Snow Canyon State Park – Circus Wall – Barbarian – 5.6 **

Snow Canyon State Park – Circus Wall – Barbarian – 5.6 **


Note: If you have ever read the description from Todd Goss’s south west Utah climbing guide of Barbarian and actually climbed it, you will wonder if Todd has ever actually climbed it as his description does not match the actual climb.

Barbarian is situated to the far left of the belay deck that is shared with Pygmy Alien. Next to the arête look for the obvious crack that start the first pitch. If you chose to protect along the cracks you will need medium to larger gear.

Pitch 1: The climb starts with a couple of pins on the face and then transitions into the main crack. I have seen other climbers run the crack out as the climbing is really not that hard. I thought that this section easier than 5.6. There might have been one pin above the crack before the anchors but I do not remember.

Pitch 2: It appears there have been some modifications to the second pitch. Three to four feet to the left of were the route on the actual arête itself is a full set of bolt running the length of the pitch. I do not know if this was done to be apart of Barbarian or not but if you do not like the space in between pins (I counted three) than you can easy clip into these new bolts. If you stay on route (the face not the arête) you will move to a crack to the right on the second half of this pitch. At the top you will reach a large ledge with tree and 2 sets of anchors. This is my favorite pitch as the exposure on the arête is awesome and provides a great view of the canyon.

Pitch 3: Start behind the tree on the ledge and move up the face with bolts to the top of the canyon.

Descent: Walk-off down-climb to the north. Due to the amount of varnish and chickenheads on the cliff, especially the top two pitches, rappelling and pulling a rope down over it may not be the wisest decision and could result in a hung-up rope. Walking-off to the north is it own adventure and should be consider 5th class. There were a few sections of the walk-off where I wish I was roped up.

As far as the R rating is concerned I don’t really agree. You can cheat over to the bolts on the left on the second pitch and you can place plenty of slings on chicken heads if you wanted to. The third pitch is complete bolted. For me, the thing that made the climb the dangerous was the walk-off to the north.

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