My Camelback Mountain Coverage Wins Award

It seems my love for the pink rockpile is being shared by more people than ever. And sadly, the mountain has been in the news because people have died there. It's what I call the dark side of the place.

For my January 2014 article about the beauty and danger of Camelback, I wrote:

 If you're not careful, Camelback will hurt -- or kill -- you.

Which is one of its most interesting aspects. It has been preserved as a place where you can test your limits. The summit trails are tough, no matter what your fitness level, especially in extreme summer heat. Climbers can seek higher cliffs, while the plain adventurous can scout "secret" trails to sublime, maze-like hideaways of rock.

The dark side of all this risky fun is that deaths occur at Camelback. The city couldn't provide an official tally of how many, but news reports register six between 2008 and 2012: three from falling, two from heart attacks, and a suspected suicide. No deaths were recorded in 2013, but rescues are common.

Six fatalities between '08 and '12. Yet since that article was published a year and a half ago, five people met their ends on Camelback in four separate accidents. I don't want this website to focus too exclusively on the rescues and/or death at Camelback, so I'd like to wrap all that coverage up here in one story.

In June, Seattle resident Eric Fernandes disappeared for three days on Camelback. The search-and-rescue operation turned out to be less robust than many hoped for. I was astonished at news coverage of how the rescue had been called off on the first day due to heat. I knew that plenty of people would be hiking that day. The heat would keep the crowds off, but the regulars would be going up and down during the park's open hours, as usual. So why weren't the rescuers combing the mountainside, looking for Eric?

I decided to explore this issue thoroughly when I got back, and the result was the following cover story:

The Tragic Three-Day Disappearance of Hiker Eric Fernandes on Camelback Mountain

Eric's body was found by a hiker three days after he disappeared. For some reason, he'd ended up far below the Echo Canyon Trail in a spot I hadn't explored before. Using the GPS coordinates from a police report, I found the exact spot where he'd been found. A stuffed animal was placed there -- I thought it had been from a family member, but I later learned none of the family had climbed down there. It must have been brought by one of the firefighters who participated in the body recovery and brief investigation to find out what might have happened. He'd been seen near the top by a witness who thought he looked tired. But no one knows for sure why he veered off the trail and climbed into sort of a box canyon, with steep terrain to one side and cliffs on the other.

I reported in a follow-up story that the coroner's report showed Eric had died of heat-related illness.

I talked to Eric's father. This kind of tragedy is unthinkable for a parent. I hope fewer people go through this kind of thing in part because of the info in this blog.

Gary Johnstone, a technical-rescue team member and fifteen-year veteran of the Phoenix Fire Department, died along with fifteen-year-old Trevor Crouse after they fell while rappelling on the Sugar Cube, a forty- or fifty-foot high formation just off the Echo Canyon Trail, not too far up from trailhead. I often see people practicing out there. In December, I published a story based on the police report. It contained a number of details I found worth including. I was interested in the sling Gary had used to tie to the big eyebolt in the rock at the top of the Sugar Cube, and how it went missing.

Picture of the ill-fated rappelling session just before the accident. According to the police report, a hiker snapped this just because he found the rappellers interesting, then later turned in the picture as evidence. I obtained it and the police report on the incident through a public records request to the Phoenix Police Department.

According to the officer who wrote the report:

"Evidence shows that a component of the failed anchor system was a piece of orange webbing strap," ... "It is unknown whether the failure was in the strap itself, or in a knot tied in the strap. The orange strap has not been located as of the writing of this report, in spite of exhaustive efforts..."

As I speculated in a follow-up:

So what happened? One possibility is that, despite his extensive experience, Johnstone didn't tie the orange webbing correctly to the eye bolt, or to himself. His son told Branch that Johnstone tugged on the orange sling after fastening it to the steel anchor, so perhaps the bad knot -- if that's what it was -- was where the sling attached to his harness.

Dougald MacDonald, executive editor for the American Alpine Club, agreed with that assessment but had some detail to add. We talked in May and he credited me in his short write-up of the incident for the 2015 edition of the Alpine Club's Accidents in North American Mountaineering, which was just released. In his piece, he postulates that Gary probably had an overhand bend knot in his anchor sling instead of the more-common water knot.

Before the year was out, another apparent heat-related death occurred, that of a 22-year-old Brazilian college student Emanuel Rodrigo Biana Costa Bezerra, who had just started an engineering program at Arizona State University.

I found this picture in a Brazilian online newspaper. It was apparently taken shortly before the student's death. Emanuel is the one with the red shirt over his shoulders.

In July, British visitor Ravinder Takhar died while hiking Echo Canyon Trail with her family. That incident drew worldwide attention. But Camelback had been gaining in press attention even before then. As I wrote in a August 10th article:

Enthusiastic visitors swamped the new parking lot, which still was relatively small at 135 spaces. The traffic situation now is as bad as, or worse than, before the upgrade. That's partially because visitation to Echo Canyon appears to have increased this year, officials say.

No wonder: Camelback received heightened attention and rave reviews when the Valley hosted Super Bowl XLIX on February 1.

The Wall Street Journal published a well-written article on January 31 about Phoenix's "Vertical Central Park."Time listed Camelback Mountain as number-two on a list of the top-seven must-do activities for Super Bowl fans to consider while in town. Pop superstar Katie Perry, who put on the event's halftime show, mentioned the mountain in an interview with the Arizona Republic: "I have hiked Camelback Mountain. You are talking to a Super Bowl performer who has hiked your mountain. So I know about you guys a bit.

My two cover articles on Camelback in 2014, the overview/history piece and the Eric Fernandes piece, received a second place award for Statewide Environmental Reporting in the Arizona Press Club annual award's. Here's what the kind judge had to say about them:


“Stern first sounds a clarion and prescient warning about the risks of hiking a popular trail outside Phoenix. Then when disaster strikes, he pivots and attacks the issue from the other side, exposing flaws in the response community’s readiness and rescue efforts. A fine effort filled with narrative, writerly flourishes.” 

I appreciate the award very much. But award or not, my goal is always first to tell newsworthy stories about people, and to give the public information they can use.

Camelback Phoenix: The Blog About Camelback Mountain Hiking, Climbing and Exploring

This is the 50th post for this blog. I don't really consider it a blog. The older posts -- most of them, anyway -- shouldn't be considered "old news." The site is a collection of stories, information, news, photos, links and other tidbits about my favorite mountain. It's a place for the outside world to better know Camelback Mountain, and the adventures I and other people have had there. On Camelback Phoenix, you can find info about hiking, rock climbing, the wildlife, the visitors and their trip reports, parking and anything else Camelback Mountain that I can think of. Some of this info you'll find in the provided links. For instance, sites are listed in my blogroll that give you precise directions to Echo Canyon and Cholla Trail, including the city of Phoenix Parks and Recreation site. The blogroll is automatically prioritized by Google Blogger depending on how often those other sites are updates. Summitpost is an example of a great site that pulls in trip reports and climbing info from uncountable cyber-commenters.

This site is mainly about spreading the Camelback love.

Another interest is to get a larger variety of info out there about Camelback Mountain as possible. No single site or book exists that compiles everything on it. Even Gary Driggs' famous coffee-table book, Camelback, (which I intend to jabber on about in some future post), doesn't offer as many details as I'd like to see, especially as a climber. Camelback's history deserves to be preserved, and I'd like to help do that.

As I continue to post here, feel free to comment and share links or other information. Years ago, I met a guy at Headwall named Ken who told me there are at least 70 climbing routes at Camelback -- far more than you'll find in any guidebook. There is much left for me to learn within these rugged 400-plus acres.

Okay, now it's time to update some of the Camelback stories, pictures and videos I've seen on the Internet...


Clichtenberger

I want to bring attention to a few posts done on Mountain Project by a "clichtenberger," as well as the Camelback pages on MP's site in general.

I assume that's stands for C. Lichtenberger, but I'm not sure. Whatever his or her name is, I'm jealous of the quality time this climber spent with friends on various Camelback routes at the end of last year. "Clichtenberger" has new postings on routes that I've been wanting to climb, like (Aerial Combat and Chimera, both 5.9), as well as some I've done, like Hard Times and Beehive. (I wished for photos of the latter two, though, for nostalgia's sake.)

When I clicked on the photo above that Clichtenberger took of his buddy "Lauren" on the 3rd pitch of Hart Route (4th pitch, the way they climbed it), I had a visceral response and flashback to my 2010 freesolo of the route. Maybe that freesolo wasn't such a good idea.


Tons of videos

At this www.climbingweather.com link, you'll find a collection of more than 100 videos about Camelback Mountain. A couple of examples:






This one's kind of cute and courteously short. Skateboarding, nice splicing and a great Beatles song.

Another video has a weird sky serpent and a song by Godsmack:







Suicide

Want more info on a phenomenal, three-pitch adventure climb with the scary name of Suicide? (C'mon, it's only 5.5!) Click here.


Where was that rescue?


Last November, I read about a couple of kids who got lost while scrambling around. I'm fascinated by the tale of how they climbed down something they could not get back up. Usually, it's the other way around. Of course, the TV stations never nail down for the viewer the precise site. Check back for a future post that will have the GPS coordinates. I'm also trying to find the coordinates for the spot where a guy in his mid-50s was freesoloing and attacked by bees. He was stung 120 times. I think that's information you or I may need to know someday. Phoenix Fire is supposed to get back to me on that one.


Climbing routes

Next to Suicide Direct is a 5.10 I'd like to try someday called Black Direct.

Some routes at Camelback Mountain, however, are best done just once. Misgivings is one of those. This isn't one that I've led, and I vowed never to do so after watching one of my friends fall on a sketchy piece near the top. Had he not put that piece in, or had the piece popped out, he very well might have decked.


A place to have real adventures

In searching for other posts out there about Camelback, the ones I enjoy the most capture the thrill and seriousness of the park -- like this one, entitled "This is crazy."

This one by adventureparents.com also captures the spirit I look for, though I think the type of pushy hikers he describes is more often found on Piestewa Peak.


Photos, paintings and other Camelback Mountain art

You paint it, I'll showcase it. (The above painting is by Michael J. Liebhaber.)



See you on the trail.

The Hanging Rappel: A Misadventure

November 5, 1989

I woke up at about 10 a.m. and tried to get Mike out of bed for an hour and a half. He still didn't have a job and arising in the morning was a very bizarre experience for him. We had borrowed some of Dusty's gear the night before, including "Phoenix Rock," a book which described Camelback Mountain, the day's destination, in exquisite detail.

We figured out what to climb after we parked the car in the small lot. I looked up at a humongous and seemingly blank face to the south. Mike, book in hand, pointed to the face.

"See that little 'v' in the rock up towards the top, with that dark line running down it? That's it, a 5.8 called 'Suicide Direct.'"

I gasped. "You're going to lead that? You're nuts."

"No nuts involved," Mike explained. "Just five bolts up to the 5.8 part. The first pitch is a class 4. We'll just free that."

I took another look, my curiosity aroused. It just looked so damned impossible. "Let's go," I said, opening the car door.

One of us forgot the backpack, so we had to wear all of the gear during the hike to the first pitch. The protective equipment dangled from our harnesses, bouncing and clinking. Parts of the hike were steep, but it wasn't very long. Soon enough, the large rock formation towered directly over us as we scrambled up the first, ladder-like part of the class 4.

Fifty feet up, that class 4 somehow turned into a 5.1 or 5.2 With gear weighing me and my harness down, the dangerous moves became a matter of life and something else. I'd step up to a one-inch ledge with my left leg while grasping a decent hold, then find a spot -- fast -- for the right leg to go, preferably higher. I didn't want to think about the less-than-perfect sturdiness of the rock. All we could hope was that if a foothold gave out, our handholds would be good enough, and vice versa.

The climb ended in a big ledge which was the belay stance for the 5.8. Three solid-looking black bolts protruded from the cliff face four feet above the ledge, and there was a blue sling connected to them, already set up for action. Mike and I sorted gear and prepared to climb.

The face on which Mike embarked was not straight up, but close. Now that we were here, the face didn't look blank at all -- there were plenty of decent holds. It looked more possible than it did on the approach, although eighty feet up was a lump of an outcrop -- "surmount the difficult overhang," the book said of it. I was glad Mike had decided to lead. The distance between the bolts on the climb was hideous, and there were no pockets or cracks for hexes or cams. I'd led 5.4s, but leading such a poorly protected 5.8 was unthinkable for me. Mike had led a poorly protected, difficult 5.6 at Granite Mountain (3rd pitch of Classic), so that and his other recent successes made him cocky enough to try this. Up he went.

Fifteen minutes later, my neck was starting to ache badly as he reached the overhang. There had been two long runouts for Mike to worry about, I estimated them at twenty feet each. That meant very careful and methodical climbing. You move slowly in a situation like that, conserving balance and energy. You check holds vigorously and be wary if one should crumble beneath your feet... as it did for Mike right before reaching the overhang. Leading a 20-foot runout means no falls, period. Never mind if your foothold just disintegrated. A 40-foot fall could break limbs, or a head.

Mike paused for ten minutes at the overhang, muscles tense, standing on one-inch ledges. Luckily, a bolt beneath the outcropping meant he would only fall six or eight feet if his skill failed him, but the fall would be a bad one since he would swing under the rock when the rope pulled tight.

Patiently, he felt around for options, not happy with what the rock required him to do. A deep, six-inch pocket was about face height. It would have been an excellent hold except that it kept you off balance, and the bomber hold up above had to be grasped at an angle. So Mike tried his famous opposition hold on the pocket, both hands inside, pulling closer to the face, where he could then attain a precarious, temporary balance point to launch his left hand slowly up to grab the good hold. It must have been a great, awful few seconds to go for that hold, feeling his balance diminishing as the one hand remaining in the pocket tried to pull him off left, causing his feet to smear off their tiny ledges and maybe sending him screaming over the outcropping to swing violently into the cliff wall.

It looked very smooth and professional from my vantage point. It had taken a while, but that seemed natural and necessary. A brief respite, and the rest of the climb took him only a few minutes.

"Major power moves, Ray!" he called to me, sounding relieved and proud. "It's just two or three power moves. You're going to love it!"

I wasn't destined to make those power move, as it turned out, although when it came to my turn to ascend the face, I did so with total readiness and confidence. Anything Mike could lead, I thought, I could sure as hell toprope. What happened next I can only make excuses about.

Maybe it was the 45-mile bike ride the day before, preceded by a few weeks of almost zero exercise. Come to think of it, I was heavily loaded down with the rest of the gear, including three full water bottles. Then again, maybe I just plain pussed out.

The route was challenging up to the overhang, but not 5.8 material. The overhang, on the other hand, seemed a lot like a 5.12 when I reached it.

Eight feet from my previous belay stance, a hundred-forty or so from the ground, I stood nervously balanced on one good foothold, a one-inch ledge, right hand in the aforementioned pocket, left hand further left on a two-finger balance hold, straining to keep my face away from the bulging overhang. I tried everything I could -- hugging the inverted face while stretching sloth-like for hand holds, tenuous laybacking, even an somewhat conservative lunge move. I looked to my left and right. The book, which I had dropped halfway up the first pitch and with which I could not have looked at then, anyway, told of 5.6 escape traverse to the right.

Far away in a world of relative peace and security, across a landscape of pale-green desert plants and orange rock, motorists cruised by on the busy roads bordering the mountain park. The scratchy hum of their vehicles wafted up on the breeze to my ears. Paradise Valley went on with life, its inhabitants totally oblivious to my problem. It was a constant reminder that the whole world was not -- as I was -- frazzled, frightened, frustrated and on the verge of exhaustion.

The last lunge move had decided it. "Forget it, Mike!" I shouted, unable to see him in his belay stance. "I can't surmount this difficult overhang!"

"Are you sure? Try putting both hands in that pocket."

"I can't! I keep pitching off to the right!" I noticed that trying to yell and stick to the face weren't mutually compatible actions. I had to do something soon or I would come off the face again.

"I thought that reach might be high for you. What are you going to do now?"

"Get ready. I'm going to weight the rope and try to get over to the left. The book said it was easier over there."

Never again will I climb a route without memorizing everything the book has to say about it.

"Left?" Mike questioned. "I thought it was to the right."

"No, it was left. There's nothing to the right."

Then came the awful task of weighting the rope. That wasn't a problem - just a matter of crouching down and hopping off my tiny ledge and putting all of my trust and life into a small bit of woven plastic. It was pretending I had no fear of dangling from the rope on a steep face. Then, while hanging uncomfortably, knowing this was killing Mike's guts as his harness bit down, I had to pedal my feet left and right, building up momentum to propel me far enough to grab something. As I swung, the rope chafed above me on rough, uneven rock. I made a desperate grab too soon and only pitched forward in my harness, losing precious inertia.

"Hurry up! What are you doing down there?" Mike sounded strained.

"Almost there!" I didn't sound too casual, either. I swung to the left, grabbed with one hand and stopped the motion with a foot. My arm shook with tension. The rope was pulling me sideways now that it angled so sharply to the right. "Slack!" I grunted.

"What?"

"Slack, slack! About two-three inches!" The rope relaxed and so did I. The next handhold I grabbed crumbled, leaving me like I was before. I slipped half a foot and felt the strong tug of rope threatening to yank me off. "More slack!"

"Are you on something?"

"Yeah, but I need more slack!"

This time Mike let out a good foot or more, enough to start climbing again, but too much should I pop off the rock. The horizontal swing combined with a couple of feet of vertical falling might be all I needed to break something.

I was on explored terrain, and as I now know, anything unexplored at Camelback is unclean. I carefully went up, using cautious stemming on untrustworthy footholds. What creaked or moved when I tugged with my hand would certainly come out under my foot's weight. Eventually I was five feet below Mike and far left of him. I reached with my right hand to a large black rock, bigger than my head, and pulled myself up with it. It started to pull out. I moved rapidly, using pressure from my left hand to stand on a good foothold I'd found. The boulder tipped out of the cranny it had been living for the last 10,000 years, plopped onto my foot and crashed into the belay ledge 80 feet below with the roar of an atomic bomb. People all over Camelback Park strained their necks looking up at me, perhaps thinking another climber had fallen.

I shouted an expletive, then kept going with only one thing in mind: Get off this shitty rock.

Finally I saw Mike. Relief washed through me. I took one more step and that that rock disappeared under my foot, though when I had inspected it, there was no indication a boulder that size would not support me. Even bigger than the last, it crashed violently on the ledge, splintering off into thousands of pebbles. Again, people looked to see who was making all that racket.

Just me folks, cleaning a route. Just making it safer for the next guy, if there ever is a next guy.

Had someone been on the ledge below, there would have no escaping the 25-pound projectiles raining down like vicious, inanimate predators.

But no one was down there, and I was done with my climb. I soon found out that our problems had just gotten worse.

Standing close to the edge as I usually do, I noted the height. "I hope you remember where that walk-down was."

"I guess I have to now that the book is down there, don't I?"

"Yeah, well, it's got to be around here somewhere." As we coiled the rope and organized the gear, I looked at the short gully leading to the top. We were not on the summit. We were in a maze-like valley. It was then that I started to get nervous. "Are you absolutely sure that walk-down is reachable from here?"

"Oh, it's up here somewhere." He took a long, pensive drag on his Camel. "I don't know if it's on the left or right, though. We may be up here a while."

"You have any idea what time it is?"

"Nope. Didn't bring a watch."

"Oh." We were on the shady side of the mountain, and I had to look out towards Paradise Valley to get an idea how bright the sun was. The city was still shining like a TV in the dark to my slightly dilated eyes. It seemed very distant and unreal. My gaze fell again to the ledge far below. "We sure can't rappel down from here."

"No, we sure can't. Not with a single rope. But we'll find the climb down. I'm just hoping it won't be too much of a bitch with all this gear."

We decided to go right. Twenty- to forty-foot-tall hills rose up smoothly all around us. Most were unclimbable. The path we had chosen was overgrown with particularly hungry, dark-green sticker-bushes. We had to hug the wall to avoid bad scratches, but at least we seemed to be descending. As we came around a corner, the bright-green cityscape showed through a gap in the hills.

"That must be the downclimb," Mike said.

"I don't think so. It looks a lot like a drop-off," I replied. The closer we got, the steeper it seemed. I was within a couple of feet from the edge and still couldn't see where this supposed path continued. Too bad we didn't have the book. It would have explained about the easy walk-down one ridge over from where we stood.

Not realizing this, we turned around, retraced our path and explored the way to the left. The hills separated enough to make one large, natural corridor which was good at first but soon closed up. I looked at the vegetation-choked passageway and noted, "That's all sticker-bush."

"Yeah, it is," Mike said. "You going in there?"

"I guess so. If I climb up a little here, I shouldn't get it so bad."

I picked my way up carefully, trying to hold the spring-like branches back as others clawed my hand. Then I noticed the humming. It got louder as I went further right. The sound changed to a low, muted buzzing.

Bees, I thought.

I tried to see what I was about to encroach on. There they were, dozens of the little guys flying in and out of their comfy hole in the rock. Many were just milling around outside their hive, waiting maliciously for some dumb climber to piss them off. Retreat seemed like a good idea.

It dawned on me that I had no idea what we would do next. We had a vague feeling that somewhere there was a downclimb, but now we were facing an additional problem. The end of the afternoon was almost here.

The breeze that had been perfect an hour ago was now tinted with coolness, and the preserved bit of desert terrain and hills which made up Camelback Park were dull with shadows, the reddish rock looking rather orange.

That was when Mike cooked up an idea so maniacal, repulsive and horrifying, we both knew at once it had to be acted upon. We uncoiled the rope. Mike would be the first one down, we decided.

We put the rope through an expendable, anchored sling. Folded up, the rope ends went down 80 feet, nowhere near the rock-pummeled ledge that was the start of Suicide Direct's second pitch. The overhang Mike had led over was 25 feet below us. Just beneath it were three bolts, enough to make us feel somewhat safe. The general idea was to rappel down to there, run a sling through the bolt hangers, clip in, pull the rope down, (being certain one end is tied to something so we're not left stranded), and then rappel down from our hanging rappel stance.

Mike clipped his figure-8 to the locking carabiner on his harness and slowly rappelled down the cliff face, not worrying if it was going to be difficult. I also felt very confident, perhaps overly so. Nevertheless, it was like I had seen us do this before. I had no doubt we could do it.

Mike was under the overhang, out of sight. I looked around the area one last time, and it was more beautiful than it had been when I was still thinking I'd be stuck up here forever. The sounds were of the wind, the same cars in the distance, the faint clipping of carabiners. Being the last one to rappel is always a good experience. It gives a fantastic, welcome feeling of total isolation.

"Mr. Stern, come on down!" Mike called. "And don't forget to test the rope!"

I wasn't about to forget that. If I got down there and the rope wouldn't pull through, one of us would have to climb back up to free it. I grabbed both strands and worked them back and forth easily. The runner was long enough and there were no rope-eating cracks to worry about. I clipped in and rappelled out to space.

It was a straightforward descent, though the overhang demanded some tricky footwork. There was Mike, standing on one-inch ledges and secured to a good-looking sling system. I had stopped to his right, my chest even with his head.

"All right, you having fun yet?" he asked me.

"Sort of. Where do I get to stand?"

"There's a small foothold near your left foot."

I found it, holding the rope tightly with one hand and clawing a slight ridge with the other. On one foot, with the rope tight from rappelling, balancing was awkward. I was using hordes of energy to stay on the rock; my hands were draining of strength.

"Why don't you clip in?" Mike suggested.

"It's all I can do to stay on this rock! This is no good," I shot back.

"Just clip in and hang. You won't go anywhere."

"No, I want to stand on something. At least then I'll have some control."

"Well, okay. There's a good ledge on my left. Can you get over to it?"

I sure as hell did. I remembered it from the climb up. It was a decent little ledge, wider than the one Mike was standing on. I secured myself to the sling system.

Mike then tied one end of the rope off and I leaned out and tugged it. Nothing happened -- the rope didn't budge. With a second pull, it gave a smidgen and then stopped, this time for good.

For the first time, the stress began to get to Mike. "Why the hell is it stuck? You were supposed to check that!"

"I did, and it worked perfectly! Everything looked fine. What more could I do?"

Mike contemplated this. "Okay, give me the rope. Maybe I can it get it from a different angle."

I handed it over, now more scared than I had been all day. The wind felt even colder exposed like this on a naked rock face. I couldn't stand the prospect of standing there for another half-hour while Mike climbed back up. I'd have almost rather gone myself.

Mike pulled, succeeding only in stretching the rope.

"I don't believe this shit," I said. My ankles were stiffening up. A second didn't go by that I wasn't aware we were twenty stories off the ground.

The rope was moving. Whichever way Mike had pulled it had worked. Seconds later, it whipped through the air like a giant snake and I could breathe again. Everything would end safely, this time.


(Pictures of postcards ripped from the Internets...)

Claud the Water Guy

This picture was found on a blog post written by photographer/"footballer" Jason Johnson.

Jason, a U of A grad who's from Seattle, runs into "Claud the Water Guy" and hikes to the summit with him. Claud juices up Johnson's short and entertaining description of the hike. Especially nice is his use of dialogue. He mentions how Claud tries to hand out water to "everyone he meets" has Claud saying, "It's a dangerous hill ... These city-slickers forget how hot it is. People die here... in the summer it will get to one-sixteen and they don't even bring water!"

Johnson surmises that all regular Camelback hikers have met Claud -- I certainly have, though I've never chatted with him for as long as Johnson did and didn't know his name was Claud. He hikes Echo Canyon a lot, that's for sure; he's in the top 10 of regulars I've noticed, probably because of his outfit. He's asked me several times if I needed water.

I suppose every mountain needs a self-appointed savior of foolish and unprepared hikers. Claud takes his job of Trail Police seriously.

About a year ago, I departed from Echo Canyon Trail to explore the base of some 40-50 foot cliffs above the saddle between hump and head. The gully turned bushy and I began scampering on a sidewall, having fun, when I heard a concerned voice far behind me shouting, "HEY! HEY! THAT'S NOT THE TRAIL!"

I tried to ignore him for a moment, hoping to climb out of his sight, but he kept it up: "TURN BACK! YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"

I looked up at Claud, who was several hundred feet back and up at curve in the trail, wearing the same hat and having the same general appearance as in this picture, but appearing less than an inch high to me from that distance. "IT'S O-KAY!" I yelled back. "I'M NOT LOST!"

Then I turned around and resumed traversing. He yelled one more time before giving up. I found a great spot to free solo in the class-four range for about 20-30 feet before coming to a section that I didn't want to do without protection. The downclimb was just tricky enough to put a smile on my face.

I passed Claud on the way down.

"Nice rock-climbing there," he said graciously.

More Thoughts on Camelback Naked Man

The plan today is to explore the cliffs on the south side of the hump, and some other stuff along the way, too. We'll see how much I accomplish. I have plenty of time today, but not as much oomph in my bones as I'd like. Went on a run yesterday and a long bike ride the day before. My right knee has been bothering me in the last few weeks. Of course, it's amazing that the ACL reconstruction from 1993 has lasted so long, with the all the abuse it's had. I can't help but wonder if it's going to blow out someday. I don't think it will be today, though.

I'd like to start with a climb up the Camel's Foot formation, though I've also a hankering to do my regular jaunt up the headwall routes and see if anyone's climbing the Monk or Gargoyle wall. I've also been itching to go back up the 5.1 route up to August Canyon - the green Petzl is in my pack. But I've done all those things, so the goal must be to hit some new sites today, like the south-side cliffs.

If some gas remains in the tank after the scrambling expedition, I might go up the summit, mostly to check out the base of the cliffs on the northeast side. There are a couple of bolted routes on them I'd like to see, in the hopes of climbing them someday. I've never seen anyone rock-climbing at the summit.

Hiked Echo Canyon several times since the Naked Man incident and haven't seen any other naked people. The police report still hasn't been released. A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Nick, the naked man's friend. The naked man's name was Brian. My lengthy Jackalope post on their mental misadventures can be found here. 

Nick had been hiking with Brian in the beginning. Nick says he tried to stop Brian after the older man stripped down, and Brian threatened to bash his head in with a rock. He told Nick, according to Nick, that he wouldn't do it because Nick was his friend. What would have stopped him from doing the same to a stranger? Nothing, in my opinion. I feel bad for Brian, who apparently left a couple of zany comments on the above-linked Jackalope post. But dealing with young, muscle-packed mentally ill people actually is dangerous -- it wasn't just paranoia on my part. As for the other part, the question still going around in my head of whether I should have attempted a prompt rescue like the one that eventually occurred on the summit, I lose no sleep on it. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that I had no certainty that he intended to kill himself. He'd passed up so many big cliffs already. It wasn't till later that he shouted his intention to do himself harm. But even if I'd have heard him yell something suicidal, there was no question I wasn't going to deal with him myself. Gathering a "posse" of sorts would have been the only option. It appears to me that Ewelina managed to do this only over time -- by hanging with Brian, showing to others that she cared about the situation, and nagging others to take action. Even then, the action only occurred at the top of the mountain, with Brian screaming that he was going jump, with no more options available.

And now, back to my irregularly scheduled adventure...

Bike and Climb

In the interest of ramping up the adventure and exercise quotient, a few weeks ago I committed to one of my favorite tortures -- a bike and climb. I live 10 miles from the mountain, so it's a decent work-out.



The Papago hills seem to be made out of the pink substance as Camelback, and I think they are conglomerate like the Head area, which has most of Camelback's climbing routes. The vertical terrain at Papago is much more crumbly, though.

When biking in this area, I always try to make it up Galvin Parkway and over the hills on McDowell. The Valley's mostly flat as a bicycling town, of course.



Even though this was in September, it was still darned hot. Hate to keep returning to this theme, but not long after I'd locked up the bike and begun hiking, I saw a guy carrying a dog on his back. About a 35-40 pounder, kind of a cute mongrel with a black snout. It was panting heavily.

"Is he okay?" I asked as they went by.

"He's just tired." Said the guy.



Almost as annoying as people who push their pets to the limit -- people who leave dog's crap in a little bag on the sides of trails. Do these people honestly think there's an official, and free, poop pick-up service? It's an outrage to see these reminders of mankind's haughtiness.

Not that I bother to pick them up. Someone else will do it.

Below, coming back on McDonald, looking south. Unless you're a CEO or use McDonald to get from south Scottsdale to central Phoenix, this isn't your typical view of the mountain.




All in all, a fun few hours. Except for nearly passing out from heat exhaustion on the way back. I felt incredibly drained. The humidity was high and the temp about 102, with strong sunlight since I began this one at about 11. After a long summer of hot hikes, this late-summer bike-and-hike tested my internal temperature controls.

Annabelle's First Time to the Summit

On a gorgeous winter day this year, January 29, I experienced a sublime proud-Dad moment: Annabelle and I summitted Camelback together. I'd been dreaming of that moment since Annabelle was born almost ten years ago, and then, sniffle, sniffle, there it was.

When kids get older, parents see fewer and fewer of those precious, significant "firsts." Being with Annabelle at the top of my favorite hill and seeing how excited she was to do it was just as awesome as watching her ride a bike without training wheels for the first time. It's certainly a day I'll never forget, and, hopefully, it's also a major milestone in her life in terms of her self-esteem. We passed several people who were struggling, and that made her feel like Superwoman.

"Daddy, those people are adults," she whispered to me as we advanced past a few twenty-somethings. She could hardly believe she was doing something so seemingly advanced. True, I've seen people as young as four make the summit, but I've noticed a pretty large range of physical strength and ability among children. Annabelle did it when she was ready, without a lot of pushing from me. We'd been hiking on the mountain several times before, and before the summit day, she'd actually asked me if we could go for it that weekend. Some of that was just trying to please me (oh, please, let her never grow out of that!) but she genuinely wanted to reach the top.

We've been hiking "A" Mountain regularly this year, and I'm quite sure we'll do Camelback again soon -- when it cools off. I'll be back out there this weekend, on a day when it's supposed to top out at 117. It was deathly hot last Saturday, worse than the previous week with the fellows, but I started that day at 11 a.m.. This weekend I'll start earlier. I don't want Annabelle to do it when it's this hot. Not only is safety a factor, but she might associate the hike with the heat, which could be a negative incentive. Kids, my kids anyway, don't really understand the concept of "no pain, no gain" or the little aphorism I thought up, "the more miserable, the more memorable."

I still don't know if my youngest, who has Down Syndrome, will ever see the summit. I hope so. She's become a decent little hiker on all sorts of terrain. It's one of my goals to get her up there someday, but it has to be one of hers, too. We'll see.

Here are a couple of shots of the kid from a different trip last year:




























Just for the halibut, I'm also including here a "pyramid shadow" picture I took that's sort of like the one I ripped off another Web site for a previous post. I took this a few months ago, not on the hike with Annabelle.

Summer's Here

Summertime -- and the living is easy.

Unless you're from Chicago, you've never before experienced real Sonoran heat and you're crazy enough to follow a desert rat like me up Camelback.

Our friend and co-worker Greg exclaimed, "This is harder than I thought it was going to be!" about halfway up. (I mean the Echo Canyon side, of course. All hikes to the summit referenced in this blog will be from Echo unless noted.)

Funny, because he's half my age and in better shape, overall. During one of our many, mandatory stops for rest and water on the way up, I told him I still had no doubt he could kick my ass at one-on-one b-ball.

I had found the going remarkably easy and, much to his chagrin, couldn't help continuously commenting how cool it felt.

We'd started at 2 p.m. on June 4. The temp about 105. But this was a classic dry-heat day. My guess is 2-3 percent humidity. Best of all, it was breezy. With wind chill, I was feeling like it was about 80-85. Gorgeous. And I've been hiking a lot lately, so the whole way up I felt like a coiled spring. Normally, on a beautiful day like that, I wouldn't have stopped once. That day I probably would have topped out in just over a half-hour. Still not prime form, but a good summit time for me. Instead, we pushed it near the 70-minute mark. And poor, Greg -- he just flopped to the rocks when we arrived on top.

He did well for his first time, actually. He's leaving for Minnesota in another week.

I'll be here, though -- my home for the past 34 years. The Stern family crossed the border from New Mexico, on our way out from Queens, on July 4, 1977. Nearly two weeks passed as my parents searched the Valley for a decent apartment and a possible home site, and in the interim my sister and I experienced Phoenix heat like I've never experienced it before. We lived in our family's tent-trailer in the Pony Acres Trailer Park near Apache and McClintock, (which, by God, is still there -- though catering to a slightly less middle-class clientele now), without the slightest trace of air-conditioning at night. Back then, the heat-island effect wasn't as pronounced and the nights were slightly cooler. But only slightly. We spent our days sitting in the trailer park's not-quite-cool pool and felt truly comfortable only when going inside the park's clubhouse or in stores or the model homes my parents kept touring.

That was my first summer.

And here it is now, my 34th.

The mercury is expected to rise to 113 later this week, NPR told us this morning at about 8:30 a.m., when it was 92 degrees out. No more cool hikes up Camelback until September.

That's just fine with me.

Camelback Hikers Brave the Summer Heat, but Not Always Successfully

Camelback's been in the news and mentioned in blogs quite a bit in the last few days, so I thought I'd catch up.

First off, several notable mountain rescues occurred due to the heat. This enabled me to mix business and pleasure by publishing a blog post in Valley Fever about the incidents, and a follow-up making fun of a local TV reporter. (Sorry, Kevin!) The news coverage of the rescues also spurred message threads like this one. I'm hoping the 13-year-old kid whose parents took him up the mountain without enough water is okay.

Seeing these incidents and the community's response to them, as heart-breaking as it may be to see anyone hurt, gives me confidence that liberty still rules the day. For all this talk about the feminization, wimpification, or whatever you want to call it, of modern society, the freedom to roam on our local mountains -- up its steep cliffs and in all conditions -- trumps notions of perceived, relative safety. It's 105 degrees and you're 73, from much-cooler Wisconsin, and aren't packing enough water? Nobody's going to stop you at the trailhead and tell you not to do it.

The firefighter interviewed in the Channel 10 report on the rescues, Captain Tony Mure, (they spelled his name wrong in their caption), says "I don't care what kind of shape you're in -- the human body cannot tolerate this kind of heat and this kind of exertion." That's simply not true and plenty of people who work outside prove him wrong every day. (Tony's a good guy -- the authorities often take a scolding tone with the public when it comes to these things, to try and warn people away).

I've hiked Camelback dozens of times in temperatures of 110 degrees or higher and only once did I feel like I'd made a mistake -- (4 p.m. hike, 117 degrees). The trick is to sweat a lot, which results in a "wind chill" (ha!) factor of much less than the air temp. This is difficult to achieve when the sun is directly above, so most of my 110-plus hikes have NOT taken place between, say, 10 and 3. Most often, those hikes were in the evening -- after 6.

Hiking in the sun, (even outside the hours of 10-3) requires extra precautions, like packing 2 bottles of icewater instead of one and wetting my shirt before heading up. Sunscreen is mandatory, naturally. Some people wear long-sleeved shirts. Once, while hiking at about 4pm on a 110-degree day, I ran into a guy coming down in full camo gear, long pants and long-sleeved shirt, with undershirt, calf-high boots and a backpack stuffed with unknown gear. This guy has the audacity to stop me and say, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Are you wearing sunscreen?" I told him I was, and asked him why he was dressed up like that. He said he was training for officer candidate school.

Meanwhile, plenty of people besides me made it to the top this summer without nearly dying. My next featured post is from a blog called "Daily Nuggets." The picture is of the blogger's "cousin Rob" making it to the top; my screen capture includes their text as well.



I also like this one from "DaSmith Foursome" blog. They met for their Father's Day hike at 4:15 a.m. (that's their picture below). Whoa! That's early. You go, girls. They all made it to the top.

I failed to summit the first time I hiked Camelback, I must admit. I was 18 and unfamiliar with mountains back then, though I was in better shape than I am now. The defeat was 100 percent mental.

I'd been by myself, huffing and puffing up the steep trail for a while, thinking I was getting somewhere. After I cleared the headwall area, the summit still looked very far, far away. I went a little further, and it still looked far away. I realized the only thing holding me back from cool comfort was a decision. And I made the wrong decision -- I decided to turn back. It had been warm, but not that bad. I'm pretty sure I'd brought a water bottle, but I forget what my water situation was that day. Probably not good. Still, I have no doubt now that I could have made it.



Anyway, my search this morning for mountain rescue photos led to a cool January report by Channel 3 I hadn't seen about rescues. The anchor keeps referring to dramatic scenes of firemen climbing the Headwall and of a helicopter as similar to a Hollywood stunt. I hadn't heard about the accident, in which a climber on the Monk fell 25-30 while rappelling, fracturing both legs. Holy ouch, Batman! I took this screen-grab of the shot of a helicopter next to the Monk.

One last note today: As the oppressive heat of July wears on, much as I love it, the green hills of the "other" Camelback Mountain featured in many Internet sites this summer makes me wish for a vacation there. I found a "SummitPost" posting from 2006 recently in which somebody crowed about the "great-tasting blueberries and rasberries" they picked, as well as the "amazing views." That sounds pretty good.

Jersey Girl Gets Sweaty

The pickings have been slim lately for good Camelback-related blog posts, at least for the type I enjoy.

I'm sick to death of the typical "all about hiking at Camelback Mountain" posts, which sometimes try to describe every step of Echo Canyon or Cholla in mind-numbing, technical detail.

"The Spicy Lens," is an example of my favorite type of post -- newbies exploring the pleasure and pain of Camelback terrain. (I also love posts about kids making it to the top for the first time). Spicy Lens hiked Echo Canyon trail in February, but published this post in late June.

People like Ms. Spicy Lens write about their experience because they need to -- because they had an adventure. And, of course, adventure is what I seek, either direct or vicarious.

She writes:

This was no easy hike, there are no fences or guard rails. If you lose your footing, it could easily become your last hike.

Local uber-hikers can scoff at such a warning, but she's right. I remember a story about a guy who fell off a cliff a few years ago at Camelback after sneaking up there at night to do the wild thing with his girl. As I recall, the story was that when they were done, he got up to stretch or something and stepped off into oblivion.

Spicy also worries about snakes:

I have trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time. Let alone knowing where to place my foot and how to look for snakes at the same time.

I've seen a half-dozen rattlesnakes at Camelback over the years, yet have never heard of someone being bitten there. It's a remote possibility. Out-of-towners fret about rattlesnakes, scorpions or even tarantulas on Camelback. The biggest dangers, though, are heat stroke, falling and killer bees.

The Spicy Lens blog typically focuses on photography. She's pretty good with close-ups of food and plants.

Summer isn't usually rescue season

This is a scene from an impressive rescue effort on Camelback July 30, ripped from Channel 3's Web site. You can read all it about on their site at azfamily.com. Two young dudes, Sean Sullivan and Anthony Edwards, thought they could handle a romp across the headwall. They were wrong. They ended up stuck in a small canyon somewhere -- it's always hard to tell from the news coverage exactly where these things occur. TV news people never have a clue when it comes to mountain rescue stories, most of them having come from stations in other states. One of them said he was vomiting and thought he'd gotten heat stroke. In the raw footage interview of Edwards never makes it quite clear what their flight plan, if any, was. A helicopter plucked one guy out before dark and the other guy sometime that night, or maybe the next morning. That's one thing I love about Camelback -- with the right set of circumstances, people have true life-threatening mountain adventures, right here in the heart of a big city. If you're not careful, you can even lose your life. I don't think it's too dramatic to say every outing to Camelback contains potential risk. What a wonderful thing, too. Camelback is a special place that challenges all parts of your being, physical and otherwise, no matter who you are. The fittest folks can find mind-blowing adventure here as well as the most unprepared, out-of-shape folks who stop after the first staircase and just gaze at the geology.