Our second day in Red Rocks saw the weather worsening - clear skies but high
winds with gusts over 50mph. We thought we might get blown off the mountain
tops and though the summits were downright unpleasant, most of the day was
pretty good despite the winds. Cleaver Crack is purported to be the best route
to 
Mt. Wilson,
one of the three monarchs of the Red Rocks area. Our large group
of nine from the day before had dwindled to a more manageable six. This was a
much easier route compared to the previous day, low class 5 with a single
handline. We took a rope and some gear for contingencies, but never needed them.
In fact, all of the climbing gear returned to the TH before us.
We got started from 
the Oak Creek TH just after 7a, repeating the first
mile of trail work for the second time in as many days. This time we
went past the SE Face of Rainbow Mtn and dropped into 
Oak Creek
where 
the scrambling begins. We spent the better part of an hour making
our way upstream, a bonanza of boulders, 
slabs, dry waterfalls and all
manner of obstacles. We turned left to head up the south fork where we came to
the creek's crux and the route's only handline. It wasn't quite 8:30a at this
point, but 
Mason and Chris decided to
turn back, a little unexpectedly. They had recently returned from a winter trip
to the Kaweahs and combined with the long day yesterday, they were pretty
knackered and not feeling up to another big day. Since they were the ones
requesting and carrying the ropes, we let them carry them back to the TH as
well - we were feeling pretty confident that we could do without.
Down to four, we continued upstream. I went up the handline first while Scott
went left looking for what he'd read was a class 4 ropeless alternative. The
others watched him for a few minutes before following
up the rope. Ten minutes
later, Scott had given up the quest, finding nothing less than class 5, and
joined us at the top of the rope. The rope dangles down from a manky bolt, lying
at an angle against the sloping slabs at the top of the dry waterfall (though
a trickle was flowing today). There are cracks to help with footing to make it
unnecessary to actually use the rope, but the exposure is such that we all
appreciated the safety aspect of having it there in case of a slip. Above the
crux we soon came to a 3-way fork where the ducks seemed to give out. I knew we
had to avoid the far left fork that leads up to Cactus Flower Tower as I had
gone that way and gotten
lost the first time up here. I also knew that the correct
fork was up the middle, slightly left, where the route can be seen going up the
narrow gullies in that direction. The trouble was getting there, seemingly
blocked by brush or cliff at several attempts. The key seems to be to continue
up the right fork for a distance to reach a break in the cliffs that one
can then traverse left at to get into the correct drainage. A few more ducks in
here would probably have been quite helpful but we managed via various means -
when the route becomes unclear, we tend to spread out like ants until the
route is reestablished and we come together again. More ducks appeared as we
went under 
a shady overhang, leading us to the start of the route by 9a.
The route begins by climbing 
lots of slabs lower down, soon coming to
a fork where one can take a fingertip traverse to the left into the next gully,
or continue up slabs and cut over to the left gully higher up - we opted for
the 
fingertip traverse. More 
slabs lead to 
the start
of 
the first crack, a shallow one about six feet wide with several
chockstones that present the only real, although minor difficulties.
After the top of this crack the route moves back to the right into the original
gully where the very deep 
Cleaver Crack is found. The crack itself is
an easy walkup, 4-5ft wide - no technical difficulties here, but the walls rise
up to great heights on both sides which makes this an impressive feature. We
exited the crack just after 10a where the views begin to
open up to Rainbow and the surrounding Red Rocks area. Mt. Wilson's
summit 
can be seen as one climbs the gully to its head
at a notch. Here the route turns to the right to climb
steep walls up well-featured sandstone that I thought was the best
scrambling of the whole route. There are many options here as one climbs higher
and we kept on 
a line mostly 
to the left towards the summit.
We eventually found ourselves on one of several use trails that have developed
over the years 
leading to the summit and by 11a we had reached
the highpoint. The wind was quite forceful here so we
sheltered on the leeward side of the summit to get a respite.
We perused through the very busy register contents housed in an ammo box, adding
our own entries as we snacked and took in 
the views. Within about 30min
the wind would drive the cold into my body, rousing me to action and getting
the others to join me heading off the summit. With the wind not quite as bad as
had been forecasted, we decided to extend our planned loop to take in a few
bonus peaks along the limestone crest to the west of the Red Rocks' sandstone.
The first of these is First Creek Overlook, a mile to the west, found at the
junction of First and Oak Creeks along 
a connecting ridgeline with Mt.
Wilson. Most of this is 
an easy stroll over to the saddle with some
modest scrambling, then 
the terrain turns sharply to gray limestone as
the route begins to climb up from the saddle. Most of this is pretty
straightforward with some decent but not great scrambling found at the end where
the slope increases and 
the talus gives way to 
more solid
rock.
Atop First Creek Overlook around 12:30p, we would spend the next hour
hiking less than a mile 
along the crest to Oak Creek Overlook, another
limestone summit. Our party seemed to struggle along the ridge as it took
a good deal more than one might think for less than a mile of easy walking. We
paused at one point about 1/3 of the way along when I noticed that Matt was
nowhere to be seen. Seems he had taken his time getting off First Creek
Overlook. While waiting, Tom said he was going to go over to the edge of the
crest to take a leak. Matt then joined us, but immediately took off his pack
and went over to join Tom who had his phone out, taking a selfie. I turned to
Scott who gave me a shrug and the two of us continued on the ridge without
further waiting. A few minutes later I hear a racket and look back to
see Scott with a yucca stalk in hand, bashing the bulbous part againt the
rocks as he walked along. At this point I judged we had simply lost our focus
and asked Scott, "Did you guys all take acid back there and not tell me about
it?" Scott looked at me, looked at the yucca stalk (he was trying to craft it
into a walking stick) and then a grin. No illicit drugs. Perhaps just the wind
and the hours catching up with us. Tom caught up with us as we found a neat
window in the rock where we paused for a few 
pics. Matt hadn't
quite caught up and I hurried to leave the hole, fearing a longer video session
would delay us further yet.
We found no register at 
Oak Creek Overlook to some surprise. Tom noted
later
there is a second Oak Creek Overlook, the 52Peak Club version, found on
the north side of Cactus Flower Tower. Our limestone version was from Purcell
and seems less popular. Unlike First Creek Overlook, getting off Oak Creek
Overlook and back to the sandstone is not an obvious endeavor. I recall having
to make a circuitous ascent with Patrick on my first visit two years earlier
and hoped to find a more direct route this time around. It started off
promisingly with a neat bit of 
class 4 downclimbing just south of the
summit
to get onto the East Ridge, but we soon found the difficulties increasing with
cliffs and sketchy slopes around us. There was much back and forth and searching
around for ways off, but eventually we had to skirt towards the south to avoid
the cliffs and then make our way back to the East Ridge over several crappy,
steep and loose talus gullies. Ugh, ugh. A full hour was burned up in the effort
and we didn't reach 
the saddle with Oak Peak until after 2:30p.
Oak Peak's summit is less than 10min from the saddle fortunately, and
we were soon atop our fourth and last peak, Tom happy to tick off another
52Peaks Club summit, a bonus he hadn't planned on.
All we had to do was get ourselves off the summit, back down into Oak
Creek and out to the car. The easiest way would have been to head southwest off
the summit into the South Fork of Oak Creek and follow that down, which is what
Scott ended up doing. Another good route goes off the north side into the North
Fork, used by Patrick and I two years ago on ascending Oak Peak. I got
distracted by a series of ducks that led down 
the south side, then
over and 
around to 
the East Ridge, a very exciting class 4
route that I had no idea existed. Tom and Matt both followed me on this venture
(and Scott probably would have too, had he known it was a good one) which turned
out to have the best scrambling of the day by far, with wildly exposed
downclimbs, a 
handline traverse along 
a narrow ledge
and lots of good, 
solid rock. We had nearly gotten to the bottom when
the ducks we were following
suddenly seemed to give out, almost as if the route had never been properly
finished. As it was after 4p and we were already steeped in shadow, it made for
some concern. I suspect that the route traversed north into
the North Fork drainage, but we never fully explored that option. Instead, we
sort of made up our route, dropping to the south into the South Fork drainage.
Some outward sloping slabs that we had to traverse were the trickiest, but
eventually we 
found a way down with minimal brush and exposure. It was
after 4:30p by the time we were safely down 
in the creek bottom
at a point we had passed by earlier in the day. From there it was a matter of
scrambling back 
down the creek and then walking the trail back to
the Oak Creek TH, another hour's
effort. Scott was waiting for us at the TH when we reached it at 5:30p, the
official closing time of Scenic Loop. We had seen Scott jogging down the creek
hours earlier and knew he would be back well
ahead of us. He was bundled up in extra layers to ward off the cold that had
come quickly with the setting sun. As we were getting ready to drive back out,
we spied a headlamp coming behind us down the trail and decided to wait to
give them a ride since ours was the only car left in the lot. It turned out to
be a couple guided by the light of their cellphone, elated that we'd save them
the extra mile+ of walking back to their car just outside the Scenic Loop. We
were a bit cozy with six of us in four seats, but it worked and made for a nice
finish of another well-spent day in Red Rocks...
Matt's Video
Continued...