Welcome

Welcome. I thought I'd get a blog started (it seems like the thing to do these days) to let those that are interested hear about the climbing I'm doing out here in Southern Arizona. Besides, this is a bizarre place, and I feel the need to document some of the going-ons myself. Things like the monster truck culture (why would you have a chromey monster truck raised to tractor-trailer heights to drive around a commuter-filled city?), 90-degree temps in October, rattlesnakes, tarantulas (so cool), property crime, sika, chiseling, chickenheads, dry desert washes, jesus freaks, long choss-surfing downhill approaches, retirees, and gravel yards. Keep reading, I'm sure it'll be interesting.

This sign is on the road into a crag Laura & I checked out last weekend.



The drive in was itself a decent 4WD adventure, and the parking lot was covered in machine gun shells, which made the whole experience a little discomforting. The climbing itself was mixed - mostly chossy, with a few decent lines that warrant a repeat visit. Not much got climbed on this first trip though - when we reached the crag, Bert stepped onto a bit of cholla cactus, which left him with a bloody paw and punctured two of my fingers upon extraction. Since we'd climbed the day before, we figured maybe today was not the day to be out. Unfortunately, the crag faces directly south and is at low elevation, so you really need a cloudy - but not rainy - day to enjoy it; even when the temps are good, the sun here can be so intense that it's hard to climb in it. Hopefully we'll get one of those days before the winter has ended.