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A combination of factors this fall (weather, sickness(es), seasonal lack of drive) led to too much time being spent in the safety of the gym where the pulling muscles develop and …nerves shrink. Finally, the first weekend of November allowed us a chance for a quick in and out to the Dragoons. The Friday departure presents the usual, blue collar climber’s dilemma: leave work early & get some pre-climb sleep but possibly piss off the employers or depart post work and suck it up with little sleep. Following a brief night, Saturday morning saw us hiking up to the base of the Squaretop formation on the west side of The Stronghold. Though off trail, the approach is pretty friendly as it stays in wash bottoms and has just a touch of 3rd/4th class in the final push. Good thing we did not try this climb with Blondie in the past since we don’t think she could make the final scramble in her old age. Our route of choice was Cragaholic’s Dream, a 6-pitch 5.10-/5.10. We both think that the split grade on mountainproject reflects the height difference among the climbers. I thought the roof crux was 10b and pitch 5 was 5.9 while Shirley thought that both were harder with some key holds being just out of reach. Either way it’s a very nice route with zero bolts – pitch 2 or the roof pitch is in fact spectacular! Having read some reports about painful rappels, we took care pulling the ropes and were merrily eating Magaly’s Mex food in Benson in the late afternoon.

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Saturday night we were still toying around with the idea of trying our dream route on Sunday but could not really make the timetable work (late pm flight home out of Phoenix and all). With that pressure off, we woke up late and headed over to the east side. A surprisingly hot hike up put us at the base of the famous Forest Lawn (5.9) pitch..the crack that graces the Kerry guidebook cover. Wow!! One of these sights that makes you think that God must be a trad climber: splitter fingers in a clean granite dihedral stretching skywards for seemingly uninterrupted 50 feet. The spectacular yellow lichens add to the fuzzy feelings and you just can’t wait to climb it. If your idea of a good finger crack is yellow to red Alien size, then those 50 feet will be a combo of jamming, liebacking, and stemming. NTB. If your taste is in the blue/green Alien sizes, it’ll be more of a pure, thuggish lieback….ready, set, go! Race that forearm pump!! As I was pulling the rope up to belay Shirley the twins got pinched and shenanigans cost us the time we had allotted to do the Pair A Grins pitch above. Oh well such is life. Home later that evening and dreaming about a quick return to Cochise.

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