How a couple of guys found the steepest crag in South Dakota in their backyard

The story of climbing in Victoria Canyon — or the VC as we’d come to call it — began in the summer of 2006, while I was holed up in Rapid City, South Dakota, climbing and avoiding the scorching temps of Salt Lake City (where I studied nursing the rest of the year). One afternoon, my buddy Mike Cronin phoned. A firefighter and developer at an SD area called Spearfish, Mike had spotted limestone walls in the Victoria Canyon, about 10 miles outside Rapid City, while on a call. Maybe it’d be something worth checking out, he said. A few days later, I pedaled to the canyon with my friend Jason McNabb. We stashed our bikes in the weeds, sneaking quietly past private property signs into the mouth of the canyon. The first walls we came to were promising: maybe 60 or 70 feet and not too chossy. Still, we agreed that if we were going to put in the effort to develop an area, it should be as good or better than Spearfish, only an hour away and full of quality face climbs. Mike had seen only the lower end of the canyon, so we trekked on through the dry river bed, fingers crossed. About 10 minutes in, we approached a big bend.

“If there’s a cave around the corner, I’m going to shit my pants,” I said.

“Sure. That’d be cool....” Jason said.

Then, as we rounded the bend it appeared: a 70-foot, overhanging, wave-like wall dotted with pinches and edges and broken occasionally on the right side by miniroofs. The top of the cliff was guarded by a 35-degree, bluestreaked headwall full of pockets. Farther up canyon, the walls turned blocky and Rifle-esque, though with more pockets. It took some time before it dawned on us that we had South Dakota’s steepest crag in our backyard. We left, full of psyche, and I immediately phoned Mike, to report what Jason and I had found. He went to check it out for himself and came back with a report I didn’t expect: he thought the walls were no good! Or more accurately, he thought they’d “take a lot of work” to bolt. He was right about that. Mike was used to the vertical blue limestone of Spearfish, and was looking at Victoria Canyon with those eyes. Coming from the steeps of American Fork, Utah, I saw gold. School was starting back in SLC, so I left South Dakota without sinking a single bolt. With Mike uninspired, the overhangs of the VC lay dormant for a year in my absence.

While in SLC, the VC’s potential pulled at me, shaping my life’s course. After discovering it, I worked to get into a nursing program in Rapid City. The University of South Dakota accepted me in 2007, and I relocated. Upon arrival, I grabbed my Bosch and headed to the VC, with little idea what equipping a limestone sport route entailed. The first line I bolted became The Thin Red Line. What should have taken two days kept me busy for two weeks. It was all sweat and elbow grease, a grueling, lichen-scrubbing fight to stay into the wall.

Anyone who’s done it will tell you: developing a steep sport crag is no cakewalk. I learned my lessons the hard way. In the early days, someone stole our equipment stash (a $200 harness, 50 biners, webbing, cleaning stuff, ropes... about $1,200 worth in all); on a few occasions, I jugged right up to a clipped draw and, with too much tension on the line, was unable to undo the ascender — I’d hang there for hours until I could extract myself from the mess; and one rainy day, saddled with a 50-pound pack of bolting gear, I slipped on the way out of the canyon and gashed open my shin, requiring stitches. But once I got the swing of it, things moved quickly. I’d head down to bolt a couple days a week, solo. I found access from above was easy, so I’d rap in off a tree, drill anchors, pull the rope off the tree, and get to work. I got a comfy harness, and while bolting steeper sections, I placed 1/4-inch bolts on the way down, using them as anchor points from which to clean in every direction. Then I placed bigger bolts and broke off the 1/4 inchers, leaving only a small hole behind.