Grand Ledge — Rock climbing has exploded in popularity in recent years. Indoor climbing gyms and rock faces are packed with eager climbers, lured to the sport through popular short-form videos, and the recent feats of legendary climbers like Alex Honnold.
Michigan is no exception, but surprisingly, there’s only one real place to scale rock in the Lower Peninsula—the sandstone cliffs of Grand Ledge.
Down an unassuming, well-worn trail in Grand Ledge’s Oak Park are a series of picturesque 60-foot tall sandstone cliffs. The light-tan stone glistens in the sunlight, with climbing holds well worn over millions of years of erosion.
Almost porous, intricate grooves and holes dot the rock faces all the way up the cliffs, as if they were made to be climbed. Which they have been, for nearly 200 years, from people scrambling over the rocks in the 1800s to more organized climbing today. Dozens of names are etched into the cliffs as testament, and after an active climbing day, the routes are well-stained with chalk along all the best holds.
There’s a mix of top-roping, lead-climbing, and bouldering routes. Top-roping, where you loop a rope around a carabiner at the top and attach it to your harness, with someone belaying you below. Lead climbing, where you hook your own rope into carabiners along the route for safety. And bouldering, where you scale complex “problems” on lower-height rocks with pads below you for safety.
Grand Ledge is known mostly for top-roping, but bouldering is increasingly popular, not just there, but among climbers generally. Climbers start from the very bottom, often on negative degree rock faces, twisting and contorting their bodies to solve the “boulder problems” and make their way to the top.
It’s the simplest way to climb, but also the most complex. There’s relatively minimal risk and encumbrance, but it demands a high degree of skill. The relatively short height but intricate and difficult routes in Grand Ledge are well suited for it.
On a recent, unseasonably warm 60-degree February day, a few climbers had set up shop to test their mettle against the rock. They brought their own padded mats for bouldering, chalk, climbing shoes, water bottles, and tripods for their phones to record their climbs.
It was every bit the dirtbag climber vibe, though I didn’t see anyone living out of a van. I wouldn’t be surprised if you start seeing that in Grand Ledge soon, though—a slew of Michigan’s climbing bums living out of vans, scaling rock all summer.
Don’t let the relatively smaller scale and lower height of the Grand Ledge rock faces fool you. The climbing is difficult, especially along some of the more popular bouldering routes.
I watched one climber, wiry with an air of experience about him, struggle and fail over and over to ascend one bouldering route, a V7 according to him.
Climbing routes are graded along a standardized methodology by the rock climbing community. A V7 is considered a highly advanced bouldering problem, achievable by only very skilled climbers. Most amateurs never reach the skill level required to climb a V7 bouldering route.
The highest grade that’s been climbed at Grand Ledge is a V10 called D-Bag, first ascended by Dylan Barks in 2012. There’s another boulder problem, a V11+ called The Great Roof, that’s been attempted since the early 1980s, without ever being successfully climbed.
The top-roping and lead-climbing routes are difficult as well. Graded on a different scale than bouldering problems, the rope routes at Grand Ledge range from the 5.7 Potato Chips, known as a warmup climb, to the 5.13b Reflections, a genuinely elite route inaccessible for all but the most skilled climbers.
For context, a 5.13b route is an insane find in the Midwest. You really don’t see routes like that in many popular climbing spots out West, let alone in a small town in the middle of Michigan.
As such, Grand Ledge isn’t just a popular Michigan climbing spot, the climbers told me—it’s the only climbing spot. At least, the only one worth climbing in the Lower Peninsula. The only other options, according to them, require a 7-hour drive up to the U.P.
Serious climbers don’t flinch at a road trip, but for the dedicated rock climbers of the Lower Peninsula, Grand Ledge is the closest thing they have to Yosemite. It may not be thousands of feet tall, but the rock is legit, with a few truly difficult routes that even pro climbers would struggle with.
Even more than that, it’s a truly beautiful place. You might fail to reach the summit, you might slip on your bouldering problem over and over, but at least you spent your day in a nice place along the river while you did it.
Climbing is often seen as man overcoming nature, but really, it’s more of a conversation with the rock. An interaction with the ancient stones, an engagement with a more present state of being. Grand Ledge has this like any other big climbing spot, and it’s the only place in Michigan you’ll find it south of the Mackinac Bridge.
Bobby Mars is art director of Michigan Enjoyer. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.
