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| no partners | | Pretty awesome weekend. A million people from Phoenix were there, along with a couple people from Flag, CO, and NM. Phoenix set up two camps (one for raucous people, and one for not-as-raucous people). We set up a tent a little bit away from the main group.
Friday night we ended up camping outside of Pinetop at Scott Reservoir. Nice little campground. Free camping, and everyone respected the quiet hours, which was really nice. We got the very last spot, so just a warning to go early if you ever decide to camp out there.
Saturday, drove in to the Tower. Got everything set up and then hiked up to find everyone. It was sort of windy, but not too bad. We walked down to Mother Goose Wall and I set up the first climb of the day, a 5.6 named Big Bad Wolf. Very solid, lots of pockets, and short! The nice thing about E Tower is that although the rock is volcanic and sharp, it's nowhere near as sharp as the rock at Queen Creek Canyon. So it was sort of like a nice little vacation for the fingers. James led the same route, and then I led Geese Make Good Sleeping Bags (5.7) and he followed suit. After that, I decided just to TR the rest. Still working on strength, but having a lot of fun on the little stuff. James put up Big Good Wolf (5.7), Black Sheep (5.8 ), Old Woman (5.8 ), and The Shoe (5.6). They were all fun, but I was glad to just be on top rope. Talked a bit with some of the other people there, who included a Flag climber I'd met before (Krissy) and my buddy Ryan from my 2012 Colorado trip. Very cool that we all ended up in the same place this weekend!
Went back to camp after that. As many people as there were, it was pretty amazing how tame everyone was. The fires were small and the conversations never got out of hand, though there was a lot of laughter. Had a really good night's sleep in the tent that night.
Sunday was great because we didn't have to tear down and worry about getting back to town at a certain time! We started at Rapunzel this time. I led Jack's Bean Stalk (5.7) after someone else had put it up and left the first draw clipped. That one is undercut on the bottom, and is basically boulder climbing to get to the first bolt. Not bad, though, and I was glad to have done it. After that, TR'ed Rapunzel's Revenge (5.8 ), Unknown Arete (5.9), and Fee Fi Fo Fum (5.9). All fun climbs. Then went to the Tower proper and took pics of people climbing for a bit. James led part of Technowitch (12a), which is a really amazing project for many climbers. We were informed that our tent had blown down, so left early to go deal with that. Ended up tearing down anyway (broken tent pole) and staying the night in the truck.. not really an easy feat, so I left the bed to James and took the back seat. We were both a little cramped but overall slept well.
Monday was still really windy and overcast. We took our time putting things away and getting ready, but then decided to just head back to town instead of climbing. We'd both had two really good days, so it was nice to get a break and take the slow route back to town. |
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