Sespe Gorge

The epic Ending Crack in all of its glory	The left side of Sespe Gorge down river. Some climbs start on that cable platform.
Some crazy looking pockets by the cable platform.	For a sense of perspective, here's a shot of Ending Crack taken from the road with the Tree Root on the right. Can you spot Mohit? Or better yet, can you spot the anchor??
The right side of Sespe Gorge, taken from two pics patched together.	There upon the rainbow, is an answer to a Neverending Crack! (think of Limahl and the 80's)

Sespe Gorge is the premiere multi-pitch crack climbing destination in the central coast and is about 20 miles north of Ojai on the 33 (about 15-20 minutes past Wheeler Gorge). Pretty much all the routes are moderate trad climbs that are 2-3 pitches long and follow tapering cracks in the sandstone rock (therefore, it eats up passive gear placements like crazy). Being close to 4000 ft. in elevation, this spot is perfect in the late spring through early fall. If you go any other times you might have to wade through a cold river or step through patches of snow! But when it's dry enough, there will be some patches of river bed at the base of the climbs and you'll be able to easily get across the river by hopping across some rocks.

Approach	5 min down a short hill and across the river
Poison Oak	Low
Sun Exposure	Shady in the afternoon

Climbs I've Done:

Tree Root (5.5 ***) Trad - A nice long route that follows a splitter crack up to a tree sticking out of the rock. I just decided to lead the first pitch and stop at the tree to setup a top rope at the two bolts. I highly recommend this route for anyone learning trad because it offers many great gear placements.

Ending Crack (5.7 ***) Trad - The long prominent crack just to the left of the Tree Root. If you stand on the base and look up, it really does look like a crack that goes on forever. Last time I lead this with Steph, I found some bolts around the 60 foot range and used them to setup a low top rope anchor. Since then they have been removed because there's already two bolts marking the top of the first pitch around 100 feet. However, I had no idea where these bolts were when I started climbing the route and figured I'd just climb until I hit the middle of my rope. Well, I did end up hitting the middle of my rope as I was climbing and when I did I finally noticed the two bolts marking the top of the first pitch another 15-20 feet higher! Therefore, I decided to setup a temporary natural anchor and then come down since I wouldn't have enough rope to make it down had I kept going to the bolts. Once I got down to the ground, I tied a second rope to me and ran back up, leading the rest of the route to the bolts and then created a toprope anchor and tied the two ropes together so I could make it down. This was by far the longest route I'd ever climbed before in a single pitch and it was definitely worth it!


	Steph poses by the base of Ending Crack. It was a little more wet than usual because we were there in the spring.		What's this? Steph climbing Ending Crack? I hear she doesn't climb anymore...
	Here I am climbing with Steph on our first trip to Sespe		I begin the great Tree Root climb
	Ahh, it's nice knowing you have your first piece in		About 1/10 of the way there!
	Almost to the top of pitch 1 (where the tree is)		Ed attempts Tree Root
	Struggling at the first piece of pro!		Moriah finds a nice rock up river to read and relax
	A shot of Mike climbing Tree Root, taken from a further back perspective across the river		Mike continues up Tree Root as Moriah reads her book peacefully while waiting
	Mike battling his way up the Tree Root. The climbing isn't hard, it's just long!		I decide to come down at my temporary anchor because I was just about to hit the center of my rope.
	The photographer becomes the photographed!		Mohit on the epic Ending Crack. The bolts were so high I couldn't even see them from the ground.
	Another shot of Mohit about half way up Ending Crack. Tree Root can be seen on the right.		Here's the top half of Ending Crack. Mohit is about 40 feet from the anchor.