Diarrhea Mouth

With the exception of a few routes, Skull Cave has been mostly overlooked as most of the routes are old, rusty, and covered in spiderwebs. Now, the cave hosts one of Rifle’s best and perhaps most difficult line.

D Mouth begins by climbing

Cracked Open Sky

(13d) to a sweet, kneebar rest in the hole. Branch left from that route into unclimbed territory, and execute an amazing and difficult, power endurance crux sequence on pockets and heel hooks on very steep, beautiful rock to a flat jug at the lip of the cave. Rest up, and climb an endurance based traverse across the top of the massive cave to a 5.12a finish on blocky sidepulls. Essentially the route breaks down into 3 parts - powerful 13+ to V12 to pumpy 13+.

This is an incredibly inspiring line and a unique route for RMP, as most of the climbing is steeper than 80° and the holds are almost all pockets, similar to some steep limestone in Margalef, Spain.

Start on

Cracked Open Sky

, then at the kneebar branch left, and climb essentially to the other end of the cave.

Approximately 15 bolts and a left kneepad.