TR: Afternoon Delight - Phoenix Style (lots of photos!)

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steelmnkey

climber

Vision man...ya gotta have vision...

Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 19, 2009 - 07:26pm PT

After reading Crimpie's thing about how there's not much climbing related or of interest on this forum lately (which I wholeheartedly agree with) I figured the one way we could all combat it would be to post up some fun adventures. God knows I'm no writer or photographer, but I figure even the worst writing and photos would be better than the political crapola on here, as long as it was about climbing, so there.

We return to the scene of Pinnacle Peak (near Phoenix), which you may recall from our recent adventures with Mr. & Mrs. Ghost. My buddy Fred wanted to get out and get on some good foot-breaking desert granite face climbing, so we met up around noon and headed up to the Peak to tackle some fun routes.

Pinnacle Peak from below. Just for reference, the uppper arrowhead section of the Peak is around 100 feet in height.

On the wall below and to the left of the upper Peak, there is a really cool route called Bee Gee. It was one of the first 5.11's in the Phoenix area with the first free ascent by Rick Sylvester of James Bond stunt fame. It starts with some easy face climb up to a 45-degree hand crack roof leading to the crux pull over the lip atop the crack. In the following picture, It's the roof crack below and left of the sun-lit Peak.

We tried a few thrashfest attempts at the route back in '91 or '92, with some crazy swings out straight into a catclaw tree that left our legs looking like we'd been tied into a burlap sack with a handful of pissed off tomcats. Unfortunately, these days, climbing it has even more dangerous consequences. You see, the route is not named by accident and it is the home to a humongous hive of bees. Since we no longer have anything but the Africanized variety of bee in Arizona, trying the route is tantamount to attempted suicide. I got a shot of the honeycomb hanging in the upper part of the route above the overhanging crack. Simply amazing! It's gonna take some gasoline and a match to make that thing climbable again. I keep hoping they'll move on down the road on their own. You can see several bees in the upper part of the photo.

Fred jumped on Birthday Party (5.7) to warm up. What a goof.

Here's Fred at the overhannging crack of Birthday Party. This is the challenging crux bit of the route and yet another oft-claimed "hardest 5.7 I ever climbed" Arizona route. Fun jamming!

We scrambled over and rapped back down to the base of the wall. This is a shot of Fred rappelling, with the Peak above him. Later in the day, we got on the route right above his head, Shalayly Direct , one of the Peak classics at 11c.

To wake up our feet, we did a lap on Pecker Party, a thin 10b route just to the right of Birthday Party. Before it had it's teeth pulled with a retro-bolt, this was a rather exciting lead. Come to think of it, it's still attention grabbing. This is Fred moving onto start of the business face on the route.

Another shot of Fred on Pecker Party. It looks all sort of benign and slabby, but I can assure you there ain't much up there to hang onto.

There was a chuckawalla tucked away into a crack near the bottom of the route. He was pretty shy and didn't really feel like posing up for me when I climbed by. Better than one of the last times Fred and I went to the Peak and there was a babby rattler packed into a crack 2/3rds of the way up the route we were climbing.

After we did Pecker Party, Fred rapped back down to grab a sweatshirt and some additional gear. This is him climbing back up the 4th class first pitch of the South Crack route. I once spent about an hour on the phone talking to a guy who read me the riot act about how that pitch could not possibly be 4th class and I was hideously sandbagging people in the guidebook. Apparently, he felt that 4th Class meant they shouldn't need a rope to keep from getting killed.

We headed up and off onto a route called 28th Day from the Sun Deck Boulder below the Peak. Years ago, before they closed the Peak for eight years, this had been on my hit list, and even now I'd never done the second pitch section of climbing up to a crack about 45 feet below the top of the Peak. It's rated 5.7R, so you'd think it would be pretty mellow in spite of the runout. Not so! It was surprisingly attention-grabbing moving up beyond the single protection bolt. I'm thinking that aspiring 5.7 leader might have a shorts-filling experience on this pitch. Welcome to Arizona! This is Fred a couple moves past the bolt, moving onto the finishing hold-covered slab.

The last short pitch of 28th Day is a really nice knobby face climb with two bolts. I'd done this section of the route several times, so Fred got the onsight. This photo is just an example of the type of holds you find on the desert granite around Phoenix. Large crystals (sometimes) for pinching and frontpointing.

Here's Fred moving up past the last (second) bolt headed for the top. This bit of climbing is excellent steep knobs and a favorite of mine. If it was only longer...

From the top, we moved down on the east summit of the Peak and tossed a toprope down on Shalaly Direct (11c). It's a classic, but if you head up to lead it, you better bring some steel toes and equally steely huevos. This ain't no sport route. Here's Fred nearing the top. There would be some great shots possible on this route, but I need a third person to belay to get them.

We were running out of time and didn't want to incur the wrath of the park staff by getting down too close to closing time so we packed it up and headed back out. I shot this picture of the Y-Crack Boulder with it's backdrop of Cave Creek on the way dow. That's an excellent wide crack on the front there if you're in the mood!

The end.

Boltgrl

Ice climber

Winslow, AZ

Mar 19, 2009 - 07:37pm PT

damn, this post brings back memories... thanks, greg!

klk

Trad climber

cali

Mar 19, 2009 - 07:56pm PT

nice shots-- that last route looks killer

TKingsbury

Trad climber

Mar 19, 2009 - 07:56pm PT

Looks fun out there, cool texture it seems...

that nest is crazy looking!

Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Mar 19, 2009 - 08:36pm PT

Wideload, do you have a shot of Deliverance for TKing?

My tips hurt just looking at that...

DJS

Trad climber

Mar 19, 2009 - 08:50pm PT

Bump

steelmnkey

climber

Vision man...ya gotta have vision...

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 19, 2009 - 08:56pm PT

Here ya go J-brah...

Deliverance (11c), Pinnacle Peak

Picture doesn't do it justice... it's fat and PHAT!
Runs between 4" and 7" or so.

Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Mar 19, 2009 - 08:59pm PT

Tom and Pat, (and anyone else) you guys will love it!

I did an early free ascent (first flash according to Waugh) with Tom McMillan when I was visiting, once.

Thanks Greg...

steelmnkey

climber

Vision man...ya gotta have vision...

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 19, 2009 - 09:29pm PT

Geeze...I got booted extreeeeeemly quickly off that front page by all the bumping!

So... self bump.

Mimi

climber

Mar 19, 2009 - 09:43pm PT

Yo! Check out those razor feldspar crystals. Beautiful herps!

I trust you had dinner at Restaurant Mexico in Tempe...just off campus. I hear they changed their salsa. Really too bad.

neebee

Social climber

calif/texas

Mar 19, 2009 - 11:36pm PT

hey there steelmnky.. say, this will get you back to front page... this is really cool stuff...

great trip report too...
sadly my compouter is downloading the pics too slow...

but so far, from what i've seen... as tkingsbury said:

great textures...

(me, i sure love looking at this rock!)
thanks for the great share...

hope you get more feedback, here too, and more interesting notes from all... :)