Hidden Jewels is a small Mount Lemmon crag with a little more dust and dirt than many other area crags. All of the climbs are a single pitch. Most of the routes here have a few bolts, but require some gear as well. With a single 60M rope and plenty of webbing + gear to set up anchors, you can TR about anything there. What makes Hidden Jewels nice is the fact that it is low on the road, which means that they are at a low elevation, and thus warmer when it is otherwise cold. It is a reasonably short walk in, and that there is a high concentration of moderate grades in this one place. You can go here for a single day and climb everything.
The rock faces primarily West, giving morning shade and afternoon sun, so plan accoringinly.
Getting There
Drive to MP 1.3 up the Mount Lemon Highway, to a pulloff on your left, which can accomodate just a few cars. Hike up the steep Soldier Trail through a nice forest of Saguaro Cacti for about 20-25 min to the climber's path at an obvious cairn on the left (It looks like the "small triangular rock" mentioned in the guidebook has been incorporated into the cairn.) In 50 ft or so the path branches: left leads to a small (camping?) clearing while the right branch seems to be the main path to the cliffs. The right branch soon weaves through cacti, contouring around to the right and, in 5-10 min (depending on how fast you walk through cacti) swings around the ridgeline to the top of some cliffs.
It looked to me as if the main cliffis up to the right another 150-200 yards or so. But just where you go around the ridge there is a cairn down low on top of the (much more fractured-looking) lower cliff. I don't know if this is supposed to mark a potential down-climb ( it looked pretty fractured, and leads to what? ) or rap location (no anchors) or what?
Overall, with gear and a rope I'd think the average climber on their first outing to this cliff would take 30-40 minutes to reach the actual base. The ascent was about 600 vertical ft by my altimeter watch.
WARNING!!!
There is a well-established hive of bees in a crack to the right of the "Lazy S" chimney, as you first approach that rock, close to the ground.
[Hide Photo] View up and left from about where the cairn is on top of the "Lower Wall". See COMMENTs for note on chains (arrow) and path to "Upper Wall"
[Hide Photo] where the climber's path goes around the rock ridge
[Hide Photo] I first thought this was "Upper Crag", but Eric Rhicard says "Nope"! (see comments) Anyways, this is what you see after "rounding around the ridgeline".
[Hide Photo] The climber's path (Yes, it's in the photo !) leads around to the base of the rock ridge
[Hide Photo] Cairn (using "triangular rock" mentioned in the guidebook) where the climber's path branches left from the Soldier Trail (about 20 min up)
[Hide Comment] The right and left ones on the upper blocks are okay climbs, the left one has runout between bolts 3/4 (a good small nut/cam works quater inch or so) and 5/6, the gear between 5/6 is no good.
I'd have to agree that it might not really be worth the hike, can't comment on the stuff down below. The view and hike are worth it in there own right though. Rock was cold and shady, but climbable.
To get there, once you get up pretty high on the soldier trail, you'll see a cairn and a big hill to the left, a big rock formation across the valley to the right, and a ridge in front of you. You want to get around the ridge towards the left side. You will be above most of the climbs, but keep following the top of the cliff and you'll see a few big fomartions/walls/chimneys. The 2 moderates are on the obvious big face. I bet you could walk off the top, but not sure.
Good view of left hand wall, and you can hear the climbers down there yelling.
Dec 2, 2007
[Hide Comment] Not worth approach. There's a cool 5.9ish crack with 2 bolts (definite runout after second bolt, need medium stoppers/cams) and new chains. Get there by way of a scrambly cliff passage just north of the upper blocks.
Mar 1, 2009
[Hide Comment] There are only three climbs up above, so of course that's not worth the approach. There are a number of climbs down below that are quite fun, tho. This is an especially great crag for an early morning in the summer.
Mar 3, 2009
[Hide Comment] This crag gets a bum rap in the guidebook, but it's a real nice, moderate, low elevation crag. It has a great view down onto Hairpin Canyon and for the life of me, I can't figure out what people mean by "not worth the approach". The approach is litterally 20 minutes, on a good trail. Sure, it's uphill, but come on people.
There are three routes on the upper tier. Two real nice 5.7's. The 5.10 is a little contrived in my opinion.
The lower tier has three routes. I did the 5.9 and thought it was fun. Some loose stuff. Rap down from good anchors, near where the trail first rounds the corner, out onto the cliffs.
Feb 10, 2011
[Hide Comment] Thanks again Jeff (and company) for helping out yesterday! If the bees move out, we will be back to see about doing Lazy S again.
Apr 8, 2012
[Hide Comment]There is a well-established hive of bees in a crack to the right of the "Lazy S" chimney, as you first approach that rock, close to the ground. Sep 8, 2013
[Hide Comment] Yes the approach is uphill but its a nice enough place, and the hand/fist crack to the right of "The Crescent" is amazing if short. It provides the rare (on lemmon) joy of climbing and entire pitch using nothing but jams, and damn they are nice feeling jams.
Oct 7, 2013
[Hide Comment] How do you get to the south set of cliffs? I saw no rap station to lower down from above and the hike in to the northern set of cliffs (with the bolted 5.7s and 5.10) is already about 25 minutes.
APPROACH BETA: not sure if this is the fastest way to either set of cliffs (north or south) but I went up the Soldier Trail to where it levels off (as described here) and then went left via bushwhack into the saddle between a small hill (to the south) and a craggy hill (to the north) and went left (west) around the side of the craggy hill to get to the northern cliffs. There was no visible "triangle shaped rock" as described in SQL III nor was there any visible trail to the left off of Soldier Trail.
Nov 30, 2015
[Hide Comment]Don't bring dogs. There is a lot of cacti on the route and you need to bushwack. Took 40 minutes to find since we missed the branch and kept going forward. Wasn't worth it.
Feb 11, 2016
[Hide Comment] Re' approach: Yes, I'm old with tired knees, but we hiked it with no gear just to have look:
Up the Solider Trail about 20-25 min to the climber's path at an obvious cairn on the left (It looks like the "small triangular rock" mentioned in the guidebook has been incorporated into the cairn.) In 50 ft or so the path branches: left leads to a small (camping?) clearing while the right branch seems to be the main path to the cliffs. The right branch soon weaves through cacti, contouring around to the right and, in 5-10 min (depending on how fast you walk through cacti) swings around the ridgeline to the top of some cliffs.
It looked to me as if the main cliff (see photo I'll post in a few days) is up to the right another 150-200 yards or so. But just where you go around the ridge there is a cairn down low on top of the (much more fractured-looking) lower cliff. I don't know if this is supposed to mark a potential down-climb ( it looked pretty fractured, and leads to what? ) or rap location (no anchors) or what??
Overall, with gear and a rope I'd think the average climber on their first outing to this cliff would take 30-40 minutes to reach the actual base. The ascent was about 600 vertical ft by my altimeter watch.
Just speculation, but I think mikehilbert (post above) may have headed off the Soldier Trail much too early, perhaps using the guidebook's "20 min." total approach time. We almost turned back before reaching the obvious climber's path.
Apr 20, 2018
[Hide Comment] There is still a very active honey bee colony at the base of the rock towards Lazy S. We were able to climb The Left One and The Right One without issue . . . seems far enough away. I was also able to contour to the left of The Left One to make my way towards the lower climbs without getting too close, but it is a steep-ish bushwack and does take you closer to the honey bee colony to go that route and next time I will rap down from the Cactus Corner anchor which we didn't find until we were on the way out (as described, this anchor is a good hundred yards or more before you get to The Left One/The Right One wall just before you contour around to the right on the climbers trail. Today there was a cairn off to the left about 30 feet from the climbers trail marking where that anchor is. Might want to give a little belay somehow to get to the anchor, didn't really check, but it is certainly accessible from the top. From where the cairn is you can see the anchor and it is probably at waist height . . . it is not along the trail where there is a cliff edge as we initially thought and tried to peer over the edges. We thought it was worth the hike just for The Left One and The Right one as they are nice long sustained climbed on nice rock and heck it is a nice hike.
Apr 13, 2019
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az / pa
Tucson, AZ
Billings Montana
Batesville, AR
I'd have to agree that it might not really be worth the hike, can't comment on the stuff down below. The view and hike are worth it in there own right though. Rock was cold and shady, but climbable.
To get there, once you get up pretty high on the soldier trail, you'll see a cairn and a big hill to the left, a big rock formation across the valley to the right, and a ridge in front of you. You want to get around the ridge towards the left side. You will be above most of the climbs, but keep following the top of the cliff and you'll see a few big fomartions/walls/chimneys. The 2 moderates are on the obvious big face. I bet you could walk off the top, but not sure.
Good view of left hand wall, and you can hear the climbers down there yelling. Dec 2, 2007
Denver, CO
Cottonwood
There are three routes on the upper tier. Two real nice 5.7's. The 5.10 is a little contrived in my opinion.
The lower tier has three routes. I did the 5.9 and thought it was fun. Some loose stuff. Rap down from good anchors, near where the trail first rounds the corner, out onto the cliffs. Feb 10, 2011
Tucson, AZ
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, AZ
APPROACH BETA: not sure if this is the fastest way to either set of cliffs (north or south) but I went up the Soldier Trail to where it levels off (as described here) and then went left via bushwhack into the saddle between a small hill (to the south) and a craggy hill (to the north) and went left (west) around the side of the craggy hill to get to the northern cliffs. There was no visible "triangle shaped rock" as described in SQL III nor was there any visible trail to the left off of Soldier Trail. Nov 30, 2015
Tucson
North Conway, NH
Up the Solider Trail about 20-25 min to the climber's path at an obvious cairn on the left (It looks like the "small triangular rock" mentioned in the guidebook has been incorporated into the cairn.) In 50 ft or so the path branches: left leads to a small (camping?) clearing while the right branch seems to be the main path to the cliffs. The right branch soon weaves through cacti, contouring around to the right and, in 5-10 min (depending on how fast you walk through cacti) swings around the ridgeline to the top of some cliffs.
It looked to me as if the main cliff (see photo I'll post in a few days) is up to the right another 150-200 yards or so. But just where you go around the ridge there is a cairn down low on top of the (much more fractured-looking) lower cliff. I don't know if this is supposed to mark a potential down-climb ( it looked pretty fractured, and leads to what? ) or rap location (no anchors) or what??
Overall, with gear and a rope I'd think the average climber on their first outing to this cliff would take 30-40 minutes to reach the actual base. The ascent was about 600 vertical ft by my altimeter watch.
Just speculation, but I think mikehilbert (post above) may have headed off the Soldier Trail much too early, perhaps using the guidebook's "20 min." total approach time. We almost turned back before reaching the obvious climber's path. Apr 20, 2018
Tucson