Rainbow Buttress 5.8+, Eagle Wall

Climbed on December 6, 2025

Fun Rating: Really quite fun

It’s been mentioned on the blog before, and I talk about it often enough at work that it’s a running joke, but I’m originally from Chicago. For those of you who aren’t aware, Chicago is one of the great cities of the world. There’s so much to do, so much diversity, so much amazing food, incredible architecture, and accessible public transit. What it doesn’t have, however, is rock nearby. The closest climbing area to the city would be either Necedah/Governor Dodge or Devil’s Lake, and depending on traffic and what route you take you’re looking at around 3.5 hours of driving each way. Next closest meaningful climbing is Jackson Falls down in southern Illinois, fantastic climbing but a solid 5-6 hours each way. Past that, you’re looking at a 7 hour (if you’re lucky) drive down to the Red River Gorge. Considering I can make it to world class climbing in under 30 minutes from my house, you can see why Vegas had and has so much allure to me. 

The thing about living in a large city without nearby crags is the gym scene is pretty lively. I met a ton of great climbers and great people (and my wife) in the gyms in Chicago. We get these folks coming out to visit and climb in Vegas, many of them having moved elsewhere to seek climbing themselves. One thing that Vegas is notorious for in my group of friends that have climbed here and other places is the length and difficulty of the approaches. Having climbed in a lot of places myself I can’t disagree with them. I remember thinking that the stairs at Muir Valley were tough, I remember feeling like some of the descents into the Falls were sketchy (when they’re wet they absolutely are,) I remember thinking that the walks out to the Holies with a pad on your back were tough. Man, how times have changed. To be fair, there are absolutely some crags with very friendly approaches in Red Rock: Circus wall is right there with Dog and Fixx right above it, the Rift is close, Ragged Edges and Willow South are a short hike. These are, for the most part, exceptions to the rule. 45 minutes one way is often considered short and easy for many multipitch walls in the canyon, and anything under 2 is something to be scoffed at.

Zak in the wash before our epic quest to the base.

One of my favorite things to riff on, when discussing climbing, is how climbing itself isn’t really a sport that will get you in great shape. It’ll give you some banging forearms and a broad back, but unless you’re going out of your way you’re not going to get a six pack just from a little sport or bouldering. What WILL get you fit, is hiking to the wall, at least in RRC. Double rack and a rope on your back, plus a summer’s amount of water, over 2-3 miles will absolutely develop some core strength. Then you gotta do it all again at the end of the day after some hard climbing and a long walkoff or raps. Hard work is definitely the price of playing the game here, and it’s a worthy price to pay for the reward of the incredibly stellar desert climbing here at the end of the day.

Now, why have I dithered for three paragraphs about long approaches, you ask? Well, we’re here today to talk about Rainbow Buttress, a 5.8+ Herbst route up on Eagle Wall in Oak Creek Canyon. 8 pitches of solid, varied climbing that sit about as far back and as high in that canyon as you can go before you top out on something. Just getting to the base of the upward portion of the approach is a shlep, and then you have what feels like a mile of walking up the painted bowl to get to the base of the route. We chose to solo the upper fourth/lower fifth class slabs directly up to it, but another party that was heading to Levitation walked further back and up the lower angle ramps. We beat them to the wall by a good amount of time, but I imagine they had a much easier go of it to get there.

Zak entering the second pitch crux.

If I had been more prompt in getting this post written I would probably remember more of the climb. Suffice to say that I distinctly remember the memorable bits and don’t remember the ones that weren’t…that. The first pitch is forgettable 5.6, so I don’t really remember leading it. The second pitch, and Zak’s first lead of the day, I do remember. A really unique and interesting a-shaped stem corner leads through some tricky moves up to a ledge below a rather intimidating looking squeeze chimney/wide crack. Unsurprisingly, this was my lead. I remember being minimally challenged and having a lovely time as I led this pitch. Very few true offwidth moves, but a couple sections where being comfortable with wide technique made progress less challenging than face climbing around the crack would have been. 

After that it all blurs together. A few more pitches of moderate but burly climbing led us to a ledge equal with the top anchors of the route Mountain Beast. I believe there are a couple easy pitches above this that take you to the top of the formation, but Zak and I were very ready to rap at this point and we made our way down without any issue. Once more at the base of Eagle Wall, we gathered our gear, ogled at the folks on Levitation 29, and began the long downhill trudge back to the wash. 

Our hike went by quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Toes complaining at the end of a long day of being stuffed into climbing shoes complained even more at being smushed against the front of my approachies as we silly-walked our way down the slabs. After a relatively short while that felt relatively long, we were back in the wash and started to make our way down the trail towards the cars.

Me starting the 3rd pitch.

Me a little way up the third pitch in my happy place.

It was then that our day got a little weird. As we were hiking out, we heard a voice call out faintly and unintelligibly near by. I was under the impression that it was the echoes of someone calling “rope” as they rapelled, given the strange bounces that the acoustics in the canyon can create with all the interesting geometry of the walls. After the third or fourth time, however, we both stopped and I remember us looking at each other for a moment in silence before one of us asked, “was that someone saying ‘help’?” After a moment’s wait and another shout, it turned out that yes it was in fact someone shouting ‘help.’ 

I called back and a relieved voice responded after a heartbeat saying that they’d gotten lost and they didn’t know how to get out. It sounded like the person was a ways back up the trail and off on the left side of the canyon, so I told Zak to wait and I scrambled back up some large boulders to a clearing to wait. After a couple minutes and some guided shouting, an older gentleman with an empty water bottle and a Harley-Davidson shirt made his way out of a thick patch of scrub oak with a somewhat sheepish look on his face. He greeted me and explained that he’d lost his bearings and the trail earlier and had been wandering in circles for the last couple hours. He’d run out of water and was starting to really get nervous before we’d passed by and eventually stopped. 

We shared our remaining water with him (he looked like he needed it more than us, and I always have some reserve water in the car) and hiked with him until the trail split, as he was parked on the main road. We made sure he knew where he was going from there and wished him luck on his way before we turned left towards the Oak Creek lot. It wasn’t long before we were back at our cars sharing a drink before heading out again, laughing about lost hikers and the day we’d had. I remember saying that, while the mountain project page for Rainbow Buttress says that the location and aspect of the climb make for a fairly adventurous day, that it felt pretty mild compared to some of the JHAT routes we’d done. Certainly no Echolalia or La Muerte, that’s for sure. That said, everyone’s adventures are different and had we not run across that hiker we may have ended up reading about a SAR rescue later that evening.

Kind of a weird one, but it was kind of a weird climb and day so I think it matches well. I don’t know that I would recommend RB to anyone in good conscience without being very sure that they were looking for an adventure day where the hiking takes longer than the climbing. I did enjoy it, but there’s a lot of stuff I’d go do before this one if I had to choose. Couple good pitches, heinous approach, and some great views. Sounds like a JHAT route to me.

STOKE HIGH at the end of the day!