9 Lesser-Known Autumn Climbing Destinations For Your Bucket List

Autumn is a sublime climbing season, with dry air, cool temps, stable weather, and enough daylight to still get after it. It can also be cruel in its brevity, if summer extends too far or the cold weather comes too early. Heck, you can almost see the sand pouring through the hourglass as the leaves turn yellow then brown and finally fall off. Perhaps this is why we prize autumn so much: It reminds us to make the most of every climbing day.

It’s rare to find a climbing zone in North America that isn’t at its best between September and November, except perhaps south-facing crags that will be too hot as the sun drops lower in the sky. With that in mind, we picked the following nine off-the-beaten-path destinations for their mellow scene, variety of climbing and aspects, historical atmospheric conditions, and—of course—autumnal beauty. For each one, we also suggested a more famous venue nearby—places already known for their high density of classics and fall perfection.

1. Adirondacks, New York

This immense area is home to some of North America’s finest granitic rock (anorthosite), with hundreds of climbs from mellow multipitch slab romps to testy gear-protected 5.14s spread out across the six million acres of the Adirondack Mountains. Because the climbing is decentralized, with no real climbing town or locus, and because the approaches are often epic, crowds are rare in the Adirondacks compared to more centralized Northeastern areas. Summer can be steamy, and in the late spring the notorious black flies will drive you literally insane. Better to come in autumn, when the flies are gone, temps are crisp, and the foliage is popping.

Guidebook: Adirondack Rock, by Jim Lawyer and Jeremy Haas

Want the less adventurous, higher-density (of both climbs and people) version? Drive three hours  down to the Shawangunks.

2. Bolton, Vermont

Like the ‘Dacks, Vermont is known for its otherworldly fall colors. The bucolic Bolton area is a great destination, with hundreds of sport climbs, boulders, and trad climbs on  featured green schist. The most stacked crags include Upper West, with sport up to mid-5.12 and trad up to 5.11+; the 82 Crag, a bolt-clipper’s mecca with classics up to 5.12+; and the main attraction,Bolton Dome, a south-facing escarpment known for its crimpy, technical face climbing. Fun note:Bolton Dome reopened in 2019, thanks to the efforts of CRAG-VT, after being closed for the previous 20 years.

Guidebook: Vermont Rock: A Rock Climber’s Guide to the Green Mountain State, by Travis Peckham

Want the more famous version? Check out Rumney, New Hampshire—two hours away

3. Durango, Colorado

Durango is the classic Colorado mountain town, with a ski area (Purgatory), a crystal-clear river (the Animas), a quaint main drag, tourist attractions like the narrow-gauge railroad through the San Juan Mountains to Silverton, and stacks of hidden-gem local climbing areas. Close to town is the sandstone cragging of East Animas, home to a few new-school mid-5.14s, and the high-quality bouldering of Turtle Lake and Sailing Hawks. Driving the famous Million Dollar Highway (Highway 550) north toward Molas Pass takes you up into aspen groves—resplendent in early autumn—and limestone bands, where you can get your pump on at the short but powerful Golf Wall. Higher up, Cascade Canyon provides steep, Rifle-esque pitches above a stream-fed pool.

Guidebook: Durango Sandstone, by Timothy Kuss

Want harder sport? Go to Rifle, four and a half hours away.

4. Jackson Falls, Illinois

Jackson Falls is sort of a miniature Red River Gorge, with steep, sculpted sandstone and clip-up classics ranging from 5.6 to 5.13+. The routes might not be as tall as the Red, and there for sure aren’t as many (550-plus climbs listed on Mountain Project versus the RRG’s 3,330-plus), but the dense, high-quality rock lends itself to slopey, pocketed, technical movement that’s challenging from bottom to top. Autumn is great here, lending friction to the porous stone, and if you want to get your bouldering on, Dixon Springs State Park, where the bouldering icon John Gill did lots of his earliest problems (including the V8 Rebuttal way back in the 1960s!), is just a half-hour away.

Guidebook: Jackson Falls: A Guide to Southern Illinois’ Best Kept Secret, by Yusuf Daneshyar

Looking for more pumpy sandstone? The Red River Gorge is only five hours away.

5. Last Chance Canyon, New Mexico

Situated in far southern New Mexico, relatively near Carlsbad, Last Chance Canyon is a quiet limestone sport-climbing destination with a mild late-autumn climate and featured, desert-hardened rock that ranges from technical, vertical faces on pockets and crimps to tiered, bulging swells known for their jug hauls. There are more than 120 routes up to 5.13+, but a bolting ban in Lincoln National Forest limits further activity. There’s zero to do on rest days, so bring your own entertainment (Starlink!) and/or go check out the stalactite- and stalagmite-bejeweled caves of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Guidebook: Last Chance Canyon Rock Climbs, by Stu Smith

Tired of clipping bolts? You’re just two and a half hours from the legendary volcanic bouldering at Hueco Tanks.

6. Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah

Little Cottonwood Canyon,—Salt Lake City’s local granitic (quartz monzonite) area—has gained minor international prominence for its bouldering, thanks in part to all the pro-level media attention given to the lengthy power-endurance roof Grand Illusion (V16), a “multigenerational” bloc that saw various low starts added over the years, until Nathaniel Coleman finally did the full cave in 2020. LCC has good cragging as well, with a heavy slab-and-crack vibe on white rock studded with black xenoliths, high over the broad, dramatic canyon. But autumn is when LCC really shines for its bouldering, which is known for its unforgiving, friction-dependent, sometimes-holdless feature problems that are too smarmy in summer and too buried by snow each winter.

Guidebook: The Standard Guide to Little Cottonwood Canyon Rock Climbing, by Tony Calderone

Getting rained out? The far-more-arid Joe’s Valley is only three hours away.

7. The Needles, California

Though 2021’s Windy Fire in Sequoia National Forest, home to the Needles, made accessing the spires and domes trickier, there is still a way in (check the Mountain Project landing page) and the climbs remain as classic as ever. The Needles sit up high, at nearly 8,000 feet above the Kern River Valley, so they’re great in summer but also stay great well into autumn, when you can chase sun on the south-facing routes like Romantic Warrior, one of the best multipitch 5.12s anywhere. The granite may actually be the best on Earth, with endless splitter cracks and seams, vibrant lichen streaks, and perfectly fused crimps and horns, and the exposure on the surreal collection of ominous towers is often dizzying.

Guidebook: The Needles Climbing: A Complete Guide, by Kristian Solem

Want the more famous version? Try Yosemite. It’s about three hours away.

8. Sam’s Throne, Arkansas

With climbing activity dating back to the 1970s, Sam’s Throne is one of Arkansas’s most venerable crags, a mile-long cliff of multihued sandstone with 330-plus climbs, most of which are gear protected or mixed, with some great cracks and corners thrown in. In autumn, the sea of trees surrounding Sam’s Throne turns brilliant colors to match the rock. According to the local climber Cole Fennel’s guidebook, the crag takes its name from a tragic story: In the late 1800s, a settler named Sam Davis moved with his family to the nearby Mt. Judea area but lost his son to a murderous band of bootleggers. Driven mad by grief, he began preaching from the Throne Proper—causing other locals to wonder if Davis was guarding treasure up there. He eventually vanished while searching for his son’s killers.

Guidebook: Rock Climbing Arkansas, Second Edition, by Cole Fennel

Looking for more amenities and a sportier feel? Try Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. It’s less than an hour away.

9. White Rim, Utah 

This vast region in Canyonlands National Park might be considered the “anti Indian Creek,” with an epic 4WD road approach and more-variable rock quality than on the predictable varnished Wingate at the roadside Creek. It’s a land of towers, among them Monster Tower and Washer Woman Tower, both standing above 500 feet, and the chossier spires in Monument Basin, like the 300-foot Standing Rock, first climbed by Layton Kor, Huntley Ingalls, and Steve Komito in 1962. In recent years, the White Rim has also become a roof-crack mecca, with the Wide Boyz, Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker, adding notable first ascents, perhaps their most famous being Century Crack, a 40-meter 5.14b offwidth. Summer is way too hot, even in the caves, and winter can be freezing, making fall and late fall ideal. Planning a visit? Here’s what you need to know first.

Guidebook: Mountain Project, Moab Climbs: High on Moab, by Karl Kelley

Want the more famous, more pedestrian version? Try Indian Creek. It’s only about 40 miles away—but it takes three hours by car.

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