Tallulah Gorge October 2026 with Gabe

Gabe sizing up the crux at the top of P2 of Punk Wave

October 24, 2026

Tallulah Gorge

Approximately 9 AM arrival at the visitor center, we had no problem obtaining climbing permits.

Reminder: to do the rappels from the top of this cliff, you need double 60 m ropes. This avoids the less desirable climbers' approach trail. The rappel rings are just past the first lookout point along the main hiking trail, maybe a five minute walk from the parking lot. You should see the fallen tram tower, you pass this and continue into the woods for a hundred yards or so and come out at the top of Digital Delight. From here you rap all the way down to a broad ledge, from which you can hike skier's left easily on 3rd class terrain to the base of the cliff.

We climbed with double 60 m ropes.

Primitive Paradox (5.9+) - Our warmup. Both pitches felt shorter than I expected. On P1 I actually worried that I was off route when traversing at the top, because I didn't feel I had gone far enough. The hardest moves on this climb came in P2 at the top of the corner near the end of the pitch and the final mantle above that corner onto the belay ledge.

Punk Wave (5.10a) - This climb's start it spicy and bouldery. I didn't get pro in until I was past the initial crux, and a fall at the start would definitely be unfortunate. The second pitch starts by moving directly left off the P1 belay, not moving up at all. It is a nearly blind move around the arete and onto the face, where I did some reachy moves to reach the better holds. These moves weren't trivial, and a fall here would lead to a big swing, definitely something I was trying to avoid. There is more excitement getting into the finger crack at the top of P2, which I managed by carefully moving my feet on shallow holds and smears as high as I could get them. The finger crack itself is very positive in places as gets better the higher you go. We did not do the third pitch, choosing instead to rap and leave enough time to get to the top with our packs before dark.

Digital Delight (5.8) - We started from the top of the first pitch by retracing our path down from the morning's descent. The second pitch was very vegetated and not super appealing. The third pitch in contrast had a fun section of open book crack climbing. The final (fourth) pitch kind of wandered, and unfortunately Gabe had a lot of trouble with the rope wanting to go the wrong way when he was following this pitch. If I do it again, I will probably place more directional pieces.