Campaign Crystalline / Murphy Pile, AZ

This somewhat significant slab is located east-southeast of the Upper Horrell trailhead parking loop and can be seen from the lower north Sycamore camp (if one walks slightly up the gravel bed to the fence). The first climbed route here was completed over Thanksgiving weekend in 1999 with my younger brother Loren. He had a great Brittany hunting and trail dog named Murphy who had hiked the Reavis Gap Loop with him the day before we climbed this route.


Originally named Murphy Law, this route is inadvertently namesaked as Murphy Pile on the topo, which is a silly double pun about gravity, climbing, and the particular shape this slab depicts. Perhaps Bigfoot of the Reevis Mountain School has another name for it, but MP is what we call it for short. The other routes on each side of this main center dihedral were all added at different times post-Woodbury Fire. This was a blessing in disguise because that extremely hot fire, unfortunately, did some serious damage to much of the Supes and this slab by cooking many of the good flakes and rails to brittleness and essentially covering the wall with a thick, nasty layer of black soot. It's cleaned up well since 2019 and is a great introductory area for Campaign Crystalline climbing.There are two approach options: The official route starts on the east side of the Sycamore camp heading southeast up the pebbly wash and over the fence. A right turn at the first indistinct fork gains a low southeast bearing ridge (some catclaw) eventually switch backing up toward a notch between the large boulders located just below the west face of the slab. The second choice is to follow the major wash (Granite Wash) from the Upper Horrell parking loop, east southeast, then east at a fork (much brushier approach) until reaching a point that accesses the southern side of the pile. The base of this slab is at the Gila/Maricopa County line.

2024-01-07 pseudalpine