chance the belayer falling if the climber took an large unexpected fall. It took a while to set up, but feeling safe makes for more fun climbing in my opinion. We should probably try to live to tell our rock climbing stories. 

We then lowered the climber over the edge. Because we were not able to fully view the rock face before the climb, we lowered slowly. The climber viewed the rock face and determined if it was within our skill level. If it was, we lowered more. If it was questionable, we did a small trial climb up that section and then re-lowered when the trial was successful. We ended up climbing three routes that we made up, a 45 foot arete, 50 foot slab, and 80 foot chimney. We were able to stay in one location at the top by making minimal adjustments to rope position as needed. 

When we were done we carefully cleaned up all our gear and re-traced our steps down the steep, cliff-side "trail" without injury, feeling adventurous and accomplished.

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When camp was done for the week, we drove to Baraga to check out the sport climbing at Silver Mountain. I have to admit that I was sleep-deprived, irritable, and not enthused about this adventure, but Brandon soldiered forward and eventually turned my attitude around as he is so cunningly able to do. 

Amusingly, I had been to Silver Mountain at least three times before on a UP trip I took annually with some physical therapy friends when I was in grad school. I had no idea there was rock climbing there, but I also wasn't a climber at the time. Our drive to Silver Mountain was nostalgic for me. The nearby roads, parking area, and mountain were familiarly empty of people. Now, instead of hiking up the mountain I would climb it. 

As aforementioned, we had some printouts detailing the Silver Mountain climbing area. We quickly found some well-worn trails to the left that made it to the base of the mountain and some sport bolts. The issue was now determining the grade of the sport routes, so we could choose an appropriate one to climb. The information we had was outdated as several additional sport routes seemed to have been added to the area. This was more exciting than frustrating, because additional sport climbing routes meant more potential for us to tap, and we were now used to the lack of information surrounding UP rock climbing. 

The basalt cliffs of Silver Mountain have beautiful rainbow roofs

We eventually settled on a sport route that was not listed, but looked very do-able and about 60 feet tall. I led the route easily with no falls or takes. Brandon then followed suit and cleaned the route as well. We rated it a 5.7 or 5.8-, so it was a good warm-up for us. 

Leading what we guessed was a 5.7 or 5.8-

We then explored further to the left on the cliff and climbed what we determined after to be a 100 foot route called Between a Block and a Hard Place and rated 5.10b. Brandon led it admirably with a few challenges along the way. I then top roped it with some beta from him through a particularly challenging part where the minimal hand holds required reliance on the feet and slab. 

Me near the top of Between a Block and a Hard Place

In the end, we were quite proud of ourselves for having correctly judged the difficulty and successfully climbed the routes we chose. It was definitely a place we want to return to explore more sport climbing. 

Kentucky is definitely better established climbing and a lesser drive at 7 hours rather than the 10 hours to the UP. But, if you're in the area, the beautiful solitude and adventurousness of UP climbing is not to be missed!