Thanksgiving Climbing Trip 2010

It was an adventure for sure...maybe not for the climbing so much, although the plan was to climb for three days, but for the back road exploring, which ended up being the trips focus on accident.

We really did plan to go climb for three days in the sun in Southern Arizona! Probably where we went wrong in making sure we got some climbing in was using the excuse of having a new vehicle with clearance to check out some crags we had never had the chance to explore due to the rough 4x4 approaches guarding them. The main crag of focus was The Homestead between Phoenix and Tuscon and then we had some back up crags in The Dry and La Milagrosa Canyon near Tuscon.

First up was The Homestead. I was particularly scared of the approach as it has been known to f-up some trucks and our 4runner being all new and stuff I didn't really want to do any damage. We figured that we would just check it out and if the road got to bad we would turn around and head down to The Dry or La Milagrosa Canyon and write off The Homestead.

I have to admit that I was really psyched to get in there and check it out as I had heard tales of overhanging walls of limestone with tufa features. My favorite climbing and something we have a serious shortage of in the state of Arizona.

Well, the dirt road lived up to it's reputation and if someone wanted to drive a Subaru in there they would destroy it. I don't think one would even make it through the crux section even if the driver was willing to total it... maybe I'm wrong but I'd like to hear about someone who has successfully gotten a Subaru in there!

We did make it in but not without some serious fear and teeth gnashing on my part and throwing it in 4low in the final tricky section of the crux up hill section. Whew.

I'll say one thing...I am now a true believer in 4x4 high clearance vehicles to get through some crazy stuff as I was blown away by just how horrible that road was and how we climbed right through it.

Once we got to the climbing area and I calmed my heart rate we settled into a sweet little camping spot near a corral and called it a night.

The next day we woke to rain and cold weather and wondered if the crazy drive in was even going to be worth it as we weren't sure if we were even going to get to climb.

(looking out the car toward the crag as it rained...)

(Threatening weather before it started raining at our camp at The Homestead)

It did clear though and we were treated to a couple hours of climbing on some warm ups with clearing skies and warming temperatures.

After the warm ups and the temps dropping again we decided to wait on more climbing and explore up canyon to see the famed Finland wall with all the tufa features. To put it mildly, it was a CHORE to get our old dog Shiloh up the canyon and along the cliff bands. In a few sections I had to carry Shiloh in one hand and hold on to a fixed rope in the other as we traversed exposed sections along the Slate Nation wall.

Finally, we got to check out the Finland wall but by then we had pretty much given up on climbing and just wanted to see it.

(Finland Wall)

(Looking back down the canyon (Slate Nation is the wall on the right) toward where we hiked up from the warm up wall)

The Finland Wall did not let me down in it's impressive features (see above photo) and wall size. Man...if this wall wasn't so hard to get to it would be epic! So many good looking lines!! Amazing features everywhere. Too bad we weren't going to come back to this wall...on the hike up to it we discussed how we didn't think we could get Shiloh back in. It was just too sketchy and hard work getting her around. Well...who knows maybe we will find ourselves at this wall again someday...in some other suckers truck and without our dog. We will see.

Check out the video below of us enjoying the most relaxing section of the dirt road. We were in Arizona but it sure felt like Mexico...

Later on the dirt road we got to the crux section. The photo below is me surveying the horror show of a road that was around the corner.

Below are two videos of the crux section (it was split into two distinct cruxes for me with a top crux of tricky steep, slanting, high clearance rubble and the bottom crux of moving around a big boulder that had fallen into the road the night before. Of course the video doesn't do it justice-videos never do...

Crux 1:

Crux 2:

Made it! Relieved...and on to check out The Dry and hopefully getting some more climbing in.

When we got to The Dry it was more 4x4 action but NOTHING compared to The Homestead so we cruised it (although we still had to creep a lot of it due to high clearance sections and rough stuff).

The guide we had said there was good camping at the end of the dirt road where you park to climb but it was not the case. The end of the road was pretty slanted (as seen in the below photo) so we had to backtrack and park a bit back smack dab in the middle of another, less used road. Luckily, we didn't run into any redneck hunters wanting to go down that road in the early morning... all was good.

(The Dry climbing area is the cliff in the right side of photo.)

The hike in to The Dry had some cool desert plants to check out along the way and the grass was super tall and pretty cool to walk through. Neat area.

Once at the cliff, we were bouted again! The base of the crag was super over grown and there was little to no chalk on any of the 50+ routes along the cliff. Weird. The guidebook stated that this was the best sport crag near Tuscon. Didn't look like it was popular at all. In fact, it looked like no one had climbed here in years despite the excellent looking routes.

To add to it, there were bees everywhere and with the danger of Africanized Bees in the area we weren't in the mood to test them. Damn.

With all the weirdness of no one climbing there and the bees everywhere we blew off climbing for the day and with tails between our legs drove back to Tuscon to try our luck at La Milagrosa Canyon for our last day of climbing. Hopefully that would work out...

Two days of attempted climbing and only two pitches to show for it.

Below is a video of how friendly the bees were. This video was taken at our camp, a 20 minute hike from the cliff. Imagine this kind of friendliness times a hundred at the crag.

Below is another little video of the worst section on the road to The Dry. At least we got to have some 4x4 fun along the way.

Leaving The Dry, we ran into two attention starved horses that we hung out with for a while. I got to pet them and give them water. Good times.

At first I thought they were wild horsed but after seeing how comfortable they were around people I figured they must be owned by someone and just left to roam around out in the desert.

A funny or maybe not so funny thing happened right after I took the above photo... Shiloh was in the back seat of our car and I forgot to put up the back window on this side. Well... the horse decided to stick his whole head (yes, whole head) into the car and Shiloh lost it and barked wildly and lunged at the horse. She got a good bite in and made the horses nose bleed. Holy sh-t! Damn dog and poor horse!!! Luckily, the horse didn't seem to phased by the whole ordeal. Poor thing. Hopefully, our love and water offerings leading up to the 'Shiloh incident' helped the horse forget about that mean old dog.

Damn dog!

Once to Tuscon, we found a camp site (super luxury!) in the lowest campground on Mt. Lemmon. Very plush after the weird camping and climbing area exploring we had been doing. It was almost like staying in a hotel for us. No joke.

Even better there was a section of the Arizona Trail that started right next to our site so we were able to get a nice run in to finish the evening.

)

The next day we were treated to some actual climbing! Can you believe it!!!

The climbing at La Milagrosa wasn't the best crag I have ever been to but it was a good time after what we had been through the last few days. Most of the climbing was vertical on small incut granite edges. For sure, a bit chossy but it had some good movement.

I was a bit thrown off by the first routes of the day feeling a bit hard for the grade but once I started to learn the style it all became more reasonable.

The weather was spectacular this day as a bonus so I really enjoyed myself.

Below is a photo of Susan climbing at La Milagrosa Canyon on the first route of the day (yes, this is our only climbing photo-lame). I thought this route was super sandbag for a 5. 10 and got pretty pumped on it! Good stuff though.

(Looking back at Tuscon from La Milagrosa Canyon)

All in all a good trip. We had some epic 'no climbing' but we did get to test out our new 4runner and not wreck it and play in the sun so there ya go. Road trips are always an adventure!