Exploring the backcountry and wilderness of the Western USA.
Travel using both feet and hands, whether scrambling unroped or technical climbing using rope and anchors.
Linda and I started getting to know each other during the summer of 1990. We met through the Chemeketans, a climbing club based in Salem, Oregon. That summer we started climbing together, both on rock crags and mountains. Here are two of many climbs I shared with Linda that summer.
On October 20 Linda and I climbed “Moscow”, a three-pitch 5.6 route on the “Red Wall” at Smith Rock State Park in Central Oregon.
On Sunday, January 13, I climbed the highpoint of the Copper Mountains located in the Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR) southeast of Yuma, Arizona. Copper Mountains Highpoint has only 2888 feet of elevation but has 1968 feet of topographic prominence, making it the 76th most prominent peak in Arizona. To gain access to the peak I obtained a BMGR permit ahead of time.
I drove my Jeep 13 miles into the BMGR Friday afternoon and camped near the Copper Mountains. Saturday I joined Matthias Stender on a climb of Cabeza Benchmark. Sunday I was on my own. I was glad my muscles had recovered from Saturday’s climb and the weather appeared promising even though it was raining in Tucson. As I was climbing solo and likely would see no one else on the mountain I planned to be especially alert and cautious this day.
[Read more…] about Copper Mountains, Arizona, January 2019On Saturday, January 12, I joined Matthias Stender on a climb of Cabeza Benchmark, the highpoint of the Cabeza Prieta Mountains. These mountains are located in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge (CPNWR) southeast of Yuma, Arizona. Cabeza Benchmark has only 2830 feet of elevation but has 1830 feet of topographic prominence, making it the 89th most prominent peak in Arizona. To gain access to the peak we had to travel through the Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR). We obtained permits for both the range and the refuge ahead of time.
I drove my Jeep 13 miles into the BMGR Friday afternoon and camped near the Copper Mountains. It was a calm and starry night. Saturday morning Matthias drove in from Phoenix and met me at my camp. From there I drove us another 13 miles to the northern boundary of the CPNWR where the road was closed to vehicles.
[Read more…] about Cabeza Benchmark, Arizona, January 2019On Monday, December 31, I joined the Southern Arizona Hiking Club for a climb of Prominent Point, a peak rising to the east above Pima Canyon in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Prominent Point has only 624 feet of topographic prominence due to its proximity to Mount Kimball. But the “hike” was strenuous and it felt like another mountaineering experience for me in this rugged wilderness.
We left the Pima Canyon Trailhead before dawn with headlamps. It was windy and cold as we walked the rocky trail into the canyon. After about an hour we left the trail and began climbing up slopes to the east. We eventually gained a steep ridge which avoided some of brush as we climbed. A cold wind blew across the ridge and I wondered how intense it would become as we climbed higher.
[Read more…] about Prominent Point, Arizona, December 2018