Camping at Picketpost trail head

12/11
We had thought to go on a longish ride today on the Arizona trail. The girls made sandwiches for lunch and we packed up, then we discovered the horses were sick, particularly Tandy and Cinnibar. We did actually get on the AZ trail but we only went down it about a 1/2 mile. Denise and I did a little more riding latter. We cut cross country for a ways; both horses were rewarded for their efforts with cactus and cholla spines. They were pretty calm about letting us pull them out.

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We are in saguaro country now.

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After telling so many people we plan to ride the Arizona trail we finally made it to a trail head.

12/12
I found some cholla spines in my saddle bag this morning! I stayed at camp, got some chores done and made dinner for when the girls returned.

The girls went to Phoenix to the zoo. They had a great time, feed giraffes, and rode camels. Lily and Jackie couldn't stop talking about it all when they got back!

Denise picked up some penicillin at a feed store. We gave Cinnibar a shot and attempted to give Tandy one. Tandy seemed pretty traumatized by it all. We only got about 4 cc's (out of 8) into her.

12/13
Denise and I thoroughly traumatized Tandy and only got 3 more cc's into her. We decided to get her some oral antibiotics if possible.

Denise and I rode about a mile and a half north on the AZ trail after we gave up on Tandy.

There is a corral in a draw next to our camp. We put the horses there and Denise and I went climbing in the afternoon. I like to joke that the worst day climbing beats the best day working. That maxim held true once again, but but by a slimmer margin than usual. It was windy, cool and there were a few drops of rain. Accessing the climbs required descending a long steep scree slope and crossing a gully bottom. I started off on a 5.7 sport route (bolted), 2/3's of the way up I discovered that it was a mixed route (I needed to place some protection). I lowered back down to the ground, grabbed a light rack and finished the climb. Denise followed and found the climb fine though she was none to keen on the day in general. I decided to jump on another 5.7 with anchors close to the top of a couple 5.11's (I like to top rope 5.11's when I get the chance). The first bolt was way way up there (about 15' of easy terrain). Somehow I failed to notice until I got there that the hanger had been removed from the bolt rendering it almost useless. The rain drops were starting to spatter me and the wind was picking up. I was a little rattled. I managed to get a funky stopper placement and launch off for the next bolt. (I carefully checked, it did have a hanger and wasn't far off.) A few bolts latter a I came up to another bolt without a hanger!

Let me just jump up on my soap box for a moment. There are traditional (trad) climbers that don't like bolts and sport climbers that never touch gear. The two groups don't necessarily get along. If a route has traditionally been climbed on nothing but gear, even if it is run out and dangerous, it don't think it should be bolted. It alters the route that the “original discoverer” found. If there are some bolts on a route, but they were put in on lead it is arguably still a gear route. If the route's bolts were originally put in with aid gear or on rap it is a sport route. The whole point of a sport route is to have a fun and safe climbing experience. It takes a lot of expense and effort to put up a sport route. To remove bolts from a sport route is nothing less than vandalism. Climbers who truly thinks there are to many bolts on a route can choose to not clip the “extra” bolts when they climb the route.

Every climber knows that their grade on a trad route is different than their grade on a sport route. When a climber who's limit for sport climbing is about 5.7 climbs the route I was on, it could be a real problem for them to have to place gear. Being as it was originally created as a sport route the expectation of subsequent climbers is, that it is still a sport route. It therefore potentially increases the risk to subsequent climbers to steal the hangers off of a route. Because a climber's grade on gear is always lower, stealing hangers is not justifiable, even when gear placements are a viable option.

So anyway I got to the top of the 5.7 to find another 10' of choss above between me and where I hoped to find the anchor for the 5.11's. I got above the 7's anchor's, got a decent cam in, and worked my way up through the choss to the spot I had in mind. Hallelujah, the anchor for the 11's was there, but, dam the luck, the anchor was cold shuts. This is a sport climbing type anchor that is open on the top. The climber simply drapes his rope over them and lowers back to the ground. It is fine as long as you never, never get above the anchor or somehow let a loop of slack come up and flip the rope out the top of the anchor.

Denise didn't want to climb the 5.7 in the first place because it follows a fin and is very airy. None of my shenanigans persuaded Denise that she wanted to follow it after all. So after more fiddling around and I built a gear anchor, lower off of, and re-climb the 7 cleaning my own gear. When I went by the choss the first time I was very careful and only kick off a few pebbles; Denise was none to happy about these pebbles. I kind of forgot about the choss coming back up on top rope and showered Denise with rock as a handhold tore away. Well she liked that a whole lot less.

So after much hassle the route was clean except for my gear anchor and the cold shuts and I was at the top of the 5.11's. It all came down to swinging the rope around the arrete to the overhung side where the 5.11 route ran and cleaning the gear anchor all without letting the rope slip out the top of my final anchor to the cliff, the cold shuts.

I guess I am grateful that when I lowered down the 11 Denise was willing to belay me on top rope back up one of them. I did make it right up without a take so it made for a fun ending to the day. Denise really doesn't like windy days; she was stressing that the gorge between us and the car would fill with flood water; she was a little chilly, it had taken me a realy long time, I did drop rock down the cliff towards her and most of all (I think) she was worried about Tandy's condition. After all the hassle I wouldn't have minded another 5 minutes to try the other 11 but even so, it still beat the best day working.

12/14
Today should have been the day we started on a three day trip up the Arizona Trail. Next best, it should have been the day Tandy was busy getting better because of the penicillin. Next best, it should have been the day I went to town to pick up some oral antibiotics. Next best, how about the day that after hours on the phone and waiting for vets to call back, we finally got a prescription of oral antibiotics at a pharmacy in town which we can pick up first thing in the morning. In Guatemala I can walk into the local pharmacy and buy human grade antibiotics for about $5 it requires about 5 minutes of my time. In the US, if we hadn't paid a vet a whole bunch of money in Spokane before we left (to get the coggins test, health certificate and brand release form), we would still be trying to get a prescription. Or of course we could have hitched up the bus, loaded up Tandy and hauled her about 40 miles one way so a vet could say "yes your horse does have a runny nose, give me $150 for the visit and here is your prescription".

We have six water jugs that hold in total about 34 gallons of water. The bus tank also holds about 100 gallons of water but of course when it is empty we have to take the whole bus and find some place we can fill it. The horses drink 20 to 30 gallons per day so the water jugs last a little over a day.

We went to some nearby botanical gardens today with our six water jugs to see if they would let us fill them. They did and suggested we talk to Frank Heron, a local rancher who's house is about a ¼ mile from our camp about water options. Frank turned out to be very friendly. He was already familiar with us because he drives by our camp every day on his way to work. He invited us into his house and in about 2 minuets time invited us to water our horses at his watering trough, fill our water jugs at his hose when ever we wanted, and bring our whole camp into his back yard once our horses got better. It never ceases to amaze me how many truly nice people we end up running into.