Cochise Christmas 2021
Date: December 19-31, 2021Trip Report #: 510Partner: Nate Arganbright
Winter Break at Cochise Stronghold
- The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (5.10-, 3p)
- Little Bear Cub (5.11, 3p)
- Tears for Cholla (5.8+, 1-2p)
- Wind Madness (5.11, 5p)
- Forest Lawn (5.9+, 2p)
- All's Well That Ends Well (5.11-, 5p)
- The Price is Right (5.11, 6p)
- You're Out of Your Element (5.10+, 1p)
- Rickson's Pinnacle (5.10+, 4p) + After the Before Thought (5.10+, 1-2p)
- Call of the Wild (5.8, 1p), The Road Not Taken (5.8, 1p), Yay, A Substitute (5.9, 1p)
- The False Mirror (5.9+, 1p), The Empire of Light (5.11+, 1p), The Treachery of Images (5.8+, 1p)
- Shake n'Bake (5.10-, 3p)
- That's All Folks (5.10, 3p)
- Standard Route (5.8, 1p), Edge of Worst Fear (5.10-, 1p), Demonic (5.11-, 1p), Out of the Silent Planet (5.11-, 1p), The Chronic to left finish (5.11-, 1p), That Hideous Strength to The Chronic (5.10-/5.11-, 2p)
- Riding the Rails (5.10-, 1p), Reading Between the Lines (5.9, 1p)
- Here and Now (5.9+, 1p), No Doubt (5.10+, 1p)
- El Cautivo (5.9+, 4p)
- Matt's Line (5.10-, 3p)
- Town Without City (5.10+, 4p)
- The Big Lebowski (5.9, 3p), I Dabbled in Pacifism Pitches 1&2 (5.10+, 2p)
The second year in a row: Another stellar two-week Christmas to New Years trip to the East Stronghold.
Table of Contents for this page
Intro
For Christmas holidays 2020, Nate and I had climbed at Cochise Stronghold for 10 days (click here for trip report). We had such a good time that even before we began the drive home we had booked the Airbnb for Christmas 2021 and were making a tick list of routes to do when we returned. We planned on a full 2 weeks.
For the first five days of our trip, the weather was nearly perfect, with daytime temperatures being in the 50's and hardly even a breeze. Climbing in the sun felt great, so we sought out sunny routes and routes in the Rockfellow Group (the most spectacular but also highest and most exposed area on the East side). But then the clouds, wind, and cooler temperatures moved in. NOAA looked pretty dismal, forecasting rain and snow. Weather.com was a bit more positive, showing more partly sunny and cloudy days. Fortunately, weather.com turned out to be the more accurate forecast, so the days remained climbable, and actually quite pleasant at times. We donned our jackets and shifted to lower objectives and did more cragging-style days, continuing to enjoy the great Cochise granite.
Despite having to forego some climbing objectives and cut some days short due to cold or windy weather, it was still another awesome trip to the East Stronghold. We managed to climb 13 days in a row (one day had only 1 pitch of climbing but all others were fairly rewarding days). Our stats: 13 days of climbing, 16 multipitch routes plus 17 single pitch routes, and 72 pitches of climbing ranging from 5.8-5.11+. We climbed 16 of the formations: Bastion Towers, Chey Desa Tsay, Chalkboard Dome, Cholla's Dome, Cochise Dome, End Pinnacle, Lebowski Wall, Lower Lost Tower, Likely Pinnacle, Maybe Pinnacle, Out of Towners' Dome (three times), Polychrome Dome (twice), Stronghold Dome (twice), Surrealist Dome, Tsefnaeb Dome, Wasteland Dome (twice). We targeted mostly routes given a higher star count in the guidebook (two to three stars), so most of the climbing we did was spectacular. And despite the quality of the climbing, we never encountered another party on any of the routes we did. Nate did all of the leading on this trip. Just about every pitch here has some section of runout out of my comfort zone (which likely explains the paucity of other climbers in such a spectacular area). With Nate on the sharp end, we climbed the routes quickly. He cruised up the notorious Cochise runouts and difficult 5.10-11 sections with impressive ease. I enjoyed the ride and climbing with my favorite partner.
During our time at the Stronghold, we stayed in the same Airbnb we had stayed in the previous year: a trailer a mere 15 minutes drive from the trailhead. We enjoyed mornings in the heated warmth of the trailer drinking coffee, studying, doing computer work, and watching native birds and javelina in the yard and sunrise over the Stronghold. We enjoyed evenings grilling and cooking good food, working on trip reports (me), reading (Nate), and watching Netflix. I even did a couple of 500-piece puzzles. Like the previous year, we were treated to fresh eggs and homemade Christmas cookies from the awesome hosts Theresa and Ron. And just like the previous year, I was studying for a preliminary exam (this time in applied analysis), so I enjoyed my 4:30am wake-up-make-coffee-and-study schedule.
We had both Tanya Bok's guidebook and Geir Hundal's guidebook for the area. In fact, we had discovered the existence of Geir's guidebook during the drive to the Stronghold, available in both pdf and hardcopy; I ordered the pdf on the spot, but when Geir responded to my pdf order personally, I thought, what the heck, may as well ask him if it was feasible to send a hardcopy to our Airbnb, and he said sure, had it shipping via USPS Priority mail within the hour, and two days later we had it in our hands. We found that having both guidebooks to the area was better than having just one of them. I really appreciate both of these guidebooks for their wealth of route information and area detail. I am aware enough of the underlying controversy that surrounds Cochise route development to know that praising both guidebooks in one sentence would be a local rarity, but alas I am not a local.
For two years in a row now Nate and I had a wonderfully enjoyable trip to Cochise. We didn't want these enjoyable trips to end. So we booked the Airbnb for the following year (Christmas 2022) even before our trip was over.
The following page gives our itinerary and a nice photo overlay and photos for each of the climbs we did. I had given Nate my extra camera setup, so I included a mix of both his and my photos to give an even more complete tour of our adventures. Combined, we took a trip total of 1309 photos (345 of these were Nate's). Nate took lots of great photos I'd say.
Enjoy!
(Note: There are a lot of photos on this page, so some may take awhile to load. Hitting refresh may help if images don't seem to show up.)
Itinerary
Overlays
Mini Reports for Our Climbs
Climb 1: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (5.10-, 3 pitches)
POLYCHROME DOME (LOST CANYON)One of the few areas Nate and I had not checked out our previous trip was Lost Canyon. This beautiful canyon is downhill from the Rockfellow Group and entails cutting off the main trail shortly after the trailhead. On our first day of our Cochise trip, we climbed three routes here. Our first route was The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys: A long, moderate line and super fun route. (As a sidenote, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" is the title track from the 1971 album by British rock band Traffic. Despite never being released as a single due to its long duration, it became a staple of North American AOR-format FM radio stations in the 1970s and still receives airplay on classic rock radio today.)
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 0:45 DESCENT: 0:20
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 2: Little Bear Cub (5.11, 3 pitches)
POLYCHROME DOME (LOST CANYON)One of the few areas Nate and I had not checked out our previous trip was Lost Canyon. This beautiful canyon is downhill from the Rockfellow Group and entails cutting off the main trail shortly after the trailhead. On our first day of our Cochise trip, we climbed three routes here. Our second route was Little Bear Cub: A challenging and varied line up the steep south face of Polychrome Dome.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:10 DESCENT: 0:08
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 3: Tears for Cholla (5.8+, 2 pitches)
CHOLLA'S DOME (LOST CANYON)One of the few areas Nate and I had not checked out our previous trip was Lost Canyon. This beautiful canyon is downhill from the Rockfellow Group and entails cutting off the main trail shortly after the trailhead. On our first day of our Cochise trip, we climbed three routes here. Our third route was Tears for Cholla: High-quality slab climbing that follows the brown water stain up the south face of Cholla's Dome.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 0:20 DESCENT: 0:05
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 4: Wind Madness (5.11-, 5 pitches)
CHAY DESA TSAY (ROCKFELLOW GROUP)This route begins at the SW end of the Inner Passage. Sandwiched between Rockfellow Dome and End Pinnacle, every pitch has great rock, interesting positions, and grand views. Despite a cold start (we should have started later to avoid a few pitches in the shade) Nate and I thought this was an excellent route and were reminded that the Rockfellow Group really does house some of the most spectacular climbing in the Stronghold.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 2:15 DESCENT: 0:45
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 5: Forest Lawn (5.9+, 2 pitches)
BASTILON TOWERS (ROCKFELLOW GROUP)This route climbs the most flawless crack in the Stronghold. This climb can be easily recognized by the perfect layback crack in a left-facing dihedral that constitutes the first pitch. T-shirts on the first day of winter!
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:06 DESCENT: 0:15
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 6: All's Well That Ends Well (5.11-, 5 pitches)
END PNNACLE (ROCKFELLOW GROUP)One of the best routes in the Stronghold. Steep, exposed climbing and above average to excellent quality stone. No gear and all bolts. Thanks Nate for leading every pitch so I could enjoy the ride. Since we had a single rope in our gear stash below the Rockfellows, we did the single-rope descent route, which ended up being quite an entertaining and unique rappel route through a wild corridor system.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 2:43 DESCENT: 0:49
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 7: The Price is Right (5.11, 6 pitches)
COCHISE DOME (DOME PARK)With over 700 feet of climbing, it is the longest route on the dome. Nate and I felt this was the hardest route we had climbed so far this trip. The climbing and position were excellent, but the rock quality a bit crispy and grainy at times. Nate and I felt that this route is heads up and deserves an R rating. Nice leading Nate! I enjoyed the ride.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 3:35 DESCENT: 0:45
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 8: You're Out of Your Element (5.10+, 1 pitch)
THE LEBOWSKI WALL (EAST SIDE CRAGS)The Lebowski Wall is located on the rocky ridge that parallels FS 4809. The wall faces NE. Almost all of the routes are sport and are 1-3 pitches in length. This is a great place for a day of lower-commitment cragging. So the Lebowski Wall was a good choice when Nate and I were looking for a place to squeeze in a pitch of climbing between rain showers (we wanted to be able to say we climbed every day of our trip). We got in 1 pitch before it started to rain. We came back a week later and climbed two more routes.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Route overlay also shows a couple of other climbs on Lebowski Wall that we did on this trip, as well as some other routes we did not climb.)(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the day.)Climbs 9a&b: Rickson's Pinnacle (5.10+, 4 pitches) + After the Before Thought (5.10+, 1-2p)
WASTE LAND DOME (ENTRANCE ENVIRONS)Rickson's Pinnacle is the last route on the wall. Apart from a short section of crumbly rock on Pitch 1, this route has just as high of quality climbing as some of the other classics on the dome. On the descent, we nabbed a bonus pitch (and another summit tag) up After the Before Thought, which climbs a steep bolted face.
OUR TIMES (for Rickson's Pinnacle, does not include our detour lap on After the Before Thought): BASE TO TOP: 2:15 DESCENT: 0:45
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climbs 10abc: Call of the Wild (5.8, 1 pitch), The Road Not Taken (5.8, 1 pitch), Yay, A Substitute (5.9, 1 pitch)
CHALKBOARD DOME (THE LOST CANYON)Chalkboard Dome is the furthest right dome of the Lost Canyon area. It has about 15 single-pitch routes ranging from 5.5 to 5.11. We started the afternoon here and climbed three moderate pitches, but the sun had left the face so we moved uphill to Surrealist Dome.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the day.)Climbs 11abc: The False Mirror (5.9+, 1 pitch), The Empire of Light (5.11+, 1 pitch), The Treachery of Images (5.8+, 1 pitch)
SURREALIST DOME (THE LOST CANYON)After climbing three pitches at Chalkboard Dome and losing the sun, we packed up and headed to Surrealist Dome is just left of Chalkboard Dome, whose expansive face of granite was still basking in the sun for a few more hours. We climbed three more single-pitch routes here.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the day.)Climb 12: Shake n'Bake (5.10-, 3 pitches)
STRONGHOLD DOME (ACROSS THE WAY)This route follows the prominent wide crack feature on the main face of Stronghold Dome. A Cochise offwidth must-do! Nate and I thought this route was great fun. For big cams, we brought 3x#4, 1x#5, 1x#6.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:15 DESCENT: 0:32
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 13: That's All Folks! (5.10, 3 pitches)
STRONGHOLD DOME (ACROSS THE WAY)This 340-foot route climbs the far right side of the formation and provides some great pitches up quality face. This route made for a great two-route link-up with Shake n'Bake.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:10 DESCENT: #:##
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climbs 14abcdef: Standard Route (5.8, 1p), Edge of Worst Fear (5.10-, 1p), Demonic (5.11-, 1p), Out of the Silent Planet (5.11-, 1p), The Chronic to left finish (5.11-, 1p), That Hideous Strength to The Chronic (5.10-/5.11-, 2p)
TSEFNAEB DOME (ACROSS THE WAY)Named for Beanfest spelled backward, Tsefnaeb Dome is clearly visible from the main trail. Nate and I had gazed over at it on several of our approaches, and were intrigued. The rock is darker than most of the surrounding area, and quite textured. There are several single-pitch routes ranging from 5.8 to 5.11-. So when Scott Ayers emailed me asking if Nate and I would be interested in joining him and his parter John Fowler for a day of cragging at Tsefnaeb Dome, it was a no brainer. It was a super fun day cragging and chatting with Scott and John, learning all about the history of the area and hanging out with one of the premier first-ascensionists of the area. We climbed 6 single-pitch routes here. We thought these routes were quite good.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in random order.)Climbs 15a&b: Riding the Rails (5.10-, 1p), Reading Between the Lines (5.9, 1p)
LOWER LOST TOWER (IN THE SHADOWS)Lower Lost Tower is on the end of the Rockfellow Group. Although diminutive compared to the Rockfellows towering above, Lower Lost Tower's 300-foot face is studded with chickenheads and patina-plated face. The quality of the rock is excellent. We climbed two routes here before heading down to the more sheltered Maybe Pinnacle area. Riding the Rails was particularly spectacular, a 190-foot single pitch climbing up the patina plates.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in random order.)Climbs 16a&b: Here and Now (5.9+, 1p), No Doubt (5.10+, 1p)
MAYBE PINNACLE & LIKELY PINNACLE (IN THE SHADOWS)Maybe Pinnacle is a one-pitch-high pinnacle in the In the Shadows area below the Rockfellow Group. Likely Pinnacle is the smaller column at the south end. The quality of the rock is excellent. We had climbed here the previous winter, and had wanted to climb the 3-star climb Here and Now on Maybe Pinnacle but there was another party on it. So we climbed it today. When we finished, the sun was still on the rock, so we climbed another route called No Doubt, which climbs through a burly roof crack on Likely Pinnacle.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in random order.)Climb 17: El Cautivo (5.9+, 4 pitches)
OUT OF TOWNERS DOME (ENTRANCE ENVIRONS)Quality climbing on this captivating line.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:25 DESCENT: 0:22
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 18: Matt's Line (5.10-, 3 pitches)
OUT OF TOWNERS DOME (ENTRANCE ENVIRONS)This route is a companion route to ElCautivo, in that they are both moderate in difficulty, well protected, and fairly straight lines up the face. Lots of good climbing on tis route!
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:06 DESCENT: 0:25
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climb 19: Town Without City (5.10+, 4 pitches)
OUT OF TOWNERS DOME (ENTRANCE ENVIRONS)This route climbs the last bolt line of this section of wall. The climbing is similar t El Cautivo and Matt's Line but is the next step up in technical difficulty.
OUR TIMES: BASE TO TOP: 1:12 DESCENT: 0:22
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in order in which they were taken during the climb.)Climbs 20a&b: The Big Lebowski (5.9, 3 pitches), I Dabbled in Pacifism Pitches 1&2 (5.10+, 2 pitches)
THE LEBOWSKI WALL (EAST SIDE CRAGS)The Lebowski Wall is located on the rocky ridge that parallels FS 4809. The wall faces NE. Almost all of the routes are sport and are 1-3 pitches in length. This is a great place for a day of lower-commitment cragging. Nate and I had visited this wall a week previous to nab a single pitch of climbing before the rains came, and the rock quality and route options looked good enough to warrant returning. So when the weather was again rainy but gave us a window, we headed back to nab two more routes. We got caught in a rain shower on the second route but still managed five pitches on great rock.
ROUTE OVERLAY
(Route overlay also shows a couple of other climbs on Lebowski Wall that we did on this trip, as well as some other routes we did not climb.)(Click on image to open high resolution image file.)
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in random order.)Random Non-Climbing Photos from the Trip
PHOTOS
(Click through the album. Photos in a random order.)
