Cochise Stronghold
March 2006

Aaron and I headed south without too much of a plan. He brought some food for a dinner and I brought some for a dinner and our lunches. We discussed the rest of the plan in his car on the way, stopping at a grocery store in Deming to get whatever other supplies we'd need. But before we got there we had to stop for a photo op in Hatch - it isn't every day you find a giant cowboy laying down on the job.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We got our food in Deming, then stopped to fill up outside Willcox, Arizona. We popped back on the interstate for a few miles and turned south toward the Dragoon Mountains and Cochise Stronghold. A right-hand turn had us driving past a cemetery before we veered left when the road Y'ed. This route allowed us to go over the mountains on Middlemarch Road. Eventually we reached the west side and headed north toward the Western Stronghold.

The next morning we headed out on a hike over the "Stronghold Divide" to the East Stronghold. There were many good views of the rock we'd be climbing the following day on the way to the Divide, including a glimpse of the Whale in the distance.

The trail is fairly steep starting out, but it is not too long before we arrived at the Divide. We were good boys, obeying all the rules and even closing the gate as directed.

The trail continued on down past the Half-Moon dam and then into the East Stronghold Campsite.

After eating a terrific lunch of sandwiches we'd packed while watching the many woodpeckers, we hiked on back to the West. We drove to the Isle of You to meet Chris, who was driving over from Tucson, and set up camp.

The next morning Chris had a little trouble finding us. After all, we were not exactly were he and I had discussed. But we eventually hooked up, with plenty of time to head over to the Western Stronghold to climb Moby Dick on the Whale Wall. I absolutely love this route. I led the first, third, and fifth pitch and Chris led the second and fourth. Aaron stayed in the middle, cleaning entire route.

The rap off the Whale is darn neat too. Lots of distance of free rappel.

Our delay in the morning meant started our hike out at dusk, but we were prepared with headlamps and the trail wasn't all that too difficult to find. We eventually made it back to the car and back to camp for a scruptious dinner. Chris had to change his tire at this point too.

The next morning we got a late start and the weather looked wet. Our plan had been to drive over to the Sheepshead area and do another multipitch route. These plans had to change with the reality of the day though. We would head into the Isle of You for some sport route action instead.

There we would climb for a while until the NOLS folks came along. The first guy who showed up was nice enough, telling us it would be fine if we wanted one of their very large group to move over or if we wanted to climb on one of their ropes. We climbed a couple more routes after they arrived, but they basically took over the crag and when we did ask if they would move over for us to climb one of the routes they had an unused rope on their answer was anything but a good display of expidition behavior. It looked like it was going to rain soon anyway, so we just bailed and went for a short hike.

Aaron returned to Albuquerque that afternoon and I headed back to Tucson with Chris to say hello to Wendy and Kennedy and to meet my new niece Adison. The following day was a rest and recouperation day - mainly because we couldn't get hiking permits for that day. But Chris and I took Kennedy out to the park and had a generally good day of vacation-style R&R.

Chris and Wendy and the girls took me off to a spot I'd never been before the following day: Aravaipa Canyon. It is a very nice hike through a beautiful desert canyon with perennial water flows. We didn't go too far back, but it was terrific as far as we went.

That was the end of my Spring Break trip. I flew on home the next day, glad to be back but relishing the adventure I'd had and anticipating my next.