Around Flagstaff

I have had a number of climbing and other trips around Flagstaff this spring. Among other things I bouldered at Buffalo Park and Super Roof, climbed at Paradise Forks, Sedona, Volunteer Canyon, The Peaks, and the Hobo Jungle,   slacklined at the park, and biked/hiked up Mount Humphreys.


Super Roof is a long horizontal climb along the roof under a ledge. I actually managed to get it with my first try (this year) and then was unable to do it again despite many tries. It is good training though.

Dawn on Super Roof

Dawn on Super Roof

near the end of Super Roof (thanks for taking the pic Dawn)

Dawn - it was a high gravity day.

We took advantage of a cold snap to head down to Sedona to climb "Duck for Cover". It had 3 pitches at I would say 5.11, 5.10, and 5.11. I fell at the end of the long first pitch at the crux "hands" section that involved .75 camalots (very thin for my hands) over a bulge. The last pitch was pretty spicy too.

John W tapes up for "Duck For Cover"

"Duck for Cover" on the leftish side and up the crack on the buttress for the first pitch

One day I biked up to the Arizona Snowbowl and then hiked up to the summit of Mount Humphreys. They are installing pipes and snow making stuff as well as a new run. There is some controversy because among other things they will use reclaimed waste water for the snowmaking. They definitely didn't want anyone getting in their way.

they want to be able to throw the book at protesters at Snow Bowl

new ski run in the upper left plus trenches for reclaimed water lines

trenches for reclaimed water lines for "snow" making

At the summit there was very little wind, which was nice except there were also a lot of bugs that are normally blown away or hunkered down. I didn't spend long up there because of them. As usual the descent went a lot faster than the ascent.

summit fat pill on top of Humphreys

panorama from the summit of Humphreys

fresh leaves on the aspen trees

I climbed at the Peaks and the new area the Hobo Jungle a few times. It is most excellent Dacite climbing, although fairly sharp on the finger tips.

Verm "manning up" at the Peaks (maybe DK took this pic)

Dawn and Darren at the Hobo Jungle

Peregrine Falcon

I taped the sun viewing glasses onto the front of my telephoto to take pics of the transit of Venus. I could barely see it with just the glasses.

transit of Venus

We went out to Volunteer Canyon for 2 days. It was very nice except for the tiny biting bugs and the fact that my sleeping bag wasn't nearly as warm as it is supposed to be. It was definitely some adventure climbing. You would rap in to where you hoped the climb started and then lead your way back out. Many of the climbs were over 100 feet. It was also a bit of an adventure driving out there with some less than stellar "roads".

Dawn, Verm, and Chris check out Volunteer Canyon

the Verm turns the roof on "Tralfamador"

Tralfamador

night time at Volunteer Canyon

Volunteer Canyon panorama from the N rim

That's some of what I've been up to for the last few months.

Mt Humphreys Triathlon with Sam (4-23-11) teaser report

Sam was passing through so we decided a mini-sufferfest was in order. We really wanted to test out the new pack-rafts, but I couldn't find any close by rivers that had good flows (I am not really tuned in to these things though, so maybe I missed something good). So we went with plan B - the Mt Humphreys Triathlon. This was entirely made up and involved biking from 7,000 feet in Flagstaff up to 9,500 feet at the ski area (about 14 miles) and then skinning up on skis as far as we could go (we really hoped there was enough snow left). Then on to the summit of Mt Humphreys at 12,637 ft. The reverse would be gravity assisted and hopefully a lot quicker and easier.

Sam preps his bike in the dark

We started at 6 am and made it up to the ski area in about 2.5 hours. Most of the snow was gone, but we only had to walk a few hundred yards to get onto a good patch. From there on up we had enough to skin up above the top of the lift (~11,500ft). The snow was pretty icy, and rather dirty in places. We hoped it would be a bit softer for the descent.

Sam skinning up

Once we stashed the ski gear it was a pain to traverse over to Humphreys but we did manage to tag another peak along the way. By the time we neared the summit the wind was really blowing. I don't know how hard, but I was unable to walk in a straight line at times and without ski poles I think we would have had to crawl. I am guessing somewhere around 60 mph for the gusts, maybe 70? When I turned into the wind it felt like sticking my head out of a car window on the freeway. We were very glad to have ski goggles on. Sam was hurting from the altitude (having recently been in North Dakota), but I was ok this trip. On the descent it started snowing/sleeting/mini-graupel. This was blowing up at us as we were near the ridge line. Once again we were glad for the goggles.

It was cold and windy, and Sam was feeling the altitude

Sam does a handstand in strong winds

We didn't have any fat pills, so we had to settle for beef and cheese sticks

Unfortunately things had cooled off and the snow was still pretty icy for the descent and for some reason my legs were really tired. Some of it was fun, but some was more of a chore threading my way between the rocks, trees, and grass. We had to dodge through the woods at one point which was a little exciting. Luckily it wasn't very steep there. The bike ride down from the ski area went quickly, although Sam went a lot slower the way his skis were strapped on his pack like an air-brake. We actually had a tail-wind for most of the rest of the way back to Flagstaff.

The total time was around 11.5 hours. We weren't hurrying at all on the transitions though.

Once again I'll try to post a more complete trip report soon, plus I think we might have enough video footage for a mini video.

Here is a link to the trip report page: http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/mthumptri2011.html


here is the video...

youtube Video of trip up Mount Humphreys, Arizona

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAgkd9K6Ii4

San Francisco Peaks bike/hike teaser

Today I biked up to Snowbowl at 9500 feet and then hiked up to the summit of Humphreys peak at 12633 ft / 3851 m. I left Flagstaff around 7:45 by 8:30 I was biking up the Snowbowl road. This did not go all that quickly. I think I was hiking a bit after 10. I made it to the summit before 1 I think, but I stayed there for a while. The descent went much more quickly, especially the bike part.

It was cool in the morning, but warm enough biking uphill. I was in shorts much of the way to the summit. There I wrapped up for a while. I also put more layers on for the Snowbowl road descent.

Aspens in the Inner Basin

The aspens were just barely starting to change along my route. It looked like more of the ones in the Inner Basin were changing. This was a bit easier than biking up the waterline road to the inner basin I think (and it looked like there was more snow along that route too), but I am still going to be a bit sore tomorrow.

view east down into the inner basin - one of the false summits on the left, Agassiz on the rt.

Here are some links to my earlier ascents of this peak...

2009, 2008, 2004