Mt Lemmon

After sleeping off our climb of Baboquivari, Pete and I drove back through Tucson and up to the Mount Lemmon highway. Stopping at Windy Point we investigated the Hitchcock Pinnacle, but decided it was a little too cold to climb just yet.

In a possibly foolish move, we continued up the highway and hiked in to the Matterhorn formation. A near circumnavigation of the rock located the start of the Standard Route (5.4), a chimney with a chockstone.

Unfortunately, the route was still shaded, but being only 5.4 I figured we could climb it with numb hands. After going up the chimney, traversing right past a bolt I kept going right until I decided the terrain was going to get harder than 5.4 above and went back left. After setting up an anchor in a perfect crack, I spotted two bolts just feet away (but one had an old Leeper hanger, so I trusted my cams more anyway). I was now in the sun and would have been warming up if the wind hadn’t also picked up.

Pete had chilled quite a bit while belaying so tried to warm up and then follow the route. My wandering path didn’t help much, but he eventually reached the belay and I set off up the second pitch, which had limited protection beyond the chickenheads I could sling, but was an easier jugfest of a pitch.

Pete enjoyed this pitch much more than the first and likened it to the Flatirons.

From the summit we scrambled off towards a tree and rappelled a short distance back to walking terrain. Our next diversion (after lunch) was a short stroll to the top of Mount Lemmon, just outside the fenced radar installations.

On our way back down the highway we briefly pulled over at Windy Point, but climbers were on Hitchcock Pinnacle so we left it for another day. Instead we continued to the warm and sunny Green Slabs and found the 5.6/7 route Monkey Business open for climbing.

After a lap on that route we picked out a campsite a little lower down, then drove into Tucson for dinner at the Nimbus Brewery.

Complete photo album

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