“It makes the Poser's Lounge look like a warm up area.”  

That was Jason Nelson’s response to a recent question about a new area he and Marc Beverly developed in Ouray, Colorado, called the Hall of Justice.  The cave, located near the Skylight area on Camp Bird Road, is one of North America’s hardest dry-tooling areas.

The Hall of Justice currently has four 30-meter climbs completed in the M11 to M12+ range.  The lack of ice in the cave has led to the use of drytooling grades, not mixed grades, because it isn’t really mixed.  Jason was able to spend the previous couple of weeks with an assortment of other hardmen/women ticking off some more routes in the cave.  Magneto Effect D11, Pull the Trigger D12 and the Pull the Trigger Extension D12+ were added to the previously climbed Zero to Hero D12 and Holy Girl Pile Batman D12.  

It would be difficult to find a concentration of harder climbs. The Cineplex along the Icefields Parkway in Alberta, Canada, comes to mind, but other than that there isn’t really anything that compares. Especially within such a short drive and easy approach from Ouray.

A first hand account Nelson’s work on the routes and redpoints can be found on his website:  
http://visualadventures.com/climbing/let-the-dry-tooling-games-begin

[Jason Nelson cranks Pull the Trigger at the Hall of Justice. Photo by Tim Banfield.]