Climbing on the granite

Little Cottonwood Canyon is a U shaped glaciated granite walled canyon in the Wasatch Mountains to the east of Salt Lake City, Utah. For many years, I lived in Cottonwood, a small community, now part of greater Salt Lake. We were some of the early rock climbers on the granite. This was one of our favorite places to climb for two reasons, there was a turn-out parking area along the road and granite was stable. This location is just up the Canyon from the famous FamilySearch Granite Vault. By today's standards our climbing equipment would be considered objectionable. It is now the standard to use non-destructive climbing aids, but at the time pitons were the state of the art. We would climb up until it got time to turn around and then we would rappel down, load up the gear and drive down the canyon to home.

I was never part of the "climbing community" since we did not drink or party, but we probably pioneered many of the common routes known to climbers today. I left off climbing when I went into the Army during the Vietnam War.