Penitente: Rock Climbing in the San Luis Valley

About the book

Foot for foot, the gem-like rhyolite of the San Luis Valley offers some of the finest climbing in the state. This guide covers all the most popular areas and several never-before-published crags, plus bonus chapters on the local bouldering and mountain biking highlights. This is the only modern book to this popular area, providing the most up-to-date access info, many new climbs, and new areas such as the Promised Land and Pharcyde. This book delivers the info you need, with plenty of sweet action photos to get you motivated.

Features

• The area’s only up-to-date climbing guidebook — don’t settle for fuzzy B&W photos and 1990s beta!

• Penitente, Rock Garden, Witches’ Canyon, Sidewinder, Rattler, Promised Land, Pharcyde, English Valley, and more

• Over 250 routes, 50 of them are 5.9 and under

• All-current access info, including Witches’ Canyon shortcut trails

• Helpful maps and accurate driving directions

• Bouldering highlights from the Rock Garden, Stone Quarry, Rattler Cliff, and more

• Newly established 5.14s — check ‘em out: they’re heinous!

• Every book purchase supports the San Luis Valley Climbers Alliance

  
  
  
  

About the author

Nate Liles originally hails from British Columbia, Canada, but has been spending time at crags across the American West since he was 15. A skilled photographer and videographer, he shares his vision of the world via the business he and his partner Bekka operate, Orographic Creative.

Since 2020, Nate has been the Development Director for the American Safe Climbing Association (ASCA, safeclimbing.org), working to raise awareness of the most ambitious and effective hardware-replacement program in the country. An expert re-equipper, he teaches clinics on the fine art of climbing-bolt removal and replacement, and has brought these skills to the San Luis Valley, repairing and upgrading many of the classic routes here and helping others to do the same.

Although he will be the last person to mention it, Nate is also a silent crusher on both the cliffs and the boulders, and has worked hard to repeat, evaluate, and standardize grades for the upper-end routes in this guide. When not climbing, shooting others climbing, repairing climbs, or opening new routes, Nate can be found sitting up late at a remote camp capturing time-lapse imagery of the night sky.