This is my first TR on Supertaco, so go easy! My wife, Kristin, and I recently returned from a month long road trip to the Desert Southwest. With winter closing in and the snow starting to fly, I thought we’d share some rock stoke.

Leg 1 – Moab

We left Portland on a dreary Monday morning headed east on I84. Still unsure of our agenda, we decided at the last minute to bypass the City of Rocks and make a beeline for Moab in the hopes of getting in a little bit of climbing before foul weather moved in. We rolled in on Tuesday afternoon and got in three pretty good days before the rain started.

Wall Street


Ancient Art, Stolen Chimney, III, 5.10d


Supertaco rates the climb 5.8 A0, but as others have noted, the second bolt above the ledge on the first pitch has been chopped. As a result, the route requires mandatory 5.10-ish stemming moves with the possibility of a ledge fall. Although fairly straightforward, the chopped bolt requires a rapid realignment of your mental frame of mind in the middle of the first pitch of the morning. Fun stuff, but it would be pretty darn heads up if you were a 5.9 leader expecting friendly A0 climbing.

Long Canyon


We were impressed with Long Canyon even though we only spent an afternoon in the area. Looks like there is lots more quality climbing to be explored.

I popped a rib on the first pitch of the first day, and by the end of Leg 1 I was suffering excruciating pain. Ouch. After a good storm drenched Moab, we decided to move on and drove south to visit friends in Sedona.

Leg 2 - Sedona

We enjoyed a very cool drive through Monument Valley, with a detour to see the fabled Totem Pole, before eventually finding our way to Sedona.


I needed a few days of rest so my tender ribs could recover, but we got in a great hike around Cathedral Rock and past the Mace. We also got some up close and intimate shots of this friendly Desert Tarantula during the hike.


Leg 2 ended with a student massage at a local school. Skeptical at first, I was pleasantly surprised, and over the next couple of days the pain subsided quickly. After a couple of days, we said our goodbyes and moved on to Cochise.

Leg 3 – Cochise Stronghold

We started in the East Stronghold at Zappa Dome, looking for some easy moderates sport routes to stretch out the tight muscles in my back. The highlight was climbing Nightcrawler on Owl Rock at the end of the second day - excellent runout face climbing up a leaning tower of desert granite. Good times.


After a couple of days, we moved over to the East Stronghold and decided to check out the Sheepshead area.

Ewephoria, II/III, 5.9

We found this route to be pretty enjoyable, with well-protected moderate face climbing up the SW face of the formation. The highlight was definitely the final bolted pitch of The Climb that Wouldn’t Die, a sweet pitch that traversed over one set of roofs, under another, and then out onto an arête overlooking the entire valley. Very cool climbing.


Mystery of the Desert, II/III, 5.9R

The next day we went up and got on Mystery of the Desert. This route sports very cool varied climbing up the south face of the formation just to the west of the Sheepshead – known as the Muttonhead or also, I think, one of the Sisters. The first pitch starts with runout 5.9 face climbing - a good wake-up - into a 150’ of two stellar 5.9 corners capped by a juggy 5.9 roof. After a short 5.7 chimney, the 3rd pitch starts with some moderate slab climbing into a very cool 5.9 lcrack and then a 20-30 ft. traverse on delicate feet.


After climbing 4 out of 5 days, the ribs felt great, and we decided to head back to Utah for our first ever sampling of the fabled crack lines at Indian Creek. We absolutely loved the chill scene and quality rock of Cochise. Some more photos …


Leg 4 – Indian Creek

What can I say about the Creek that hasn’t already been said by so many other people? We had an amazing week in this magical setting. We climbed 5 out of 6 six days, and by the end were completely worn out.

The highlight was on Day 3, getting the on-sight of Excuse Station, 5.11, an incredible 120’ thin hands face crack.


Our first day at Supercrack Butrress was also a memorable one, as I managed the on-sights of Supercrack, Incredible Hand Crack and 3 AM Crack on the same day, and just missed sending Anasazi.




Some other highlights …





By the end, we were utterly spent. Again, bad weather was moving in, so we moved out in search of warmer temps and dry rock – the freedom of a road trip.

Leg 5 – Red Rocks, Epinepherine, IV, 5.9

Knowing this would be the last climbing of the trip, we decided to finish strong with an ascent of Epinepherine in Black Velvet Canyon. We had climbed several other routes in the area but hadn’t yet ventured into the deep dark chimneys of this classic route.

After spending two weeks in Cochise and the Creek, the though of camping in the BLM dump turned our stomach, so we splurged and checked into a 4-star casino/resort at $37/night – the Alliante!



With about 11 hours of daylight, we knew we were going to be racing the darkness to the tope of the route. We left the casino at about 4:45 am and started climbing at around 7. The temps were cool, but wind was calm. We were just barely on the verge of being too cold, but we moved steadily throughout the day.



Unfortunately, I didn’t take the time to take many pics from the route, but it paid off in the end. We topped out at the big pine tree at about 4:15 pm, leaving us 45 minutes to find the descent gully off the ridge before darkness fell. We followed the cairns along the ridge top until we got to the correct gully, and just as we started down towards Frogland the darkness caught up with us. At that point, we slowed way down, as we basically went cairn to cairn all the way to the desert floor. We finally made it back to the car at about 7 pm, exhausted and very happy to have finally climbed this excellent moderate classic.

Leg 6 – Big Sur

We finished up the trip with a quick visit to Big Sur to celebrate the birthday of the long-time college friend. Our first night there, we were treated to the most amazing sunset of the trip, a fantastic setting in which to reflect upon an amazing month of climbing and freedom.


There's other words and photos up on our blog. chriswinter.blogspot.com.