Trip Report
Mount Lemmon, Tucson, AZ
July 4th Weekend, 2008
Felicia and I headed down to Mt. Lemmon with the camper for the holiday weekend. She didn't have Thursday off, so I spent Thursday working on some camper fixes and improvements and we headed south on Friday morning. One of my improvements was to install a 12V lighter plug in the back of the camper so we'd have power for anything that could use the plug. It took me a few trips, but I finally sorted it out and got it installed. I tested it out with the 12V fan we got for the camper.
The camper doesn't do half bad on gas mileage while on the highway, but two things make it suck gas like a kid at a hot dog eating contest; 1) stop and go driving through town in traffic, and 2) honking up the side of a mountain. So we did pretty good between Phoenix and Tucson, then used nearly the same amount of fuel driving across town and up Mt. Lemmon to the camping spot for the weekend. But we made it!
There aren't many free and available spots left to camp on Lemmon, what with the Forest Service charging for everything except air, but you can still stay at the fisherman's/overflow parking area above Rose Canyon Lake, so that's where we headed. You can see where the forest fire that raged on Lemmon a few years ago swept through this area burning trees as well as some of the cabins nearby that people have grandfathered into the forest on long-term leases.
We got rigged up and headed down to the Wall of the Waltzing Witches, just south on the other side of the ridge from Munchkin Wall (Wall of the Marching Munchkins). We did a few routes there before calling it a day and hiking back to the campsite/parking spot. e had a pretty fun weekend. It started sprinkling a few minutes after we got back to the camper, but didn't last long. We cooked dinner, hung out doing Soduku puzzles and reading a bit before bedtime.
Felicia and Riley headed down the hill on the hike to Witch Wall to climb.
Felicia leading a route on the right end of the Wall of the Waltzing Witches.
Rose Canyon Lake - seen from the trail down to the Munchkinland Area. Before the fire, you couldn't see the lake for the trees on the ridge.
Saturday, we hiked down to Munchkin Wall and ran into some (old and new) friends and we ended up climbing with them the rest of the day. We warmed up with a couple routes on the Wall of the Dancing Dwarves (far right just past Munch). The two routes were 10a and 10b, and a bit of a rude wakeup call for the fingers. By the time we finished up the second route, the sun was cooking us, so we packed up adn headed down to the Troll Wall and climbed there. There were some other climbers down there, but all very nice people and a lot of fun to hang out with.
Horny toad we ran across on the trail when hiking down to climb the second day.
After doing a few routes, on Troll Wall, it started sprinkling, then full on raining. Everyone grabbed their stuff and piled under an overhang down across from the right end of the wall. Frankly, it wasn't all that dry of a spot either, but better than being out in the downpour (especially with my rain jacket safe and dry in the camper). The rain went off for a while. When it was done, we hiked up to an overhanging tower (still dry) and Felicia got one more route in before we packed up and hiked back to the camper. We gave our friends the two-cent tour of the camper, hung out a bit and then they took off. The camper has an outside shower that runs off the water pump, so we fired that up and took quickie showers to clean up. I have to say it: that shower deal absoluteyl ROCKS!!!
After we cleaned up, we hung out eating watermelon, turned on the music, and did some more soduku (Felicia started this... I'd never even done one before she showed up with a book full of puzzles). Before long, the rain started up again, but we didn't care cuz we were snug and dry with Led Zeppelin, lights, running water, and fettucini alfredo. And we could look outside and see the guys in tents across in the main lot trying to keep try and cook dinner in the dark. Been there, done that... have to say it's much nicer being dry and snug. :-)
Troll Wall as seen from the approach. Some pretty nice rock and cool routes.
Riley absolutely obsessed with a lizard that seemed fairly intent on driving him nuts. He was still chasing it around fifteen minutes later!
Tanya leading Fur Chrissakes , a 10a crack in the middle of Troll Wall. This was a really nice route and a nice lead forTanya!
Another shot of Tanya on Fur Chrissakes (10a) on Troll Wall. You can see the sky isn't looking so good in the background.
it wasn't too long after this that the rain came on down and we all had to run for it.
Riley being watchdog on a point of rock after the rain let up.
Flowers down near Troll Wall.
Riley on Saturday after we hiked back to the campsite. He was pretty pounded. When it started raining, he went to sleep in the camper, snoring loud enough to be heard over the rain on the roof. What a baby!
Sunday, we weren't quite ready to roll when the others showed up, so they headed on down and we took a little longer to organize, and get the camper sort of packed with the top dropped in case we walked out in the rain. We went back to Troll Wall because it was overcast and the sun wasn't really a factor. I grabbed the gear and jumped on a route called Do You Want To Live Forever (5.9). As it turned out, I should have taken a lot more more small gear, but I managed to work it out with nuts and wishful thinking. The crux was a thin corner with bare footholds and you had to pull up off a sort of one-hand finger lock. Was quite the grunt move. Once that was done, it wasn't too bad from there to the anchor. Frankly, I thought this route was harder than Fur Chrissakes (10a) that we did later in the day, but Lemmon rock sometimes gives me the heebie-jeebies, so may have just been that.
We got a few routes done and the clouds came in fast over the top of the wall. Deja vu from the day before. Felicia and I were planning on heading out anyway for the drive back to Phoenix, so we just hoofed it on out of there while the rain started. Was a little weird... we were in full on sun at the top of Munchkin Wall and being pelted with rain. It sort of rained on us most of the way, but the lightning and thunder held off, so it wasn't too bad hiking out. By the time we got to the camper, the rain was sort of gone again, so we showered up, packed and headed north for Phoenix.
Weird colored beetle up near the campsite. They were all over the place.
Tanya finishing an overhang on a 5.10 route just left of Fur Chrissake, in the middle of Troll Wall.
I was just coming down off a 5.9 to the right and thought it might be a good picture.
Felicia on Do You Want To Live Forever (5.9), the route I led to start the day. Steep!
Nice weekend, cushy camping, fun people, great routes! Can't beat that with a stick!
G.
