Horse Pens 40 - Crag Beta

Too wet to climb but pretty to look at.

Location:

Horse Pens 40 is located on a private land near Steele Alabama. When you are traveling on highway 59 you will see signs for Horse Pens 40 and once you get off the highway there should be big signs that point you towards HP40. These signs maybe hard to see at night.

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Access:

The climbing area is only accessible by paying a $5 day use fee. The problems are highly concentrated and the approach is very easy. If it's not too cold you should not have problem navigating the terrain with flip flops.

  

Guide Books:

The guide book you want is the same book as I mentioned for Moss Rock Preserve. The new guide book for HP40, Moss Rock Preserve and Palisades Park is published by Greener Grass Publishing [link] The book should cost $24.95 and is available online from the publisher and locally from the First Ave Rocks Gym in Birmingham [link] or local Mountain High Outfitters. I have been told that the book will most likely be available for purchase at the general store in HP40 in the near future. This book has many maps and color photos to help you locate the problems.

The book was not available for purchase while I was at HP40 so I used the Dr. Topo guide. The Dr. Topo guide is fairly comprehensive and should help you find almost all of the more famous climbs. I would still recommend you purchase the Greener Grass guide book but if you are on a very tight budget the Dr. Topo guide should be more then good enough to get you going. If you need help locating the Dr. Topo guide please send me an e-mail and I'll try to help you find it.

Where To Stay:

If you look carefully you can see my tent.

HP40 has a campground where you can camp almost right at the rocks. The camping cost $10 but that includes the $5 daily climbing pass. The campground has a small general store, shower stalls, bathrooms with running waters, porta-potties with hand washing stations. The showers had piping hot water and the bathroom even has a heater. There is even a small general store where you can get snacks, camping gear, non-alcoholic drinks, climbing chalk, and even eggs and sausages. Although the store has a lot of things I still recommend you hit up a grocery store before heading up. There is a small cafe that is open when there are a lot of campers.

Food:
If you get tired of cooking there is a small cafe at HP40 that only operates when there are a lot of people camping overnight. If you don't mind driving down a bit there are handful of restaurants in Ashville. I recommend the Mexican restaurant called Mi Casita in Ashville next to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and order the dinner special if you are hungry and don't mind eating unhealthy for a night.

HP40 Cafe

Wi-Fi:
The closest place to get internet access is the Subway. But test the internet before you buy something and settle in. Apparently the internet is often not working. I heard that the Jack in the Box has internet too but I heard that they will hassle you to keep buying food to continue using the internet. If you are taking a full on rest day I recommend you head over to Birmingham and hit up Lucy's Cafe.

Etc:

Laundry: There is a coin laundry facility located next to the subway .

Pets: The policy at the time of my visit was no dogs allowed in the campground and climbing areas.