Hart Route Freesolo Pt. 2 -- The Ascent

This was to be a grand day of adventure. The weather was outstanding -- high 60s rising to low 70s. (This was in mid-April, if you'll recall from Pt. 1). I had all morning and then some -- more than enough time. And I had a new rope and harness, something I'd been planning on buying for the last few years. In the back of my head, thoughts lurked of turning back. No matter what, I promised myself, I would climb with caution and reversibly -- I would back down all the way or rappel down if need be. At no time did I want to find myself on super-sketchy terrain. Yet I was also 100 percent committed to the attempt.

I took my small backpack, cleared out of all work stuff and loaded with icewater, an apple and a banana, the A630, some slings and a couple of small cams. At the base of Hart Route, I attached the climbing gear to my new BD harness and tied into the new rope. The rope would be in a coil at the base as I climbed, which is much easier than hauling the whole thing up at once. Doing that presents a small risk of a rope-stuck situation, but the first pitch is fairly vertical and has no rope-eating cracks.

The beginning went well, and soon I was at that nasty little crux before the ledge. As before, on the recon trip, I didn't like the looks of that last couple of meters, which require sort of pulling into vegetation, feet in a stemming-type position that heightens the exposure and potential for falling all the way to the deck. The right was more of a series of face moves. I decided the rock quality was decent enough to attempt it. A minute later I was finished with the first pitch, feeling like I'd discovered the easy topout I'd hoped would be there the week before. My beautiful, new, green 9.8 mil rope (Petzl Nomad) pulled up easily behind me. As I made my butterfly coil, my lack of companionship seemed acute -- nobody was at the other end of the rope.



Despite the bitchin' weather, Echo Canyon wasn't as crowded as I would have expected. It seemed quieter than usual -- or maybe my mind was just making it seem like that way. No other climbers were out on Gargoyle Wall, which Hart Route is part of, and no one was on the Monk. I had everything above the Headwall to myself. Which was just fine, for this trip, anyway.

The first pitch felt like solid 5.2 to me, especially compared to the 5.0 that I usually freesolo to get the top of the Headwall. That's the route just north of the class 4 section which is also freesoloable. The 5.0 is the one with the palo verde about 3/4 of the way up. It has a slightly sketchy top-out, but there are plenty of footholds, unlike the top of p1 of Hart Route. That makes a huge difference when you're unroped.

After topping out on p1 during the recon, a glance at the beginning of p2 caused more doubts to enter my mind. Those doubts were still with me as I prepared to go higher on the freesolo. If you zoom into the picture from Pt. 1, you'll see the bloke I pictured leading the start of p2. The section just under him is tougher than it looks, and I found the spot where's he's at in the picture a bit exciting, too. Plenty of handholds but it keep you off balance in places. Halfway up is a traverse to a left-facing fracture -- all good. Some rests requires an awkward foot stuck in the crack, but the rests were mainly to get my bearings and prepare the next few feet of slow, static freesoloing -- not the desperate rests needed during an intense lead. Still, adrenaline leaked into my veins as if from an IV drip.

From the top of pitch 2, you need to go up and right to access the start of p3. As I began to do this, I heard what I hoped I wouldn't hear: Buzzing. The hive was nearby, for sure. I tried to walk on the sloping ledge as quietly as possible, holding the heavy, coiled rope in one hand. Then I could see the hive -- it was about 40 feet away, up and left, in the same spot where it had been some years ago, when I climbed Hart Route with Scott. The hive thrummed with activity; in fact, the bees seemed a bit agitated and not just simply flying back and forth on pollen runs. Every few seconds, a small, black streak would zip by me, coming or going to the hive.

The bees hadn't noticed me -- yet. My apprehension was higher than it had been since I started the climb 45 minutes earlier. The rope was coiled neatly -- but could I set up an emergency rappel if the bees began stinging me? One reason Abbe and his partner, Jeff Passage, couldn't get the rappel going was that the rope was somewhat tangled. But if I was under attack, would my rope be tangled, too, thanks to Murphy's Law? Sure it would. I became convinced that if a swarm attack began, it would be a miracle if I could get the rope anchored and thrown down without tangles as stingers were plunging into my eyes and face. As on George Route, my guts fluttered as I imagined a full-on killer-bee attack, how I'd be stuck on the crag and praying for death to come sooner rather than later.

My fear level shifted into high gear. Fear is a requirement on a climb like this -- but managed fear, a useful tool to keep my senses as sharp as possible. Now I was re-thinking the whole endeavor. I stepped back to the false safety of the p2 ledge, where I couldn't see the bees. I started visualizing the two rappels it would take to descend the pitches I had just climbed, planning to bail. Dammit, I thought, who's the dominant species here!

I was on a mission. After a few minutes of pondering, I decided that I would risk the bees to complete what I had started. I was very much looking forward to the p3 face and successful summit. As quiet as a gecko, I tip-toed up and right, keeping my eye on the hive and trying to gauge the bees' mood. They didn't seem to notice. Without hesitation, I began pulling up the start of p3, which is a face but has plenty of fractures and cracks to hold on to.

Having led and seconded Hart Route a few times, I remembered the 3rd pitch quite well -- it's all sweet and fun, compared to most face routes. It's a relatively low-angle friction pitch, with lots of Camelback pinchers and finger holds and very little dicey rock (as long as you're on-route). The first 25 feet went very quickly; my tinge of panic made it feel like my climbing shoes had rocket thrusters attached. But as I got higher, I grew less concerned that I might piss off the bees. If they respond only to threats, they would have known when I was halfway up the pitch that I had no way of messing with them, even if I wanted to. After a while I forgot about them and concentrated on the somewhat nutty task at hand.

The first half of p3 is really easy, definitely 5.0 or less. I thought the whole thing might be a 5.0. But to my chagrin, the very last couple of moves of Hart Route are the crux of the whole climb. The third pitch is rated 5.2, but I didn't know that at the time. I thought the first pitch had the 5.2 and the last pitch was 5.0. That's what I get for not properly researching the beta.

(Above, P3 with crux marked. Below, the Monk.)

One last bolt before the crux tempted me enough to throw a sling on it. I thought maybe I could hold onto the sling if I fell as I made the last couple of moves. But my sling was much too short. I could not hold on to it and make the moves to gain more height. Plus, I knew that falling on static webbing -- compared to a dynamic climbing rope -- could easily generate enough force to rip the bolt out. Embarrassed with myself for wasting time, I took the sling off and steeled myself to do the last moves. They're easy, but it's Camelback face -- the poor rock quality adds significantly more risk.

I reached as high as I could and found something to pinch. I caressed the rock as I settled into the strongest handhold I could muster, looking for positive edges and the right directional pull. Once I found them, all I needed to do with get my feet up. This was a long way up and p3 had turned spooky, getting steeper and harder. I brought a left foot up higher and tried to move my right foot. Suddenly, my right leg decided to stop working that well. I tried to place my right foot in an adequate, though marginal hold - and felt a spasm in my thigh. Whoa, I thought, realizing that a fall here would probably mean death. Get it together. Calm down. Fear can make your worst nightmare come true -- or it can be channeled into action. I chose the latter.

I calmed my mind but could not completely convince my right leg that everyone was going to be fine. Still, everything worked nicely and a minute later I was done. Success!

I was ecstatic I had decided to ignore the bees. I had just done something I'd thought about doing since I was 23. Now, 20 years later, I have the experience and confidence to pull it off, so I did. It feels good.



I lingered a very long time in August Canyon, checking out its mysteries. I'd like to spend much more time there and maybe even spend the night. Then I rapped down Pedrick's and -- with much relief -- took off my climbing shoes and put my hiking shoes back on. My legs and feet felt strained from the few tense stances on the way up. Yet I still had plenty of energy, so I decided to summit Camelback. Hauling the backpack (with the rope inside) was more weight than I usually carry up the Echo Canyon trail; after that, I was finally tired.

So what's next for freesoloing at C-back, if anything? Well, there's always the Monk, if I want to scare the bejesus out of myself. It's got at least one kind of blank section for the feet that requires a friction smear -- the problem is, friction smears and freesololing don't go along - not in my book, anyway. One slip could mean curtains. But I would consider pushing up the first half of the Monk without a belay, then backing down at the smear foothold. Then there's... let's see -- how about Hanging Gardens in the McDowells? Probably not -- that's a solid 5.5 and has some very sketchy granite face moves that would be be terrifying. The good thing about doing Hart Route is that I now don't feel compelled to freesolo anything for the time being!

All in all, this was a day to remember. I would consider freesoloing Hart Route again before leading it. It's too easy on rope!

Piestewa Break

I hit the trail at Piestewa Peak after work today – truth be told, I left a bit early following completion of my next cover story. I was jonesing for a hike-workout and summit after the unsuccessful Humphreys Peak bid on Saturday. But it was really the weather that made me do it. Right now is so beautiful I can hardly believe it. Seems like February or March. And tomorrow’s supposed to be eighty-four, tops. Amazing.


I crushed Piestewa (still want to call it Squaw), as usual. Because there are more people, I’m always happier when no one can pass me here. My time up was excellent today – 25-30 minutes, I think. Should have timed it.


The sunset in the Phoenix Mountain Preserves always captures my eye – in a way, it’s that typical Sonoran desert look I love so much. The rock here has a brown hue that absorbs the sunlight in a warm way pleasing to the eye. (This doesn’t apply in the summer, obviously, when you could almost fry a steak on that rock). Vegetation is plentiful with lots of green from all the rain we’ve had this year. The wind is blowing well – a good day for sailing. No water here, but the palo verde trees and creosote branches are waving back and forth.


Perhaps the best thing of all about hiking Piestewa: The view of the western flanks of Camelback Mountain. Especially at sunset. Then, the magical pink-orange Camelback rock glows, while the dark shadows of the folds and crevices of the Head provide rich context. The greenbelt of the western edge of August Canyon extends across the Headwall like a terraced, though haphazard, ancient garden. The giant, whitened half-bowl beneath the crux of the George Route is like a fingernail. Homes worth millions of dollars apiece lie nestled in hyper-luxurious Sonoran flora, the ones on the PV side surrounded by acres of buffering land.


Hiking down Piestewa, like hiking up it, isn’t as tough as Camelback. When I choose to leap forward in speed, running down the flatter parts and bounding down some of the stair-like sections, I find there’s far less gravel where I’m stepping. The only problem is that the trail is narrow in places – it may even have more narrow spots than either Echo Canyon summit trail or Cholla. That wasn’t a big deal today, but it does on the nicest days, when the place turns into an anthill.

Hart Route Freesolo Pt. 1 -- Recon

Six-and-a-half hours of pure, kickass adventure in Camelback last weekend. I freesoloed Hart Route -- something I've been thinking about doing since the first time I climbed it back in 1989. (Click on picture for close-up, with dotted route-line). I went on a recon mission to the place a few weeks ago, climbing up the first pitch after being invited to climb through by some folks who'd gotten up earlier than me. The pitch is rated 5.0 in some guide books, but it's really a 5.2 by today's standards. It's hard to know what to compare Hart Route to -- there are relatively few climbs out there rated 5.0 to 5.4, and they're usually underrated instead of overrated. Unlike a gym climb, it's not sustained, and it's not always vertical. But each of the three pitches on Hart Route has moves that would be rated 5.2-5.7 in the gym. Add in the diceyness of Camelback rock and the quality exposure of each pitch, up to the top-out at 150 feet or so, and this climb becomes something quite unlike any gym or shorty sport climb. It gives me the same feeling I get while on trad lead, or even trad seconding -- an hours-long rush of adrenaline, fear, happiness, mental control and physical satisfaction. Freesoloing anything allows me to reclaim my human-animal roots, the need for excitement missing in daily modern life. And Hart Route is a good freesolo for me -- not too hard, nothing to keep me up at night when I'm done. It's extreme, by the average Camelback hiker's standard, but not too extreme for people who feel comfortable running out a lead in the 5.6-5.8 range, which includes me.



Spending time like this at Camelback is a fantastic mountain escape.







But I digress.









The first pitch of Hart Route is quite easy, to the big hole 3/4s of the way up. After that, footholds on the left become trickier at the same time the handholds get thinner. On the recon day, at that section, I angled left to a spot with bushes and a moderate overhang. Climbing in full static mode, as I do sometimes when I freesolo so that I can reverse the moves without much thought, I pulled myself into the final moves after a bit of leg shake. I'd initially felt like a total badass after the guy in the picture told me to come up -- another guy and a woman were waiting to top rope and I figured my unroped ascent looked kind of impressive. Then I ran into that muck at the top and looked like a wanker. Truth be told, I only topped out on that shite because, in the back of my head, I figured I would ask the guy for a lower-down so I didn't have to down-climb that last part with my ass 50 feet above the deck. I hate down-climbing overhangs on freesolo and try to avoid climbing up them in the first place, ever since my hardest all-unroped climb -- my freesolo of Rappel Gully (5.4) back in the 90s. That one has a nasty little overhang right at the top, about 70 feet up. It wouldn't have been a big deal -- except I'm too familiar with Camelback to think I can safely trust my life to any one hold. When I talk about climbs that keep me up at night, that's one of them. On Hart Route, had the bloke with the belay not been there, I'm sure I could have downclimbed the upper part of the first pitch, but it would have been scary.


I snapped this picture of the guy, then asked him if he'd lower me. It turned out that a purple biner I'd found at the base of the headwall was his, and I gave it back to him when he asked if I'd seen it, so you could say he owed me one. (I never would have used it, anyway. You don't know where found biners have been -- if found at the base of a crag, like this one, I assume it probably fell and might be damaged, even if I can't see any evidence of a crack, scratch or dent). I forgot to mention that for the recon mission, I only had my rock shoes and chalk -- no rope or harness. The guy asked me how I wanted to do the lower. I tied a figure eight on a bight in his rope, clipped a biner on it for a handhold, then asked him to lower me down to the easy part at the big hole, which he did.

In spite of the assisted downclimb, the whole experience got me thinking seriously about freesoloing the whole thing. I'd been playing around with the notion in my head in the days before the recon mission. Of course, I'd have to bring a rope with me in case I needed to bail, and for the convenient rappel down Pedrick's Chimney when I was done. Now I knew the top of the first pitch was sketchier than I really wanted, but having climbed it without a rope made me confident I could do so again. I stuck around awhile, trying to learn something from the blokes belaying up Hart Route, but they took so long to move I had to bail off the headwall area before they reached the top of the second pitch. That meant I'd be doing the freesolo without beta on the second biggest objective danger (the first being gravity) for any climbers on Hart Route: the deadly beehive. I only wish the adjective was an exaggeration. A few years ago, a guy named Keith Abbe  died on Hart Route after he and his partner were attacked by the bees that live on top of the second pitch. Abbe didn't die from the stings, though he was stung about 100 times, if memory serves. He died because he and his partner were not skilled enough to set up an emergency rappel while under the insect bombardment. I have no idea whether I am, for that matter, and I hope I never need to find out. The partner, whom I interviewed for an article in the East Valley Tribune about the tragedy, told me that he made a command decision as the leader of their expedition that they should untie the knots from their harnesses and downclimb as fast as possible. Abbe apparently didn't get very far before he slipped and fell at least 50 feet to his death.

Three weeks after freesoloing p1, I found myself at the base of Hart Route again, ready to push as high as I felt safe in doing.

Click here for Part Two: The Ascent

Photos With the Canon A630

This is a low light shot from the A630, the camera that replaced my first digital camera, the venerable 3.2 megapixel Canon Sureshot ELF. I liked that camera a lot, but the A630 has many more features and is 8 megapixels. I've found that it's easier to take a lower-light close-up in focus with the smaller camera, useful for "copying" documents. I've learned to use the flower icon for close-ups now, though, and that seems to make things work better. The one thing that drives me crazy is that when it's on manual, you can set the focus in the little viewfinder box that pops up on the screen so that whatever you're trying to capture looks crystal clear. And then when you press the shutter button it goes out of focus. I have no idea how to stop that.

Shooting long exposures is fun for making "ghost pictures" with the kids, but until I got a tripod for the camera the feature was almost useless. I've got a beefy tripod I use with my camcorder, but never carry it around because of its size. A few weeks ago I found this wonderful little tripod, about eight inches high, with three bendable legs that wrap around most anything. Since then I've been able to try more pictures like the twilight shot above, taken on the trail with a 1/3 second exposure time and 4.1 f-stop. While this kind of thing is nothing for a professional, the level of detail is much better than it gets on the automatic setting. It's good practice, too, in case I ever find myself with lots of time and amazing scenery to shoot.

The longest exposure setting is 15 seconds, but with that I took a couple of relatively decent pictures of stars in the back yard. What's really amazing is that these pictures were taken in Tempe, where there's so much light pollution it's hard to see more than a couple-hundred stars on the best nights.

This is how the A630 sees the Pleaides:

In the next picture, the nebula in the sword of Orion is clearly visible:

And here's the full shot of Orion (from which the above was cropped):

George Route -- Half of It, Anyway

Karabin's guide calls this an adventure route -- he's right about that. In Phoenix Rock, the route shows as linking up with the v-notch above the rescued dudes perch, the west-facing notch from which I emerged on the last August Canyon trip. I only got halfway. It's easier than the Neck route -- goes up straightforward terrain to the little green bush near the bottom of this picture, just left of center, then heads right in sort of a ramp-shelf system. I explored that frozen wave-looking thing, bit of a drop on the other side. Kept pushing right till the climbing got way intense for having no protection. Actually, I stopped right before it looked like it was going to get way intense -- around a corner on easy, but thin ground. If it was five feet up, anyone would try it. It's 300-400 feet off the deck right there. One slip and it's the express route the whole way down, barely a bounce before the big plunge. Extreme exposure. There are enough bolts on this route to minimize that danger -- I figured I'd come back sometime with a rope and maybe a partner and try it. But first I wanted to go as far as I could, so I pushed onward, already starting to feel the beginnings of that exposure. That's when the sentinel buzzed up to me, the lone sentry ordered to spy on this ridiculous wingless mammal clinging to the rock -- and to deter said mammal from going any further. The bee darted all around me, but not like the horse flies that zoom at 300 mph in figure 8s around my head sometimes at Camelback -- the bee flew purposely slow, as if to better use its eyes. Its buzz was like a red alert in my head -- I'd seen this behavior before. Bees are really smart and don't want to mess with people, any more than they want people messing with them. When a hive is nearby and menace lurks, advance guard bees will steer people away from them. And that's just what I felt this bee was doing. Which meant, of course there was a hive nearby. Except I doubted all the non-scientific gobbledegook I just spoke of -- I'm no bee scientist, and I don't really know how bees act. How could I know whether there was a hive or not? So I decided to keep heading around the ever-steeper mound of the corner of red rock, trying to peer at the terrain beyond, seeing what I might be up against if I made it around the corner without slipping, deciding there were a few very hairball parts on the other side of the corner, then heard and saw more bees. I stopped, focusing on the air just over the bulge of rock. Yes, there were bees, but were they just working a flower patch on the cliffside for some nectar? No. The little bee bodies I saw zipping to and fro just ahead were clearly converging on a central point around the corner on the northwest-facing cliff. It was a hive, all right. I aborted the whole plan right there. It seemed foolhardy, to say the least, to risk disturbing that hive while on sketchy, steep Camelback rock above a 300-foot-plus death fall.

The next two shots were from the bottom -- the exit of George route is marked "top" on each. In the first picture, note the horizontal crack-line at the left -- that's where the beehive is. The corner I'm talking about, and my stopping point, is the ground immediately left of the long horizontal crack. If it weren't for the beehive, it's possible to suck it up and traverse the corner, drop down onto a large ledge where those bushes and palos are growing just right of the crack, then scramble upward to the top. Definitely more trippy than pumpy. A fun adventure, which is exactly what I'm looking for.

Here's a link to the route in Phoenix Rock, via Google Books. How does Google get away with this?

http://books.google.com/books?id=XPg58yS-y2wC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=%22george+route%22+camelback&source=web&ots=5WnroM8DdR&sig=hiXVVX7ErhY9m1Vz-5MdrlixRxQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Mission: Failed (But Not Really)

Definitely a day to remember. Skyed it to August Canyon on a Tuesday afternoon, no one around, temperature soaring well over 100. Actually, there were quite a few cars in the parking lot considering the temp, maybe 10 or so.

I felt very privileged to be going on such a decadent adventure, and able to write it off as work. As always on such scorching days, the others at the mountain were the hard-people, the ripped dudes and dudettes who bound up and down Camelback like ibexes. I had my big gray approach pack:

Inside was an orange, two big Nalgenes of ice water, my 160' rope, harness and assorted gear, sunblock, knife, phone and climbing shoes. Notice I didn't say chalk bag. I left that in the Jeep. Realized that sad fact just as I got up to the top of the second handrail section, too far to go back. Who needs chalk. Just a crutch, really. Even on a hot day like this, possibly the only kind of day when chalk might be necessary, I talked myself into believing it wouldn't matter. Thankfully, it didn't. But it could have on a different day, on a different route.

As the firefighters had said, once I turned right at the top of the handrail parts (not the first steep part, but the second one), I found the class 4 back door to August Canyon. I passed this route at first, believing it might be the 5.7, Line of Fire. The trail keeps going from here so I followed it until it dawned on me that, no, as much as I didn't want to believe it, this was the class 4. Karabin's Camelback pamphlet calls it a 5.2. This is the spot the rescue victims climbed, according to a fire captain I talked to. Though the firefighters call this a class 4, I'd say it's at least a 5.0 or 5.1. Some moves are comparable to a 5.5 in the gym.

I had walked up to this thing and taken a closer look on the first pass, so I knew the beginning was doable. But it had the look of a serpent's mouth to me - it was balls-to-the-wall free solo and I'd wanted no part of it.

A few minutes later I found myself at its base again. I put on my climbing shoes and danced up the first 40 feet just to see how things were going to go, ever mindful of how I would down-climb. I decided to practice that start twice because I knew I'd be coming down with less energy, and I wanted to try it with the pack.

Here's a picture that ran with the blog post I wrote for NT.

This was a mini-epic for a few different reasons. One is that I was alone, and the southeast side of the Head was deserted, which it probably would have been even if it wasn't about 107. The heat meant few people were hiking the Echo Canyon trail -- put it all together and that means if I fall, odds are slim anyone would know for a while, especially if I was unconscious and couldn't yell for help. In that case, I'd be totally screwed. This is one of the realities of solo adventure, but the risk, paradoxically is also one of the joys. Taking on heavy responsibilities and meeting challenges, in this setting, is somehow like stealing jewels from the dragon's lair.

The climbing was easy, but only just so. The footholds were solid and positive, but thin, so that my heels stuck out on much of it. I saw at least three bolts on this section. After the first 20 or 30 feet the angle mellowed out and more good holds appeared. The rock quality, however, took a turn for the crappy. (No more bolts, either.)

A solid route exists there, but I had to pick my way carefully 'cause this was no place for a rush job. I wasn't gripped on the ascent. Highly focused, yes. I was happy to make that right-hand turn at the top there and ease on up to the August Canyon plateau.

This is a shot of my hiking shoes and a water bottle that I left at the bottom. There's a big eyebolt up here, but I think rapping it would take a double rope. My guess is this about 100 feet up; the eyebolt might be a bit more.

This was from a little further up. It was fun scrambling, pretty much, from the top of the 5.1 to this point.

I found this cozy little nook and thought it might be the access point to the north face. After I hopped up on the bulgy part in the middle, though, I heard a loud buzzing sound -- bees. My catlike reflexes went into action -- or so it seemed in retrospect. I'm sure it didn't look pretty, but I jumped off the rock with a bit of a spin, landing in that sandy part there and running back out nearly in panic. My only thought was to put as much distance as possible between me and the hive before they targeted me. I knew a swarm attack here could be deadly -- probably the biggest objective danger at Camelback. You could be as cautious as a mouse and a world-class climber to boot and still end up dead with the venom of 500 stings in you. Or maybe you only get one or two hundred stings before you do something crazy and slip off a cliff face. I tiptoed back in here after I realized they weren't coming after me. Sure enough, there was a hive in there. Look at the formation on the left -- see how it looks like a whale lying on its right side, with the big crack becoming the dark line of its mouth and the pocket above it the whale's small, black, set-back eye? The hive is the eye. Dozens of bees were flying in and out of it every second, and I tried not to breathe too heavily, thinking they might not like that. I wondered -- if they attacked, which would be the best course of action: Try a single-line rappel or down-climb the 5.1. Having a rope to descend would be safer, of course, except the bees would annihilate you during the set-up. You'd have to do it blind, with your shirt pulled above your face, else you'd need your hands to scoop the bees out of your eyes. A quick figure eight on a bight, quick biner clip, then either batman (possibly tearing all the skin off your hands) or rappel, but the rappel takes another minute to hook up and the bees are all over your arms, your chest, your neck. The rope would be tangled -- of course it would. A bad tangle would mean death. Then there's Option B -- climbing. As mentioned, the bees go for the eyes and mouth -- it might not be possible to downclimb and keep the bees from the eyes at the same time. Blindness could occur rather quickly as the eyes swelled up. But route-finding on the 5.1 is essential. Going more than a few feet off route could mean disaster. You'd quickly downclimb to a blind alley, then have to climb back up and try another path, assuming instinct didn't keep you downclimbing until a slip occurred. The guy I interviewed for the Trib managed to downclimb Hart Route while being stung by wave after wave of bees, but I know Hart Route fairly well and it's hard to get off route there. It's very straight-forward. Not like this 5.1, which requires extra focusing of the eyes just to see the route under ideal conditions. Whether Option A or B would be chosen would probably depend on the severity of the attack. A heavier attack might prompt a decision to downclimb, though in fact the downclimb might only be possible under a lighter bombardment, which would mean the right decision would be counter-intuitive and thus less likely to be chosen in an emergency.

Here's evidence of some of the "gardening" the firefighters did. This was after I found the notch that led to the north face. There's a wonderful little cubby spot here with a sublime view. There's also a fair sprinkling of garbage up here, lots of empty water bottles which I assume are also from the rescue.

The view from this notch is fantastic, and strikingly different than what 99 percent of hikers will ever see at Camelback -- as are many of the views from the various climbing routes. This scene looks north past a section of the Echo Canyon trail. That's the main bouldering boulder in the middle of the trail slight left of center.

A view of some of the upper bluffs.

Here's another reference from where this was. Above is a shot is from the parking lot...

And this is a shot of the parking lot from that spot. I still find it hard to believe it's 400 feet to the ground from this perch. More like 250 or 300 max, I'd say.

Anyway, I consider the mission a failure because I never made it to the rescued dudes' perch. I descended about 40 or 50 feet from the notch opening, down a fairly clean dry water fall -- not totally dry, though -- there were at least three pools of water ranging from about one to two feet in diameter, each with a dozen or so bees taking a sip. I gingerly picked my way around those and stopped about 40 feet above the perch. I would go no farther, making this trip a failure.

The downclimbing from that point became sketchier, in the neighborhood of the upper part of the 5.1. It looked potentially doable, but it was about 6:30 or so by then. I decided to abort the mission since it was going to take some time to climb back up to the notch, trek across August Canyon to the downclimb, then do the downclimb (the prospect of which had left a seed of anxiety growing in my stomach from the second I reached the top of it).

This is such a great area -- I'd love to go back soon. Exploring around the Canyon would be fun, and I'd like to find the four-chain rappel for Suicide and Suicide Direct, which should be accessible a bit further west in the canyon. The growth gets kind of thick in places and the potential for bees or rattlesnakes are the only bad things about this place. It's about as good as it gets for a desert hideaway.

Initial Recon

Here's the rescue site outlined in yellow. Had a good chat with the firefighters today - it's sure tough to try to second-guess them. I will withhold judgment either way until I do the class 4 up the back side and climb to this spot. It looks a little hairy to me in terms of exposure. The climbing might be easy, but one slip and it's a 400' death fall. Even from the bottom there appear to be decent pro opportunities, though that's another thing that can only be verified from the actual spot. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to explore the area after my interviews. And to some extent I misjudged just how long it would take to get to the site, since until today I didn't know where it was. One surprise was the height of the site from the ground. These guys estimate 400-450'. And it's obvious there are no good ledges with pro placements on that wall directly below the site (which is mostly blocked by rocks in the foreground, in this picture). Rappelling with my 160' rope not an option. But it would hardly be necessary -- the only logical place from that roost is back up and over, onto the back side of those bluffs, and the firefighters say that is class 4. I may consider fixing my rope back behind that "v" notch to the right of my yellow circle. It sure is a long way down. Here's a picture of the firefighters I never used for the NT blog: