Cochise Stronghold, Arizona

Joshua Tree turned out to be pretty awesome. I must say I really warmed up to the place. I even lead a 5.5 pitch on gear, after about a week of Ryan dragging me up the wall I got really good at taking cams out, not so much placing them myself. So I just started getting confident at leading cracks when we decided we had about enough of the constant wind. Also Ryan got pretty confident on gear so we seeked out some harder lines. Ryan's highlight was redpointing a 5.11c crack. Bouldery (V4) start with 5.9 finish. So right up his alley. We also had a cheering crowd of three guys who thought Ryan was just amazing. We tried telling them people climb much harder trad lines than that one but they were still impressed nonetheless. So we left JT on a high note and headed for Arizona.

Driving on what I am now calling the "Canadian Highway" (I-8) towards Yuma I almost jumped out the window when I saw the first Canadian license plate. Turns out this was no spectacular event, as most of the cars headed towards Yuma are Canadian! The novelty and excitement wore off after a while. So we blasted through Yuma and made it to Tucson for one night, staying in the Santa Catalina National Forest. The cacti in Arizona are pretty funny, they look like they're fingering the world. Which down here is somewhat appropriate. We've gotten stopped three times now by the Border Patrol. (We also saw a never ending stretch of wall delineating the US-Mexico border). We can't believe they set these control points up, even on the major highways! Basically every highway heading North from the border they'll have a checkpoint. I have yet to see a woman working that job. They always ask if you're American citizen or not. We said no we're Canadian and a fat guy barks, "Where are your visas?" Ahmmm duh! We are Canadian! Ryan had to repeat that one a couple times, "We are Canadian we do not need visas." Anyways I could rant for a while about this border patrol business, we're just getting used to it now.

For the last few nights we've been camping in Cochise Stronghold. Lured by the supposedly amazing climbing we had to make some safety decisions. Most of the routes here are long multi-pitch trad routes, slinging chickenheads for anchors, etc. Since we haven't really aquired this aspect of climbing and didn't wanna risk getting on a wall we couldn't get off of, we've kept it to just doing the bottom pitches. Climbed the hardest chimney-type-wedge-your-whole-leg-in 5.8 yesterday. Tomorrow we will leave for Tombstone and a place called Isle of You. There's sport climbing there which is a bit more up our alley. The days are beautiful down here though, climbing in a t-shirt every day is pretty nice.

Ryan Campground in JT, taken from Headstone. Can you spot the minivan?

Headstone SW Arete, goes at 5.7 but felt pretty hard to me...This was taken a few days after we climbed it.

Cactus overlooking Tuscon, AZ

Since internet, including good coffee shops, are few and far between in Arizona we will probably be off the radar again for a week or so. Our plans are to head up to Winslow after Isle of You to climb at Jacks Canyon. Then onwards, hopefully thru Grand Canyon way, into Utah and towards Vegas.