A Little More Orifice

This place is quickly becoming my all-time favorite crag. Great rock, incredible routes, lots of projects, amazing summer temps. Here's a bunch of recent pics.

Coup d'e tat:

Disfigured Foreigner:

Oedipus Complex:

The Brightest Fire:

Orifice Wall

Mt Lemmon - the gift that keeps on giving. After waiting almost a full year to check out the Orifice Wall on the Fortress, I've been lucky enough to get out there three times in the last two weeks, and I'll probably be out there tomorrow. The Orifice Wall is hands down THE place on Mt. Lemmon for hard, steep sport climbing. The Fortress (and the other surrounding formations, collectively known as the Summit Crags) has a short climbing season, dictated by an altitude of 8500 feet and a seasonal peregrine falcon nesting closure from April - July 1st. A gorgeous and fern-lined trail leads you past an astronomical observatory, a fire lookout tower, a natural spring, and finally to the rock formations. You pass Rappel Rock, The Ravens and the Murray Wall on your way to the Fortress, each making you question why you are walking past them when the climbing there looks so so good. Then you see it - the Orifice Wall.

Starting in an alcove about 100 feet above the ground, the wall overhangs by an average of 45 degrees, and is very heavily featured. To access the cliff you traverse in from the side, harnessing up and clipping yourself into a safety cable that leads you to the base of the climbs.

There are currently about ten routes here, with potential for a handful more, ranging in difficulty from 12a to about 13a/b. One of the jewels is a 12b called Hard Day at the Orifice, which takes it's name from a gaping hole 25 feet up that you can climb all the way into and rest. Leaving the orifice you are faced with a bouldery crux section followed by 40 more feet of overhanging climbing before you stem out to a chimney and take a much needed rest before some easier climbing and clipping the chains. Hard Day is the best sport climb I have ever redpointed, and any ascent of this climb is rewarded with a King Swing.

It is hard to get pictures that capture the Orifice Wall well, but here are some that show the unique stone, cool features and some of the wild moves involved in climbing these routes.

Warming up on 12a:

Hard Day at the Orifice:

Pump Up Jams

Not too long ago, browsing a friend's photos on Facebook, I found a shot of a climber sitting at the base of a climb pulling on his shoes. Next to him sat a pair of iPod speakers the caption read, approximately: "X putting on his 'send music'." I'm a big fan of send music, but where I come from-- in Austin, Texas --we call them Pump Up Jams and we employ these jams to get psyched for a much wider spectrum of activities than the solitary and punctual act of sending.

A Pump Up Jam can get you ready for a night on the town. It can kick off a road-trip in fine style or, when properly applied in early morning hours when you are most open to the influence of driving, ass-shaking, perma-grin inducing beats, it can take more than a little of the meanness off of facing a day slaving away for The Man. In climbing, a Pump Up Jam played while booting up can fill you up with that extra shot of positive energy to drive you on up and through the cruxes of your route or boulder problem.



I've gone through more Pump Up Jams in my life than I can recall. One of the great joys of the Pump up Jam is that it is a renewable, but fickle, resource. Get it in your mind after reading this post that you're going to find yourself a Pump Up Jam and you will float the balance of your iStore account right down the Rio Nada trying to seek one out. Odds are you probably already have a couple-- they just don't give you that 'new Pump Up Jam' high anymore. Old Pump Up Jams are nice and can give you a kick in a pinch, but there's nothing like the way a new song invades your mind, takes you over, and makes you move with it even when it isn't on your playlist. But those kinds of things can't be forced. A Pump Up Jam will find you when you're ready for it.

Here is a brief list of the number one Pump Up Jams in each of my Five Favorite Pump Up Jam Categories:
1) The best Pump Up Jam (PUJ) for starting a road trip to Hueco Tanks-- "If My Heart was a Car" by the Old 97's.
2)The Best PUJ for climbing 5.11-- "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie -- this song echoes beautifully across La Milagrosa Canyon.
3)The Best PUJ for doing day labor in Alaska-- "Float On" by Modest Mouse. This is the song that people marching out of Babylon subvocally hum as they strut on out of town.
4)The Best PUJ for remembering how beautiful the world is because of a rap solo commemorating The Boss, Bruce Springsteen-- "Speed" by Bran Van 3000 --the title of the award says everything you need to know about this song.
5) The Best PUJ to have in your mind while trying to send the hardest route you've ever been on-- "Shit Luck" by Modest Mouse --the only guys to make this list twice. They must be on to something...

So, because I can intuit what you are and are not ready for, here's your new Pump Up Jam, and a whole lot of Team Tuesday bouldering to go with it.
Special thanks to Seth for introducing me to these guys and to The Go! Team for making every track a Pump Up Jam. Enjoy.
-C-

THE HELMET

As long as I've been a climber, I've drooled and stared at pictures of big roofs and steep, steep overhangs. There is something daunting, and almost forbidden, about hanging upside down and climbing using only your fingertips, toes and heels. I've been fortunate to climb lots of incredible roofs while bouldering, but still dreamed about the BIG roofs you see pictures of in magazines and videos. Suspended upside down forty feet above the earth, move after move of completely horizontal climbing. About two months ago I got my first taste of one of Tucson's BIG roofs, at a crag called The Helmet.

The Helmet is a small dome of granite emerging from the hillside just a few miles up the highway from Windy Point. On its west side, a huge notch has been eroded away, creating a 25 foot roof, and leaving the dome looking a bit like a motorcycle helmet. There are 6 routes on this part of the crag (plus a bolted open project), plus about 10 others on the non-steep side. A small crag for sure, but a unique little jewel for Tucson sport climbers. An added bonus has been that it stays completely shaded until about 2 o'clock during the summer, so you can get a good session with good temps before the sun starts creeping up on you. And by 2 o'clock, I'm usually exhausted from climbing here, so it works out well.

I've been to the Helmet four times now, and each time I've worked on some jaw-dropping routes. On the right hand side of the wall is Demolition Derby (12a), which overhangs about 20 feet in only 45 feet of climbing. All of the holds on DemoDerby are good (minus the crux sidepull/undercling), but this route is action-packed and so much fun. To the left of this is The Crossing (12b), which starts with 25 feet of easy slab leading into 25 feet of dead-horizontal roof climbing, finishing in an oh-so-tricky headwall. Next is the open project, then Dwarf Toss (12+), which I haven't tried yet. The next climb left is El Torito, another tough 12a. Not as quality as Demoliton Derby, but it has some fantastic moves up high, including a balancy and commiting move where you rock over and pretty much just fall into a huge jug. The best part of El Torito is that it leads you to the "Chain Gang" extension.

The "Chain Gang" extension is an upside-down traverse of the lip of the Helmets roof that you can access from either El Torito or Dwarf Toss. Both visually striking and very intimidating, the climbing on the "Chain Gang" is some of the best and hardest climbing I've ever done. From the moment you start the Chain Gang until you slap over the lip and pull the final headwall, your body is completely horizontal for about 30 feet. The holds are pretty good until the last crux section, and the movement is incredible. There are three big cross-throughs, with the final one being so far it seems such an improbable move. If someone set a move like this in a gym, I would scoff that it's a "gym-move", because obviously there are no horizontal cross-throughs that huge anywhere outside. But there they are, daring you try. This one will be on the Project List for a while, but is an inspiring route I will definitely keep coming back and working.

I have yet to get a picture that captures the place well, so I have stolen a picture from the website of John Baker, one of the leading developers of his area and many others on the mountain. Here is his topo of the climbs (the "Chain Gang" is the light blue/green line cutting across the lip):

And my photo of the "Chain Gang".The draws you see way under the roof are for Dwarf Toss. You can see the faint line of chain draws hanging from the lip of the cave:

Last but not least, here is a video of Clayton's noble effort on Demolition Derby. He's been on the route a few times now, and is getting better and better each time. It will go for him soon, hopefully we'll be able to get photos or video of the send. But for now, here is CLAYTON ON DEMOLITION DERBY.

The Marana Lights

There are many bizarre and often unexplainable phenomena in our world. UFO's, Yeti's, the Loch Ness Monster and even the chupacabra. In Texas I grew up hearing about the mysterious Marfa Lights. And now, there is another strange sight - the Marana Lights. Thursday, July 2nd the Marana Police Department was called about "wierd lights rising out from the rocks" on a rocky hillside just outside of city limits. It was here, on a small parcel of undeveloped (but rocky and beautiful) county property, that neighboring residents witnessed the unusual lights starting shortly after sunset. Three police officers dutifully responded, hiking the cactus and cholla choked hillside in the dark, their flashlights barely lighting their feet on the steep hike up. And when they finally reached the otherwierdly glow on the hillside, what they found was even more horrifying than anything they could have imagined, and certainly these three brave officers will be having blood-curdling nightmares for years as a result of the horrid and feral beasts they encountered swarming around the light. The creatures were grunting and barely clothed, doing some kind of ritual dance involving a rock face and a powdery white substance that can only be assumed to be some kind of stimulant absorbed through the hands. THIS is what the officers, lucky to have survived the encounter, saw and photographed.

Yes, the cops really were called, and they hiked up the hill to investigate. After their inital round of "EVERYONE UP AGAINST THE ROCK!", once they realized we meant them no harm, they were funny guys and slightly amused by us. After making sure none of us were felons they trekked back to the car, and even wishing us well, telling us to "have fun climbing your hills!".

We ended up having a great night of bouldering, as you can see from this short video. Unfortunately in all the video we took we didn't get footage of any sends, but the video does capture a little bit of what is so cool about bouldering at night - the cool dance of shadows on the wall, crisp evenings hanging out with friends, and trying hard on fun problems. Next time we'll get some sends on film, but until then, here ya go -

Tributes

Yesterday, the climbing world lost one of its greatest legends, John Bachar. One of the Yosemite Stonemasters (a group of young dirtbag climbers from Southern California who destroyed the standards at their home crags before moving onto Yosemite and the rest of the world), Bachar established many of the hardest and boldest climbs at Yosemite and Toulomne Meadows in the 70's and 80's, and climbing hard all the way up until his death. Bachars name has also become synonymous with free-soloing, and he pushed the standards of ropeless climbing to heights previously thought impossible. Tragically, it was a free-soloing accident that was the cause of his death at the age of 51. His impact on the climbing community and the history of free climbing are immeasurable, and his routes will live on as a testament to his strength, vision and staunchly traditional ethics.

There is a memorial thread on the SuperTopo website.

A different kind of memorial was established over the 4th of July weekend here in Tucson, as someone planted a flag on top of Hitchcock Pinnacle, with "In Loving Memory of" and two peoples names inscribed on the flag pole. I'm not sure who did it or who the two names were, but it is a pretty cool tribute. We were fortunate enough to have climbed the pinnacle on Sunday, and got a some pictures.