mt lemmon: willow canyon crags and the fortress

I’ve gotten a bit behind on my blogging… so here’s a little catchup post. A few weekends ago I took a trip down to Mt Lemmon to do some climbing and camping. The we drove down Saturday morning and hit Willow Canyon Crags that afternoon. There’s some decent sport climbs on the wall rated between 5.7 and 5.10. Fun, but nothing spectacular.

The next day we trekked out to the Summit Crags and found our way to The Fortress. In our group we had Gina, Tammy, Marty and I. None of us had been to this area, so it was a new adventure for everyone.

First off, we attempted to use the Squeezing the Lemmon II guild book. This is a nice book, but it’s confusing at times. The map to the parking area was misleading. Instead of showing an arrow off the side of the map saying “To Summerhaven” it should have said “To Ski Resort”. Luckly I had printed off some info from mountainproject.com, the directions on this site were much more helpful.

Finding the summit crags and The Fortress wasn’t too difficult. The map in the guild book does a good job of leading you to it. However the advertised 30 minute approach time is only enough to get you to the top of the crag. Once you’re there, you have to scramble down and around to get to the base of the climbs. 500 vertical feet of scree trails adds an additional 30 minutes to the hike.

I had picked a route called Steel Crazy to do. It’s a 5.9, sport, 4 pitches, and around 450 feet of climbing. I read its one of the best routes on Lemmon; after finishing the route I would have to agree.

I started off leading the first pitch. The start was low angle, working its way up into a small dihedral then to a roof. Instead of going up the roof, the route swings out to the left onto the arete (a committing and exposed move with less than great hands). From there the rating eases up, lower angle face climbing the rest of the way up the pitch. The entire pitch was well protected, especially where the climbing was the hardest. In the easier sections, the bolts mysteriously disappear. The runout isn’t too bad, but just be aware of where the next bolt is so you don’t wander off route. The pitch is long, probably near 150 feet.

The second pitch was probably one of the best leads I’ve ever done. The first half of the pitch is near vertical climbing. Extremely well protected, and the holds are amazing. The second half is a little lower angle (less bolts) and ends at a couple of bolts for a handing belay. It’s another long pitch, 125-150 feet.

The third pitch is supposed to continue straight up with more sustained, vertical 5.9 climbing. However, it was already getting late in the day and we were looking at finishing the climb asap. So Marty lead up a sea of chicken heads to the left, providing much faster climbing, and met up with the top of the original third pitch.

Fourth pitch I lead to finish off the route. Not much to say about this pitch, it was short and a little runout (at least compared to the rest of the pitches). Reaching the top rewarded us with an amazing view of Mt. Lemmon, Tucson and beyond.

Getting off the route proved to be the hardest part of this climb. We planned on rapping the route and had left out gear at the bottom. However the hangers on the top of pitches 2, 3 and 4 all didn’t have rap anchors meaning we had to leave gear behind. Rapping the third pitch down to the top of the second required some sideways swinging to reach the anchors. And to top it off, all the chicken heads meant lots of caught ropes. This is NOT a route you want to repel. The other option is to walk off the back of the Fortress. I’ve read it requires some scrambling, but it couldn’t be as bad as trying to rap the route. Leave your gear at the top and walk off.

Even after a long rap and a hike out in the dark, it was a great climb that I’d love to do again. Here’s the rest of the pics from that weekend.