Arizona Climbing Trip : Cochise Stronghold & Sedona

Meadows of Western Cochise

I'm Back in Action

Seems like I have just got over my case of selective blog amnesia.  I really enjoy writing and building these little posts once in a while, but it seems like other things come up and life happens and I simply forget I have this thing.  I guess it is rather cool that the internet cloud or whatever keeps all this stuff even if I don't stop in for a year or so.  Wow, so much has happened since I last posted.  I'm no longer an Adirondack Climber (sad face).  At least not in physical form.  I've been through a lot of changes in the last few months, including moving to California!  I'll save those details for another post a few years from now (hopefully joking).  For now I want to share my week long vaycay down to Arizona that went down in February of this year.

The prominent peak is the Rockfellow Pinnacle.  The shear amount of rock in this area was down right impressive.  We hardly scratched the surface in a week of climbing.

Zona Here We Come

I enlisted my friend slash ropegun slash gym monster Matt Nuaman for my partner on the trip.  He is chill and not annoying plus he can get up just about anything.  Most importantly, all he wants to do is climb.  Southwest flights are a great deal (ticket was $350) and they let you bring your bags for free.  Plus Matt works for UPS which means great deal on a rental car.  Not to mention last winter in the Northeast was super cold and heinous.  These conditions created the perfect storm for an Arizona climbing trip. 

Matt heading out on the runout start to What's My Line Direct.  The upper pitches are classic knob climbing with just slings for protection.  This first pitch is hard friction and thin face climbing through a rising traverse.  Even the follower will be on high alert on this pitch.  I think this was the 5.9 start to an otherwise 5.6 route.

Camping Beta

We got off the plane to blue skies and temps in the 70s.  We decided to camp on the east side and get the morning sun and hopefully less wind as the nights can get pretty chilly down in the desert.  The road into Cochise was in decent shape, although we did rally the rental car a little bit finding a free campsite.  The national forest land is set up well with unofficial campsites with unofficial fire pits.  There is a pay campground a couple miles in but all you get is a pit toilet and and a picnic table for twenty bucks a night.  No thanks, I'll gladly poop in the woods and keep my money.

A Giant Chicken Head.  My anchor way up on WML Direct.  These are all you get for protection on many pitches.  They are an amazing and unique feature of this area.  Bring lots of slings!  They are just massive jugs that make a dead vertical wall climb at 5.6.  So much fun.

Sedona Rock

At one point the weather took a turn at Cochise so we headed north a couple hours to Sedona, a little high class, but artsy tourist town surrounded by impressive sandstone towers.  Totally different from the rounded granite domes of Cochise.  We ended up doing a route called Sedona Scenic Cruise ( Click to view route on Mountain Project ).  Good times were had by all, making it down just before sunset.  Matt even sprung for a motel room for a night, where we enjoyed our only showers of the week and absolutely destroyed the continental breakfast.

Yes it appears to be a rather scenic cruise.  Tons of helicopter tours flew UNDERNEATH us as we climbed.  It was a trip.

Victory cig.  7 pitches of 5.10 on a route called Peacemaker.  BD pulled my sponsorship for this selfie but it was worth it.

Cochise Classics

Meanwhile, back down in Cochise (south of Tucson, somewhat near Mexico btw) we proceeded to kick ass and take names.  Memorable routes include Bee Line, Rheen's Arete (not hard but waaay runout), WML and The Wasteland.  Really great adventure climbing and a solid winter destination.  The whole entire trip came in at $600 including air fare, rental car, gas and food.  Being flexible with dates, camping for free and dining on Ramen easily saved me $400 for this trip.

Up there traversing on The Wasteland.  It is nice to remember how great the rock was and how beautiful the area was as a whole.  Someday I'll make it back and hopefully someone will read this and plan a trip themselves.  I'd imagine that eventually Cochise Stronghold will be as well known and mentioned in the same breath as Joshua Tree for world class winter climbing locales.