I’d been bouncing between Red Rocks and Zion for the past month, taking advantage of an unusually warm stretch of late-fall weather to build more content for my website of adventure climbs in the area. It was nearly Christmas, yet Las Vegas was forecast to hover around 70 degrees through the end of the year. Back in November, I’d told my parents in British Columbia that I’d be home “when it got too cold to climb,” fully expecting that to be by Christmas. Instead, I found myself weighing spring-like temperatures and empty walls against the pull of the holidays with family—a tough call. Since I’d be spending much of the winter living with my parents anyway, I figured Christmas could easily be delayed by a week or two.
So once again, I headed back to Red Rocks between trips to Zion. This time I teamed up with Sean McLane, whom I’d climbed with on my previous visit, when conditions had been a bit too cool for shady routes. With warmer temperatures and overlapping free time, those shaded faces were finally comfortable, making it an easy decision to rope up again. The day before, we’d climbed
Drifting (5.11c/d PG13, 5 pitches) on Jet Stream Wall—a stellar route, but one that demanded full attention.
With temperatures feeling pleasant in the shade, Sean and I turned our sights to Black Velvet Canyon. I’d heard
Velvet Revolver (5.11b, 7p) was worth climbing, and it proved to be an excellent choice.
Velvet Revolver compares in quality to anything on the main Black Velvet Wall. The rock is nearly perfect, the protection is excellent, and one steep, dramatic pitch offers expansive views of the climbers queued up on the established classics to the left. The route takes a direct and striking line up the impressive wall to the right of the chimneys of
Twixt Cradle and Stone. The route starts on the first three pitches of
Twixt Cradle and Stone, and then has four independent pitches. The first pitch proper (Pitch 4) is a bold piece of climbing and sets the tone for the route.
We climbed the route in a fix-and-follow style. With seven pitches total—the first few relatively moderate, the fourth delivering the 5.11b crux, and the final three offering sustained 5.10b-5.11a climbing—it made sense to split the route into two blocks: Pitches 1–4 and Pitches 5–7. I led the lower block, while Sean took the upper. The climbing was consistently excellent, with sustained movement, good flow, and an engaging position throughout. The gear, while adequate, was not always straightforward, which added a bit of “hanging out” on the harder sections, especially through the cruxy moves on Pitch 4 (11b) and Pitch 6 (11a).
After the climb, we capped the day with dinner with Jorge and Joanne Urioste. Starting in the late 1970s, the Uriostes established hundreds of routes across Red Rocks, opening up entire formations and defining the character of the area. Many of today’s classic long, multi-pitch sandstone routes exist because of their vision and effort. If you’ve climbed in Red Rocks, you’ve almost certainly been on one of their lines. Jorge and Joanne didn’t just climb here—they shaped how people experience the canyon. Beyond that, they are simply wonderful humans, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have called them friends for over a decade.
This page includes a route overlay, time stats, and pitch-by-pitch photos from the climb.
