Court Echelle

A short trip downstream from the main Carderock cliffs gets you to Easter Egg Rocks, where there is a small collection of quality routes. Very few people ever climb here, and the base can be brushy (and very sandy), but it is worth it for the solitude and the fun. Even though there is not much climbing activity here nowadays, the rock is not terribly licheny on the routes (definitely some of that, though), and the clean rock tends to be a little stickier than the notoriously well-polished faces at Carderock.

Pull the overhang wherever you want and then continue up the face; the overhang is the crux. The guidebook says the overhang is hardest at its right end, and after pulling it in three different places, I agree. The left corner of the overhang feels like 5.7 and the notch to the right of it 5.8. There is an interesting-looking spot right in the middle, but it is unfortunately so brushy as to make trying climbing it unappealing.

Walk past the now-closed restrooms. When you have to decide whether to go left or right on the Billy Goat Trail, go left. Hike past the clifftops on your right (the Hades Heights section of Carderock). In two or three minutes, the trail passes right by another clifftop area. This is the top of Easter Egg Rocks. Just before it is a drainage. To reach the base, go down that drainage and then bear left across rock outcrops (don't go all the way to the river first).

It should take no more than ten minutes to get from your car to the crag. Actually, I have made the trip in under five minutes.

Trees up top for anchors.