Slab climb near Josephine Saddle on Super Trail?

[wilsonliam]

Did the Super Trail run down Wrightson and noticed that there was a neat bit of slabby granite ~25ft long (see attached) about 1.2mi from Josephine Saddle, with notable bolt holes.

Does anyone happen to know what this climb is or why it would've been chopped? Bolting restrictions in the area or something?

[FOTG]

@wilsonliam
I’d say local ethics most likely led to the chopping, Tucson has a pretty strong local ethic and someone caught wind of that line and was like not in my backyard, lol. I’m guessing due to the fact it was most likely power drilled, (can only use hand drills in wilderness) no camo on hangers, natural pro available, etc or it’s generally unspectacular existence. I’m not saying chopping is always the way to go, but there’s enough one star poorly thought out lines across this state, prob no need to encourage it or allow it, especially, in a wilderness area. I could not find a reference to any routes near that spot on MP for the record. Hard to say for sure.

[SpiderLegs]

I'd probably ask on the Tucson Climbing FB group. But I'm going to concur with what FOTG said.

[nonot]

Ironic that a person motivated by "ethics" didn't fill the bolt holes and match the fill used to the local rock after they chopped the bolts. Yay for bolt wars where both sides behave badly!

[FOTG]

@nonot
I agree fully with that point. But I don’t know if we know for sure that route was chopped, due to some ongoing bolt war. Cochise has had some bolt wars as well as crags on Lemmon I am sure, but who knows what happened to the route really. Chopping bolts usually leaves a broken off stud behind, so maybe some guy just put up a five fun route while camping up there to kill time and then removed the hardware on their own, or some crusty old timer chopped it. Either way holes should have been filled.

[nonot]

@FOTG
You are a considerably better climber than I regarding your 5.fun rating, that looks to me from the photo like a 5.15 slab with a 5.10 crack!

[RowdyandMe]

@nonot
I am wondering has anyone contacted the park service. There has been a lot of trail maintenance lately and some people don’t like it. There is trail off the nature trail above the amphitheater that is not official but I always enjoyed hiking it mostly because of solitude.
I did catch a couple of young mothers with babies heading down the trail and I yelled at them and asked them where they were going. The told me that they were heading back to the trailhead and I let know we’re going the wrong way. I probably wouldn’t have said anything but I did because they had two babies with them.
Know that turn off is completely blocked off the park service put up signs saying it is closed. The next time I came by someone torn down the signs.
There also has been trail work on the Super Trail. I have noticed more down trees on some of the other trails.

[FOTG]

@nonot
lol Don’t give me too much credit, I am still trying to figure out which way is up in the pic.

[nonot]

@RowdyandMe
I've no idea. I can say that McDowell park has trail signs for climber access trails. This was worked out via the local Scottsdale climbing community coordinating with park mgmt. I've no idea of what's going on down in Tucson nor am I involved in the Tucson climbing communities, nor the park service.

If you do have a concern, which seems valid given your example of people getting lost due to climber access trails, perhaps you should express this concern to the park service and local climbing communities yourself?

[wilsonliam]

@RowdyandMe

The Super Trail work seemed a little unnecessary to me if I"m being honest. It's definitely wider now but I'm not sure it needed to be? The number/rigidity of the stumps left is pretty frustrating and my running buddy (who's in good shape but normally just a road runner) clipped one and took a decent tumble. Would be surprised if he was the first or the last...