Tucson, AZ - Dec 31, 2008 - Jan 6, 2009

posted by Saucisson #3

climbers: Soph, Angie, Burke, Joe, Calvin and Kerry

Ah, Tucson. In what I hope is rapidly becoming an annual tradition, Team Saucisson ventured out west for almost a week of climbing among the desert spires of golden Arizona. I say almost a week, because we got rained out for almost a day and a half. Joe confirmed this was the second day of rain in nearly 3 months.

Joe and Kerry Kreidel hosted us, along with their goofy and adorable kids Asher and Adelaide. Asher is 3, hates wearing clothes, and is a riot to play with. Adelaide is just breathtakingly cute. My highlight with Adelaide was teaching her the fistbump.

Here are some pics of the two cuties:



To make my (and Soph's) job easier, I'm going to post one day at a time along with pics. I'll start with day one. Windy Point.
You can access the web album of the full day here.

Climbers: Soph, Angie, Joe, Calvin

Windy Point is several thousand feet up on Mt. Lemmon, a fun high altitude climbing location. Great in the summer, decent where we were in winter. It's great for its easily accessible climbing, which is both technical and pumpy from climbs that are pretty long.

We started out on the Hitchcock Pinnacle, an iconic freestanding tower near to the road that also happens to be great for photos:

We climbed a mixed 5.8 to start, then toproped the .10a variation to the left. Chris Pruitt joined us with his son Eliot, and casually talked about how some dude decked after sketching out on the .10a (which is akin to Pecker Wrecker at Draper's Bluff in So Ill). Hence the TR setup.



Next, we headed down to another area (also close to the road). Soph started on a .10, while I started on Steve's Arete .11a. Both were super fun. Angie climbed the .10 and Joe climbed both.


After that, we headed over to another area highlighted by Arizona Flyaway, a stiff .11. Joe and I first climbed another .10 to the left of AF, which had a sloped boulder for a belay stance and required anchoring in to some bolts to safely belay. I don't know the name of this .10, but it was superb. Intricate, technical and heady climbing lasted the full 80 feet of climbing. I started to get worried, as I realized I wasn't quite used to this style of crimpy climbing. 4 more days to go!



Joe then put up the draws on Arizona, which is a classic .11 for the area. Soph, Ang and I all tried it, but we each pumped out on the crux sections. Fun route! I might have screamed a little trying to hold on.


We wrapped up the day at a local Mexican place with Chris and Catherine, their son Eliot, and the Kreidels. Great first day!