I made the drive out to Mt. Lemmon to meet my dear friend Ace and his
lady Vernadette -- proprieters of Vernace' Wines ;-). Enjoyed a weekend
of great climbing, great friends, and even some fun solo alpine
activities too!
Climbs:
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| Hitchcock Pinnacle |
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| Ice in southern Arizona?! It does exist! |
Keep reading for more!...
Our first order of business: a few laps on this top rope wall right next to the road at Windy Point. Vern made great work of her first time on rock. I gave her a shadow-high-five for good luck! :-D
Climbing in the Catalinas is great! Every climb is minimal on approach, and they're all perched above cliffs overlooking expansive valleys!
It was her first time in rock shoes and harness! And she did awesome :-D Send it, send it!
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| Ace showed us how the mantling was done! |
At the right, the infamous Beaver wall that Ace and I would later drop in on, without any beta.
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| The Windy Point Practice Wall |
With the sunlight dwindling, we decided to venture out to the fins in the western Windy Point area to scope climbs for the next day. We wandered through the droves of tourists to the southwestern edge of the southern fin and found some bolts. Now mind you we didn't do our homework -- not knowing what we were getting in on, I rigged an autoblocking belay anchor with my guide-belay ATC and lowered Ace over the edge until he was comfortable with climbing out. I later found out we were dropping into the upper reaches of the
Beaver Wall, the hardest wall on Mt. Lemmon. Oops. I think we dropped into the upper portion of the Golden Beaver route (5.12+). Ace had a lil' difficulty getting back up with each of the min-roofs he had to mantle. We worked it out so that I could help pull him in with each surging move upward.
Before too long, Ace made it back to the top! Next was my turn. I was lowered down in the bowels of the unknown, already fearing Ace's fun time just a few minutes prior. I meticulously heel-hooked and finger-locked as many small cracks I could get my aching fingers into. I tried not to spend too much time thinking each move through and just powered my way through. My line up the upper portion was definitely not 5.12, but it was still pretty tricky -- I'd say around 5.10a. It was nice to have the top-rope there for mental security. Once we were up top, we enjoyed the views, soaked in the sunset and planned our next day. To the east, we both noticed the prominent pinnacle jutting out from the overlook. There were two people rapping down.
We called it a day and drove down the mountain to Prison Camp to set up our accomodations for the night. Ace cooked up some epic steaks and the three of us ate, drank, and were merry around the campfire.
The next day, we packed up and headed out to Windy Point again to start the day off right on the Hitchcock Pinnacle. We scoped each of the routes and decided to play it safe with the first climb of the day. I led the popular 5.7 route...
After a few exposed face moves on the traverse, I clipped the upper bolt and cruised the rest of the way. I should have stretched and warmed up first, my leg was doing that jimmy-leg thing bouncing up and down as I put my weight over it -- Extra sketch factor! I rigged a autoblocking belay up top and belayed Ace up the route...
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| We made it! Myself and Ace on top of the Hitchcock Pinnacle with Tucson in the background. |
My lil' two-point anchor off the bolts made of fig-8 bites of the rope -- super bommer! Ace rapped back down and I soaked up some opportunities to make faces at the locals driving up the mountain below me, hehe...
LEFT: My tourist pose atop the most densely populated area of Mt. Lemmon.
RIGHT: There's
the Beaver Wall to the right of my face where we dropped in the day
prior without knowing what we'd be climbing, haha... Luckily we didn't
need to ascend the ropes to get out.
We got a few waves from people driving below us. Hooray tourists! Boo to the hooligans that launch beer bottles off the overlook down into the climbing routes. For shame. The practice wall we dropped into yesterday is immediately below the railing there.
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| Ace
rapping down from our top rope on Agatha Christie (direct) on the North
Fin... a 5.8 that was riddled with awesome dihedrals and finger cracks
for great liebacks.. I wish I would've led this! Next time. |
Midway up the Christie looking out west. Definitely a great climb. Great views out beyond the fin. At right, the route itself: a maze of blocky diheadrals. Great smearing all 90 feet up. This one is long!
These crazy awesome people strung up a slackline across the North and South Fins. Talk about ballsy! There's at least 75' of traverse. This guy Neil (pictured here) that we met and climbed with for a bit had a crack at it even. There's another set of climbers leading the Old Man route (5.9) down below them.
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| Those fellas had way larger cajones than Ace or me. |
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