From: billw@ace.mentorg.com (Bill Wright)
Subject: Trip Report: Whirlwind Tour of Arizona
Originator: billw@ace
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1992 00:07:03 GMT
Organization: Mentor Graphics 
Keywords: 
Followup-To: 


Why I Post

In the past we have debated the relative merits of posting trip reports and 
speculated on the motivations behind posting such accounts. I have tried to
articulate why I personally post my adventures: to share my adventures and joy
of climbing with others, to provide information on climbs I have done, to ask
others' opinions on particular routes, etc.  But by far the most rewarding
reason why I post my adventures is to meet other climbers and make new friends.
This trip report and one to follow shortly demonstrate how successful this 
strategy has been for me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

My First Climbing Trip to Arizona:

Early this year Tim Schneider posted a trip report on climbing the incredibly
classic Mace near Sedona, Arizona and I was very intrigued.  I saved the report
and planned on using it for some as yet unplanned trip to Arizona.  Then later I
posted asking whether I should continue posting my trip reports.  One of the
responses I received was from Greg Opland who received this post via Tim
Schneider, his climbing partner.  Greg said that he enjoyed my writeups and that
he would love to be my partner someday.  This just from reading my posts.  We
started to correspond and found that we shared a lot of the same desires about
climbing and vowed to climb together sometime.

Eventually I made plans to travel down to Phoenix and climb the Mace with Greg
and Tim, but before I arrived down there I had talked them into coming up here
and climbing Sentinel Rock with me (this is recounted in an early post.)  Two
weeks after our successful ascent of Sentinel Rock I arrived down in Phoenix for
a whirlwind tour of the area.

Greg met me at the airport and immediately took me to the Phoenix Rock Gym where
I met a number of his partners and toured the facility.  This place has
tremendous potential for growth!  The plans for this gym are quite ambitious.

The next morning we were up early and heading out toward Prescott to climb at
Granite Mountain with Tim.  We arrived there a bit late due to the friendly
Highway Patrol that pulled us over.  The conversation with the officer went like
this:

	"Can I see your license, registration and proof of insurance?"
	"Sure," says Greg fumbling in the glove compartment for the documents.
	"Here's the registration"
	"This is for Kansas.  Do you have one for Arizona?"
	"Yes.  Somewhere...  Here it is"
	"This has expired."
	"Oh yeah.  I sent in my money but they haven't sent the new one to me yet."
	"Here is the insurance card"
	"This has expired also."
	"It has?  They didn't send me a new card.  My insurance is current 
	though, officer."
	"Here's my license."
	"This has expired also."
	....

How hilarious!  He has only lived in Arizona for three years!  What a sodbuster!
I could hardly keep from laughing while all this was going on.  The officer was
talking with Greg from the passenger window so I was between the two of them and,
struggling not to laugh at either of them, mainly kept my head bowed and bit my lip.
Actually, Greg is a pretty organized guy in general.  In fact, so organized I
might call him anal but he wouldn't like that.

So we arrived late and Tim wasn't there.  We waited around for another half an hour,
but Tim was back in Phoenix struggling to replace his water pump.  So we loaded
up the packs and approached the cliff.  I should say something about the Arizona
view of approaches here.  Both Tim and Greg mentioned to me how difficult and
strenuous the approach to Granite Mountain was and both agreed that the approach
to the Chouinard/Herbert route on Sentinel wasn't very bad.  Here are the stats
in my mind:

     approach     elevation gain  time       technical?
     ------------------------------------------------------------
     Granite      ~500 feet       1 hour      no
     Sentinel     ~1500 feet      4 hours     yes

Now call me crazy, but I felt the Sentinel approach was more grueling in every
category you can imagine.  Not even considering the fact that when I approached
Granite mountain I wore a daypack and when I approached Sentinel I wore a 60
pound haulbag.  These Arizona boys are strange with a capital 'S'!  But awfully
nice guys and great partners despite their distorted views.

Our first route was something called Classic.  People who know me will
understand why I couldn't resist this route.  It is four pitches long and rated
5.7, but we did a variation on the second pitch that was 5.9.  Since Greg had
been up this route before he graciously let me lead all the pitches.  I found
the rock to be very solid granite that could be quite slick in spots.  I
definitely wasn't completely comfortable with it when I did the High Exposure
final pitch of the climb.  This involves a 5.6 traverse (seemed harder, but
probably due to not being comfortable with the rock texture yet) on smooth, rounded
face holds across an exposed face.

The next route we did was called Magnolia Thunder Pussy.  Very interesting name.
We speculated on what it might mean and agreed that if this was named after a
woman then we want to meet her.  Anyone know the origins of this name?  The
route was originally rated 5.8+, but is now rated more correctly at 5.9.  It is
an absolutely outstanding climb with three very interesting and unique pitches.

The ugliest part of this climb is the approach.  There isn't a clear trail up to
the base of the route and you have to do a bit of unpleasant bushwhacking
through nasty desert plants to get to the base.  Greg and I had been dickering
over who was going to get the crux first lead.  I didn't have a leg to stand on
since I had led all the other pitches and it was his area so I relented.  Much
to my surprise he gave me the lead anyway!  Why?  As he describes it: "Because
I'm (Greg) a hell of a nice guy!"

The first pitch starts up a very steep handcrack in a small left facing dihedral.
To the left is another small right facing dihedral and eventually the two
corners get close enough together to allow some neat stemming.  Before that
happens you encounter 5.9 crack climbing.  Eighty feet up the route is capped by
a small two foot roof that is split by the right hand crack.  I went up and put
in a piece and came back down to rest my forearms.  The second time up things
were easier on my arms as I worked my feet more effectively.  Greg followed
without much trouble and cleaned a couple of booty biners from the route.

The next pitch is up a broken area and isn't a very aesthetic pitch but isn't
unpleasant.  Greg led up this for about 50 feet and set up a belay.  When I came
up I asked him, "Why did you stop here?"  He didn't really have a good answer.
Probably something to do with living in Arizona.  I led up the second half of
the pitch to the belay and found a couple more booty biners.

The third pitch is extremely unusual.  It is rated 5.7 and is correctly rated,
but the climbing is extremely strange.  The meat of the pitch is turning a big
roof that caps a chimney.  You chimney straight out to the lip of the roof and
pull over it.  Neat!

The final pitch climbs up a 5.5 chimney that is buried 30 feet deep into the
cliff.  Greg led this pitch and had to remove the rack in order to fit through
the tiny exit slot at the top.  As I followed the pitch I was thankful to be
inside the cool, shaded chimney as the sun was drying us out.  We hiked back
down to our packs and drank heartily before packing up and hiking out.  We
headed to Sedona for dinner.

We ended up sleeping right in the parking lot for the Cathedral Spires of which
the Mace is one.  The next morning found us organizing our gear as Al, a
climbing friend of Greg's, drove up.  We were going to have five on the climb
today: Greg and myself, Al, Tim, and Scott.  Tim was riding up with Scott as his
truck wasn't running yet.

In the morning the Mace was clearly visible from the parking lot and I started
to get excited just looking at it.  This is a sweeping red spire that is much
smaller at its base than at the summit.  Most of our route actually climbs the
structure right next to the Mace and then we "fall" over to the Mace for the
last pitch.  I won't go into a detailed description of this climb since it
was posted previously, but just give a couple impressions.

The approach hike to the Mace is one of the most enjoyable I have ever done.  It
only takes about half an hour and it follows a very clean wash right up to the
Mace.  There is no bushwhacking and most of the hiking is on smooth, beautiful
sandstone interspersed with an occasional staircase of rock steps.  Our strategy
on the climb was for Greg and I to swing leads and everyone else to follow us.
This isn't the most efficient way to climb it, but no one else wanted to lead.

I got the first lead and it is very runout up a large chimney to a steep
limestone headwall/overhang band that is ten feet tall.  The pitch is rated 5.7,
but is probably a bit harder.  This ends on a huge, flat ledge.  Greg gets the
next pitch which starts with strenuous and awkward 5.9 jamming but Greg moved
fluidly through this section and soon disappeared into the enjoyable chimney 
above and continued up to a sloping ledge.  The third pitch is mine
and it starts out with a massively exposed hand traverse left around a blind
corner.  I started off expecting to find holds around the corner and when they
weren't there I came scurrying back.  The next time I switch my hands so that I
could make a very long reach to a marginal hold and complete the traverse to a
ledge.  I felt this section was 5.9.  The pitch continues up a very awkward and
difficult offwidth.  The nasty section only lasts about ten feet and then it
goes nicely to a beautiful ledge perched out in space.  The ledge is very flat
but only about two feet deep and four feet long.  A bit cramped for three
climbers so we kept the others at the other belay until there was room.

Greg really wanted the crux 5.9+ offwidth pitch and he now had his chance.  He
did a pretty fine job for most of the pitch but got into a bit of trouble at the
crux and needed a bit of tension before pulling over the final lip.
Unfortunately he made a couple of protection placement mistakes and the rope
completely jammed when he tried to pull up the slack.  I would have to relead
the pitch.  Fine with me since I like leading anyway and all the protection is
already placed for me!

Tim put me on belay and I quickly moved up the pitch.  Great climbing here.
This offwidth is nasty, like all offwidths, but the friction provided by the
sandstone made it seem less frustrating than some of the incredibly smooth
offwidths in Yosemite.  I freed the rope just before the crux section and Greg
was able to put me on a toprope belay to finish the pitch.  All of us bore scars
on our right elbows due to this pitch.

At this point we are on top of the spire next to the Mace.  The last pitch
involves walking over to the edge of our spire and "falling" over to the Mace
spire, clipping a bolt and then climbing a thin 5.9 lieback section.  The start
of this pitch is identical to the start of Cantelope Death at the Pinnacles with
the exception that the exposure here is much greater as you look down into a
deep, dark chimney.  The pitch is very short though and I am on top in no time.

Once everyone gained the summit and perused the summit register our thoughts
turned to descent.  The classic descent was to jump back to the other spire
since the first ascensionists didn't put any anchors on top of the Mace.  This
shortcoming has since been rectified and most people elect to rappel back to the
other spire nowadays, but I was interested in looking at the leap.  Every photo
I have ever seen of the Mace shows someone making this leap.  I thought climbing
the Mace without doing the leap would be like climbing the Lost Arrow Spire and
not doing the Tyrolean Traverse or climbing the Maiden and not doing the rappel.
I had to do it.  

I told Greg to put me on belay and I crept out to the edge to reconnoiter the
leap.  The distance wasn't very great obviously, but the drop was considerable.
It was an 8-14 foot drop depending upon where you took off and where you landed.
My plan was to jump horizontally as far as possible in order to decrease the
distance dropped.  The wind had been very strong that day and at one point I was
afraid that if I leaped the wind would have blown me out into space and I would
have missed the tower altogether!  I waited and the wind died down.  Not wanting to
think about it any longer I called back to Greg:

	"20 feet of slack, Greg"
	"Man, you got bigger balls than me!"

Leap!!  Yell!!  Hit and roll.  No problems!  adrenilin surged through my blood
as I felt the exhilaration of the leap!  A smile stretched wide across my face
as I leaped up and pranced around exulting in how great it was.  Greg
immediately said, "You asshole.  Now I have to do it.  Tim, get up here and
belay me."

From then on the male ego thing took over and as each person jumped the extent
of the injuries increased.  Greg leaped and landed hard on his heels giving
himself a stone bruise that would keep him limping for a few days.  Then Tim
launched and landed even harder.  It would be weeks before he walked without
pain.  Next was Al and he landed so hard that the whole Tower shook.  He smashed
both shins, his feet and ripped off a sizable chunk of skin from his hand.  As
we bandaged up his bleeding hand, Scott decides he doesn't like the trend going
on here and prudently rappels.

Two more rappels and we are all back on the ground.  I can't say enough about
how much I enjoyed this climb.  The Sedona area is one of the most beautiful I
have visited.  It could easily be a national park.  Tons of scary, dangerous
sandstone to be climbed down here.  I must assume that the Mace is by far the
safest climb down here since it wasn't too death defying.  The guidebook for
this area is called "A Cheap Way to Die" by Tim Toula.  Here are some selected 
excerpts from this book:

   Recommended Climbs: None!  Seriously, recommending a climb to someone in the
		       Sedona area is like giving nitroglycerin to an epileptic
		       friend.  

   Gear to Bring:  Big cajones!  Your best bet here when the pitch looks
                   difficult to get your partner to lead it.  Falling here is
		   just plain stupid!

I paraphrased the book a bit as I don't have it with me, but you get the idea.
This guidebook is the most hilarious one I have ever seen.  Unfortunately it
doesn't have very much information on the climbs here.  It might get you to the
right area but that's about it except for the small number of topos.

Tim, Al, and Scott headed back to Phoenix while Greg and I headed for Flagstaff
and an Alpine Pizza.  We met a couple of more friends for dinner but they headed
back to Phoenix afterwards.  Greg and I drove out to "The Pit", a limestone
sport climbing area near Flagstaff, and camped there.  I had originally hoped to
hike up Mt. Humphrey's, the highest mountain in Arizona, the next day but Greg
was milking his stone bruise injury for all it was worth and we bagged that
idea.  The morning dawned cold and we stayed in the bags for awhile and only
reluctantly got up and ate breakfast.  We didn't have much time but decided to
head into the Pit so that I could at least see the place and experience a climb
or two.  We ended up doing a couple of one pitch routes rated 5.9 (Pleasant 
Dreams and the first half of Popeye Meets the Burrito Master) and I really
enjoyed it.  It was my first experience with limestone pocket climbing.  I
certainly wasn't a natural at it, but managed to struggle up.  This sort of
power climbing isn't suited very well to my ice cream bellied body!

We then hit the road and hammered back to Phoenix for a quick shower before
hopping on a plane and returning to San Jose.  What a great trip!  And all
because I met people via rec.climbing.  I really love the access to other
climbers that rec.climbing has given me.  The system really works.




-- 
             Bill Wright / bill_wright@mentorg.com

                  "When in doubt, run it out!"