A few days earlier, Caldwell had shown me the first route bolted at the cliff, equipped in July 1998. “I pretty much set aside three months of my life and decided that I was going to do it,” he said of the route — Kryptonite (5.14c/d) — a thirty-meter line up the gold-and-white-streaked central cave that ends halfway up the wall.
“We totally blew it, too,” he continued, gesturing to the cave. “We thought it was going to be like 5.12s in here, and that the harder routes were going to be over there.” He points farther right, to a towering white wall that remains untouched. The wall looks like it could hold another dozen routes. To the trained eye, however, it holds perhaps one line, a future 5.15.
Caldwell, at twenty-five, is without question the country’s top all-around climber, having established some of the country’s hardest sport routes, as well as countless trad 5.13s from Colorado to Yosemite. He is a climber who knows the meaning of dedication. After severing his left index finger in a home-improvement accident in November 2001, he battled back, recently completing what is probably the hardest roped pitch on this continent, Flex Luthor (unconfirmed at 5.15a) at the Fortress. He spent four months straight working on the climb and living at the cliff.
Climbing on Flex Luthor, Tommy swings from side to side. Like a kid on a swing he gives a kick to gain momentum, stabs a foot high and right, and pulls up into the next kneebar. The route climbs a prominent right-leaning crack feature, the obvious weakness on the central wall. From a distance it appears readily climbable. On closer inspection, the line’s size and steepness become more apparent, and once on the climb the meager grips make their presence — and absence — known. Although it does have a mandatory ring lock, the route is anything but a crack climb. Just holding onto the holds appears heinous. As with all of the climbs at the Fortress, everything is smaller and more sloping than it looks. From kneebar to kneebar, Tommy slugs up the steep, blocky roofs, each movement intricately calculated after weeks of rehearsal.
Routes such as Flex and Kryptonite have established an ethical standard that contrasts starkly with the more “industrial” tactics applied at areas such as American Fork and Rifle. “I don’t glue or drill anything here,” says Caldwell, “and it just kind of proves that it doesn’t really need to be done.”
Not everyone has been appreciative of this effort, however, including one of the world’s greats, François Legrand of France, who visited the Fortress with Yuji Hirayama in 2001 and generated the crag’s only real controversy.
Legrand and Hirayama’s audacious bid to climb all the hardest sport routes in the States was an epic-filled adventure, which eventually sent both men home with their tails between their legs, but it was their time at the Fortress that they surely will remember most. Shortly after the superstars left the States, Adam Stack jumped on Kryptonite and found a new hold — a two-finger pocket that Caldwell had never seen nor used on the first ascent — on the lower part of the route.
Stack made his discovery known and soon the controversy spilled onto Internet message boards. Climbers began accusing Legrand of drilling the hold in question. “I told it how it was, but I think it got blown out of proportion,” says Stack, who says he also got an earful from Legrand. “I think he said, ‘How can someone who has done so little criticize someone who has done so much?’”
Legrand denies chipping any holds on the route, but does say that the pair had to do a fair amount of cleaning. What that “cleaning” actually entailed remains unclear, but the incident has helped advertise the Fortress as a chisel-free zone.

I feel like I’m on an El Cap route. My belayer, Beth Rodden, becomes a little speck below as I chalk and try to shake the pump from my arms. Even on the less overhung Metropolis, one of the Fortress’s easier routes at 5.12c, the climbing is technical and sustained. I jerk my leg awkwardly in hopes of finding a subtle kneebar — often the key to success on the crag’s harder and steeper routes. The holds are never good enough to allow me a full recovery, and after eighty feet of climbing, with fifty more left, I am feeling far from fresh.
Beth shouts up encouraging words, but I’m not sure how to take them since she regularly warms up on this climb. She basically lived at the Fortress most of October, November, December, and January, while Tommy worked on Flex. “I was a dedicated belayer,” Beth says of her contribution, adding, “He had to do that thing — I put in too much effort!” Clipping the anchors and lowering forty meters back to the ground, I smile and appreciate how good it feels to have a motivated belayer watching the sharp end.
Having an adventure at the Fortress doesn’t mean having to climb 5.14, as I found out earlier when I warmed up on the 5.10c Lois Lame (in case you haven’t noticed, Fortress route names follow a Superman theme). Western Colorado locals Matt Samet and Dave Pegg have recently added this and other moderate routes, hoping to make the crag a bit more welcoming. Living in Elk Creek within sight of the crag and less than 100 yards from the trailhead, Pegg is the only true Fortress “local,” and often takes exploratory hikes along the ridges and flanks of the area. This past year, Pegg was the first to capitalize on the potential of the outer reaches of the Fortress, establishing close to a half dozen lines under 5.13. Pegg lured Samet away from Rifle to check out the new climbs, and Samet soon added a few routes of his own. “I think it’s fair to say that this crag is the cliff of the future,” he says.
Much of the rock is excellent, but climbing through occasional questionable sections is part of the Fortress experience. This seems consistent with the spirit of the area. To climb well at the Fortress you need to enjoy the whole process. You must be ready to embrace the approach hike as a project of its own; work your project for days, weeks, or months; deal with chossy sections of cliff; and be ready for serious solitude. Climbing at the Fortress is a departure from the narcissistic quest for numerical gratification found at your typical sport crag. “It takes a lot of motivation to be here,” says Stack, “but to be here with close friends in this beautiful setting is incredible.”