Thanksgiving climbing (Southern Arizona climbers)

Rather than filling our inboxes with dozens of messages/day (I think there were 645 yesterday), let's do this via interweb thread.

As of now, it seems the leading candidates for a Thanksgiving climbing misadventure are:
Granite Mountain
The Homestead
It Crack (Crazy Chelsea C's choice)

I'm voting for The Homestead, partly because it would be a great place to go and partly because at some point we need to decide. Since all of the suggestions are good, we could go back and forth until Christmas. On the other hand, since all the suggestions are good, we can't go wrong if we just pick one and go. The Homestead has a VERY reasonable approach to the actual routes from the camp-site and it is sport, so anyone who doesn't lead trad can still climb sans rope-gun. It's fantastic climbing and is not crowded. It's also FREE!!!

Per my previous e-mail, I'm offering up Truck #1. Chelsea wants a ride, which would mean I have room for 2 more to ride from Tucson and however many need a shuttle once we get to the dirt road.

If we go to The Homestead, anybody have a folding table we can use for the food?

Meghan :-)

I think the Homestead sounds good! I will need a ride (maybe for 2 people) in though. I'm ok driving up there is someone can carpool me in. Nadia

Just curious; how many people do you expect to make it to this gathering? The Homestead is awesome, but it can only have so many trucks/people up that road at once. Are you thinking a couple trucks or a full on convoy?
Also, I know most people have no problem getting up that road, but last season I knew of at least three different trucks getting stopped by or stuck in the crux of the road.

Red wrote:...but last season I knew of at least three different trucks getting stopped by or stuck in the crux of the road.

How much worse is it than the Dry? I'd only rate that approach 4.8+ (4x4s routinely make it in via 2-wheel drive).

It will definitely need a 4x4, but all the trucks in our party made it without a problem. There's basically one short section that is fairly steep, very off camber, and has ruts. When I went there, people said the road was better than it had been previously. We may end up wanting to do some maintenance for a few minutes when we drive through, which, much like trail maintenance, is a good idea anyway. It keeps areas accessible for everybody.

Just talked to Luis. He and I will go out to the Homestead on November 1 for a road maintenance day and reconnaissance mission if we all decide to go to The Homestead for Thanksgiving.

Anybody else up for a "trail maintenance day"? FYI-- We don't need trucks for this trip because the bad part of the road is no more than a few hundred yards from the beginning of the dirt road. If we can't hike that far, then we probably can't climb anyway!!

I will bring two shovels and a crow bar.

Meghan :-)

Meghan - I'm in for some trailwork :-)
Well, as far as I am concerned, any climbing anywhere sounds very exciting ! I don't know if I'll be able to go to the Homestead - or to do any climbing at that - on Txgiving weekend (turns out my foot is broken... oups), but hammering away with a pickax at some big dirt pile sounds like fun !
Please keep me posted about the how's and when's of that day.
Julie
:-)

I would definitely be down for some road maintenance. Count me in if I can ride with you!

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the Thanksgiving festivities as I will be spending the holiday at the birth home (Iowa).

Count me in for trail work at the Homestead and/or the Dry. I am willing to contribute both time and money.

Sorry Y'all, I won't be able to make it either, as I have family coming to town (Flagstaff). Unless, of course, P-Forks, the Pit, or Mt. Elden are added to the Menu. :(

haha, Brax! I just saw your "It Crack" note. Nice. At least it's not The Dry.

I voted for The Homestead, btw. Not sure if I mentioned that yet, but it's my vote.

If I'm not working on 11/1, I'll be glad to help with road work! Also, the Homestead sounds great. The pretty river rocks and fossils are icing on the cake to a place I usually don't think of going, maybe because my car is such a weenie car. Anyway, what days are people thinking of going there? I'll have to see what I can reasonably request off, and then at very worst, see if anyone is going up just for the day. I know I'll have Thanksgiving day off, but there's a good chance I'll have to work the day after, since that's a big retail day and all.

Chelsea Cook wrote:haha, Brax! I just saw your "It Crack" note. Nice. At least it's not The Dry.

You cut straight to the heart of me, Chelsea. Ouch.

How well do we think we can "Fix" the road? Are we trying to eliminate the need for high clearance 4wd altogether?

We need an official decision on where we are going and who is going because we gotta arrange food and plan the exact days. Who's in?!?!?! Anyone disagreeing with The Homestead?

Hello fellow AZ climbers. We had a good online conversation about road fixes last year and there are quite a few items that need to be considered when talking about road maintenance. Here are a few excerpts from the previous talk about “fixing the road” please consider the whole effect of any taking any action that could have long term effects. Keep in mind the following is a system of quotes from several different people in the area (a lot of the informing people are also the developers of the area). Full thread is at arizonabouldering.com/web/f…
: Peace

One consideration though is you should probably do some diligence and figure out who's land it is and consider getting their permission (not to mention proper permits that might be required.) Also worth considering is the attention it potentially brings to the amount of traffic we expect on that road and could give cause for the owner/owner's to reevaluate. It would suck if a good will project came back to bite climbers in the ass.

To get an idea of how complicated the dirt road access is as it is now take a look at this detailed land research that was done by a climber and posted at RC.com.

FYI: Here’s my source and the information I based my post upon. Pardon the legalese, but thought I'd give you what I found so you can check it out for yourself.

Gila County Assessor’s Web Site
Map 102-36-01
Township 3 South, Range 15 East

See parcels:

102-36-14, legal: SW SW SEC 14 3S 15E 40AC, owner of record: Dripping Springs Ranch, LLC (1st private parcel as you go in)

102-36-006A, legal: TH S2 OF S2 SEC 15 T3S R15E; APPROX 160 ACRES; - 6.67 ACRES OF
HWY 77 = 153.33 ACRES M/L (OUT OF 201-36-005 & 006), (2nd private parcel encountered when going in), owner of record: Boyd Angela J

102-36-005A, legal: TH N2 & TH N2 OF S2 SEC 15 T3S R15E; APPROX 480 ACRES; - 7.09
ACRES OF HWY 77 = 472.91 ACRES M/L (OUT OF 102-36-005 & 006), (3rd private parcel encountered when going in) owner or record: Boyd Angela J

102-36-12, legal: SW NW; NE SW & N2 SE SEC 14 3S 15E 160AC, Dripping Springs Ranch, LLC (4th private parcel when going in, The NE SW & . . . is the land upon which the parking area, the trail, and several crags sit according to the topo maps.)

Although Pete is the local user it seems Boyd Angela is the person to talk too.

If your concerned you may consider getting the special use permit although since we have established it as a climbing area I have not heard of a single climber being told they must have one to be there.

Manny posted this info about the permit.

An annual pass is only $15 per person and is good at all areas within the state.

You can obtain a permit many different ways. This website:

land.state.az.us/...ecreati…

has all of the information you will need to obtain and learn more about the permit.

There has been a long-standing acceptance of climbers and other user groups enjoying this area, but as stated above, do your part to not abuse this privilege.

With all this in mind we should consider all the variables whenever we do anything that might drastically change the access to a crag. Maybe its all my time in Hueco and seeing how bad an area can get that makes me conservative here but its also the dozens of other area's here in Az that have remained pristine due to our diligence and cooperation throughout the Arizona climbing community that reinforce how good we really do have it here at the Homestead.

Pete was the landowner in the area who told us to try the road to Homestead, he actually recommended the area to climb at rather than El Cap Canyon. This was back in 98-99'.

The biggest concern I have had about converting the road to 2wd access is the amount of traffic the crag can sustain. As it stands most people are forced to carpool to some extent cause of the 4wd section and this acts as a filter that prevents the main parking area from getting to the point where people are blocking other cars in/out. I have seen 6 cars at the parking fork and even that was excessive.

Another thing is the fragile nature of the rock, as it stands it takes the somewhat motivated climber to access and climb Homestead yet the potential for higher traffic also raises the chance that people who are less familiar with this area will break tufa's, alter trails, glue/chip/manufacture as they might have done in their more familiar area's.

One of the great prides we all have in Homestead is how we refuse to manufacture or glue the rock. We have been fortunate enough that the features the rock provides allow lines to be done even when a more desirable feature wasn't solid enough to work. If 2wd access was enabled then this would be much harder to sustain.

Although a worthy project the road to Homestead may be perfectly suitable for the environment it hosts in its present condition. Greater access = greater impact in most cases and we have been very lucky that no one has had issue with us using the canyon for climbing, I would really hate to give them the reason to start questioning what we are doing out there when atm a comfortable balance seems to exist.

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Sorry to post such a long thread, but this is important stuff to cover.

Thanks for digging that thread up and posting it here Carter! It is good information to consider. I remember that being a big topic this time last year. In the end I think everyone interested decided that the road was best left alone.

...Actually, I was more thinking of just making sure it was still accessible by normal 4x4 vehicles, not actually any kind of major overhaul-- e.g. if the rainy season made it so bad that you couldn't drive up it at all, then we would move just enough rocks to return it to the state it was in last year around the same time. Maybe the others had something different in mind, but my thought was the type of "maintenance" anyone would do on the spot if they were trying currently to drive up a dirt road. I just didn't want to wait to go out there and do reconaissance until Thanksgiving because it would suck to go there and find that none of our vehicles could make it up the road (4x4 trucks, that is).

Therefore, why don't we just kill the maintenance thread and leave it at "Luis and I will go the the Homestead by ourselves on the 1st to make sure it is still feasible to drive to the parking area on Thanksgiving."

I can't imagine, based on last year's Thanksgiving trip, that we will have a horde of people going, so I don't think there will be any more useage impact than with any normal weekend climbing group from Tucson.

That said, since I don't know much about The Homestead, if anybody knows of restrictions that would make it so that we just flat out shouldn't go there to camp and climb anymore, speak now so that we can start planning somewhere else-- Red Rocks, J-Tree, etc.

Meghan

Okay, this thread is now way off-topic. This was intended to be a place where we could figure out what people are doing over Thanksgiving weekend, not argue/discuss access issues. Let's allow those things to die here and get back to the original purpose of this thread.

I know there are people thinking of going to Indian Creek, The Homestead, or Red Rocks. Are those still the only candidates? Has anyone decided that they will definitely be heading to any of those locations?

Meghan wrote:(4x4 trucks, that is). Therefore, why don't we just kill the maintenance thread and leave it at "Luis and I will go the the Homestead by ourselves on the 1st to make sure it is still feasible to drive to the parking area on Thanksgiving." Meghan

No need to waist your time and gas money. I've been up there two trips this season already and the road is just fine for 4x4 if you know that your 4x4 can make it. Like I said in an earlier post, I knew of three different trucks getting stopped or stuck by the road crux last season. I guess some 4x4 trucks have really weak engines and should not have 4x4 capabilities...