Finally getting some older blogs up. This one focuses on a trip Dave made to AZ. I'll make a stab in the dark and guess I was busy working during this time. :) I'll turn it over to Dave:
I’ve always wanted to climb the classic cracks of Paradise Forks Arizona, but logistics and an injury had rebuffed earlier attempts… This year, I booked a flight to Phx for a long weekend at “The Forks” and the sandstone towers of Sedona with my friend Greg who lives in Phoenix.
Greg was kind enough to offer logistical expertise at both areas, along with driving once I landed in Phoenix – a sweet set up!
We headed out from Greg and Felicia’s nice home in north central Phoenix early Saturday morning and drove up to Paradise Forks, which is west of Flagstaff Arizona. Although it was stinky hot in Phoenix (about 99), it was a pretty nice temperature up on the rim at The Forks, which is at 7000’.
Paradise Forks is one of the few climbing areas in the U.S. where you hike in above the canyon, rappel down to the base of the routes, then climb back out. It’s a pretty cool place and the home to many great traditional crack climbs that generally offer pretty good value and exercise for the grade!
Although none of the climbs are over 100’ long, they offer consistently challenging climbing on high quality stone. Great stuff! Greg pointed me to a number of classic routes and was kind enough to let me lead most everything which was great since this was my first time there and I really like on-sight climbing new routes.
The routes did not disappoint and by the end of the first day we were both pretty tired, so it was time to find a nice free camp spot on forest service land and enjoy a cold margarita :)
Despite this year being so very dry in the west, the Flagstaff area had recently gotten a fair bit of moisture, so the wildflowers were out in force which was very cool!
On the second day at the Forks, we climbed a bunch more classic routes, mostly in the shade since it was pretty warm. After a pretty full day, we headed south to find a camp spot just below the rim, north of Sedona.
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