Follow Me Around: Getaway to Eastern Arizona

Spent the last week in Eastern Arizona with Ashley climbing and exploring around the infinite limestone potential. It was our last weekend before Ashley left to work her Summer fire job out in Yosemite...bummer.
But... we didnt let that bum us out too much and we spent our time hanging out drinking coffee, bouldering on some of the local boulders, and exploring some of the cliffs I had seen in the area.

We spent the first two days at a local spot that I have been developing some boulder problems on. The rock is super fun to climb on and has some of coolest features! The area is littered with huge limestone blocks that seem to be there to climb on...pockets galore!

I have spent about year in

the area (on and off) exploring, cleaning and re-cleaning about anything I come across. Every time I make a trip out there I seem to find the next best thing... I predict I will have many, many more problems to discover. Ashley and I cruised through the majority of the easy to moderate problems on the first day. It was super sunny the whole day... and I ended my day with a pretty gnarly sunburn...no fun.

On the second day we had a slower morning full of coffee (like 4 cups!), yummy homemade breakfast burritos and then headed out to the boulders again. Spent the middle part of the day climbing around and enjoying each others company.

Tennessee Tanner
and Candy Corn

The next morning we woke up did the morning routine...coffee and burritos etc. and headed out to a near by canyon full of limestone rock climbing potential. Unfortunately the weather was a little pooey and the wind was super intense... When we got to the parking lot it was whipping around and I thought that Chaco might blow away! But...we (I) sucked it up and we started out on the road that lead through this massive area of limestone. The walk only took us about 10 minutes to reach one of large walls that I had seen in the distance many times before.

Upon walking up to the wall I became very excited at what we were standing below. The walls were low angle to overhung, decent quality of rock, and crazy features everywhere...

Ashley and Max

making the approach

We decided to climb a very short crack line we saw on one of the shorter cliffs nearby. I would say that the climbing was very neat but I unfortunately was not having that much fun on that side of the wall. The wind was whipping all around me, I was climbing like an elephant on the rock and my mental game was completely off.

The result...
a complete and total temper tantrum at the base of the climb. I completely lost my cool

and got super upset with myself and had a silly attitude. I was acting like an ass. Looking back on it Im not sure why it all happened...maybe the crazy weather or maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed... I love climbing so much that sometime I put too many expectations on my climbing and performance. Luckily I have a rad girl in my life that understands when Im not having fun and makes it better in her own way...

After a few minutes I calmed myself down and we decided to check out a different part of the wall. S

ince the rock was still virgin we decided to set up a top rope from the top of the cliff using some natural protection. When I finally made it to the top of the wall I was greeted by some of the strongest winds I have ever experienced. The ropes were blowing all over the place, I couldn't control any of the anchors, and I seriously thought I was going to blow off the damn cliff...

Me taking on Mother Nature

Ashley standing in one
of the limestone pockets
awesome.

The climbing was super fun and had some of the coolest features I have ever climbed on. HUGE huecos, tiny crimps, perfect pockets... in all of the right places... and tons of potential. After a full morning at the wall it was time to leave the crazy wind behind and use our hike back to the truck to explore the other side of the canyon valley.

I was equally as excited to get over to the other side of the canyon because as far as I could see I saw orange and black streaked walls!! And sure enough the rock gods provided! I found several steep walls that I cant wait to get back out to and throw a rope off of. Its really nice to have soooo much virgin rock right at my finger tips...

Steep and tall section of rock
covered in perfect pockets
and tiny crimps

Endless steep climbing with
cake easy access

After our long day of exploring, climbing, and hiking we decided to head our t butts back to town and head over to one of my favorite places...
the local cowboy bar "The Cabin".
Its really funny to be a "out of towner" in E. Arizona... Most of the local folk are long time family cowboys, like small town life, and love their local bar. So you can only guess their natural reaction to a couple of sandal wearing, dirty climbers coming through the front door... every one was staring at us (I think the jukebox even turned off). But... we broke the ice by playing some really fun and rowdy games of pool (I was sailing balls off the table), drinking their cheap beer, and mixing up the jukebox with ridiculous tunes (Madonna, Michael J. and sorts).