My dad is in town with his wife (Mary Jane) doing the snowbird deal for a couple of months, so we went today to check out the MIM. That stands for Musical Instrument Museum, which happens to be fairly close to us on this end of town. We spent a couple hours or more wandering through the exhibits (my back was ready to cry) and it was fairly fascinating. The idea of the place is this... they went and got examples of the musical instruments from nearly every place across the globe and they set up an exhibit for each of those places to sort of show you what the traditional musical instruments are from each place. They're sort of grouped... Asia, Europe, US and Canada, etc. You get a set of earphones hooked up to a wireless system and each display has examples of the music from the region on a video playing, so when you walk up, the sound kicks in and you can hear the instruments being played for real. It was pretty okay.
I took a whole bunch of photos... here are some pics of some of the loonier stuff.
The Entrance
Welcome to the MIM!
Detail shot on some sort of lute at the entry way to the exhibits.
Exhibit from the guitar area on the first floor. As it was sort of a unique part of my time in college back in the 80's, it was good to see they didn't leave the "Air Guitar" behind!!! :-)
(and no, I'm not kidding)
Horn made out of a human thigh bone.
Combo walking stick and violin!
Sort of full shot of a typical exhibit... name, map, video playing, and a bunch of instruments from the area.
Dig that crazy horn!
From South Africa... they had video of the guy who made these electric guitars playing them. Sounded pretty good!
Another general exhibit shot...
Chinese banjo, made with python skin.
Wacky xylophone deal made with wood and jade panels.
The big horns from Tibet.
Some sort of lute (any stringed instrument that sort of resembles a guitar falls under the classification of a "picked lute") that is made from an armadillo shell!!! Still got hair.
Can't have a full exhibit with out the 5-gallon whiskey jug used by a jug band.
Classic... the original Moog synthesizer... the one that started it all.
A large display for Martin Guitars with sort of a simulated factory setup shown. They had photos of seven generations of the Martin family that have been making guitars. They must be doing something right!
Synclavier.
Felicia pointed this one out to me... she was a bit appalled by it. A bagpipe made from... yes... a calf!!! Ewwwwww!!!
Whoo-weeeee... I hadn't been down to Camelback Mountain to climb since... May 6th, 1999 when my friend Lisa and I took a couple non-climber guys from Honeywell up the Monk. Before that, it had been since 1996. The nature of the parking lot in Echo Canyon has kept me away all these years. There's nothing like a shortage of resource to get people to behave in the most selfish and annoying ways humans can possibly behave. So the typical run on the parking lot is this... you drive in... there's no spaces, you pull into the line, when spaces open up, the line moves. Unfortunately, there's always people who claim to be completely oblivious to the proper procedure "Oh, I thought you were just sitting there...". Jeezuz.. you gotta be kidding me. I'm waiting for a spot to open up you complete ultramoroon!!!
So anyways... I headed down after finishing work for the day and launching my goods into the back of the car. My original plan was to take the day off and go to Granite Mountain, but that fell through when Mike didn't believe my "I don't have time to be sick" approach to a stomach bug I had a couple days ago. I didn't want to risk having to bail on him if my guts didn't cooperate, so I ended up doing this... going to Camelback for the first time in 11 years to climb the Praying Monk. Hardly a substitute for the Mountain.
After parking, I got my pack and headed up the trail. What a grunt. Took a whole ten minutes and 500 feet elevation gain to reach the Headwall. I soloed the first gully in my Five Tennies. It was only after I reached the top that I realized that my normal solo route is the gully to the left. This one required some care and selective hold usage and was probably the adrenaline high of my entire day. But I lived. I scrambled up the rest of the way to the base of the SE Corner of the Praying Monk. Man, it had been a LONG time.
The view looking up at the Praying Monk from the parking lot.
First set of railroad tie stairs on the Summit Trail for Camelback Mountain.
This is where 98.9% of the people are headed. To the summit of Camelback Mountain. Most of them will hike slowly to the top, then careen downhill on the trail, doing untold damage to their knees and relatively little for their cardiovascular fitness.
Okay, I'm at the base of the route...nobody knows who did the first ascent of the route I followed, but the start I did was first done by Bill Forrest, probably in the mid 60's. Marty Karabin has replaced all the old sleeve-style bolts (leaving the sleeves instead of pulling them and patching the holes) with glue-in bolts. Surprisingly, there's a bit of runout between bolts up higher on the route.
Twin saguaros down east of the base of the route... luckily , they show no signs of damage from the local smog and pollution.
A guy's to to have an anchor if he's going to rope solo. Amazingly enough, I was VERY out of practice for this. I used to do it quite a bit, but I had to actually look my setup over a couple of times before I trusted it. Nothing like wrapping a big fat sling around a 2000 lb. boulder to anchor a guy!
Okie-dokie, we're ready to roll. Got our chest-belayer all set up and checked out.
The climb went well. Hell, the route starts with a bit of 5.7 (big holds), then moves on to 5.easy stuff where you'd have to be on crack to fall off. I cruised up to the top. Other than a bit of typical rope solo rope drag, no problems mon!
This is the view back down towards the parking lot from the summit of the Monk.
After I rapped the route to clean my stuff, and reclimbed it, I rigged the overhanging rappel down the south face.
Groovy rappel silhouette!
This is what the rappel route looks like.
The line shows the Monk's Chin Aid Route (A1, 5.4) that I haven't done before, but need to check off the list. Pretty much a bolt ladder up the overhang. Camelback has a rich history of these types of overhang bolt ladders from back in the day. Most of them have been closed to access.
Another shot of my route to the summit, from a position southeast of the Monk (I was scoping one of Manny's new routes).
Looking down on my launch spot. The line shows the initial 5.7 portion of the route with all my junk below.
Can't get away from ads no matter where you go!
Camelback has some pretty dramatic terrain along the north side of the head area. The Kachina's pioneered a number of ascents through this plethora of questionable rock back in the late 1940's and 1950's. Those dudes had balls as big as church bells.
Looking back up at the Monk (obvious pinnacle) and the Headwall (the step below). After I rapped back down off the Headwall, I went over to the right to check out some of the new routes that Manny has put up in the last few years. They look interesting... I'll have to come back!
It was a good reunion. 11 years is a long time.
I won't wait as long next time. A guy needs his dose of choss from time to time. Keeps him honest.
Okay, so maybe it's just one stop on a long road, but this is a fairly significant milestone for me. I started out at 214 lbs on Dec. 1st and after six weeks (and change) of dieting and working out, I have reached the 200 lb mark. My ultimate goal is another 15 lbs (at least), so this is just something on the way to the bottom, but still worthy of note.
Since December 1st I have:
Run 26.24 miles
Mountain biked 185.38 miles
Road biked 56 miles
Climbed 9 days
Felicia's sis is in town and I had a kitchen pass for some weekend climbing. Mr. X reversed his earlier "no dice" and we met up Saturday morning to do a little climbing. The destination was Jacuzzi Spires, a relatively obscure crag north of Phoenix sort off off in the middle of nowhere. These days, it's a little less out there, as the metro area has pushed north so far, you can nearly heave a loogie over the ridgeline and hit the crags from the nearest houses. In any case, it was south-facing and just what the doctor ordered for a little low-key climbing in the sun.
I hadn't been out to Jacuzzi since February 1998, so it was interesting to see the changes in the area. The road now has a couple of sections that are pretty close to 4WD mandatory from what looks like some pretty serious erosion along the bed of New River, which forms the canyon you hike down to get to the spires. We figured my Matrix wasn't going to do the trick, so we took Mr. X's Toyota, and bounced down the road to the parking area, passing all kinds of weekend ATV "family groups" parked just off the road. Scary. Used to be we only saw hunters down that road.
The start of the hike down the canyon. You can see just the tip of the Third Jacuzzi Spire in this picture (arrow). The hike is 1.7 miles and takes about an hour or so at a moderate pace.
The hike is mostly pretty mellow, standard rocky desert trail other than where the spiked desert foliage is pushing onto the trail and rakes your face and arms as you push through. As you approach, you can see the three spires up on the left side of the canyon.
With the rain and snow we've had in the state lately, the New River is running steadily. Always cool to see water running in the desert.
Once you cross the canyon bottom, jumping across the river on rocks and sand, you get to hump up the other side to the base of the first spire. Steep and loose, just like the guidebook says!!!
We decided to just do a little warming up on the classic Don't Bug Me (5.6), a three-pitch route up the first spire. This is Mr. X leading the first pitch.
I haven't done much leading on gear lately, but I managed to get up the second pitch without too much drama. Mr. X follows.
The third pitch is the nice one, running 100 feet out, across and to the top of the upper face of the spire. I remember leading this pitch once a long time back when there was a big turkey vulture nest with chicks in the little alcove below Mr. X's feet in this picture. As I was pulling over that little overhang, I asked my partners to keep an eye out for the parents while I protected my junk from the snapping chicks.
Another shot of Mr. X stretching out on the third pitch.
A shot looking east up the canyon along the New River.
After rapping, we got a snack and decided to head back up again. Mike was up for Redtail Diner, another two pitch route up the spire. I first did this one January of 1992, 19 years ago. In the picture to the left, I'd led this burly crack that day, but today, I just didn't have it. The biggest piece we had was a #3 Camalot and I needed a slightly bigger piece to protect the move to easier ground. My head gave up and I followed it back down. Mr. X came through with the hero lead for me. I was pretty bummed. I really have a long way to come back after last year's lack of climbing...
Mr. X finishing the difficulties on the first pitch of Redtail Diner.
There was never any question about who was leading the upper pitch. This is a super thin crack that weaves it's way to the summit of the spire on tiny cams, and an assortment of nuts. It's a three-star American classic pitch (or a 48 star dick-wrenching-mega-classic on the Fish scale) that requires both pro and climbing skills. Awesome! Mr. X worked his way up it with style on an excellent lead!
Another shot of Mr. X high on the crux pitch of Redtail Diner.
A shot of me completely maxed out near the top of the pitch. At this point I was pretty sure I was coming off, I just didn't quite know when. I managed to stay on somehow, but the meter was full on pegged through this bit. As I said in the guidebook, you need "feverish dedication to the friction properties of sticky climbing rubber."
I think I rated it 5.9+/10a in the guidebook, but I'd be inclined to push the latter rating after climbing it again today. This is just one of those incredible trad pitches where you KNOW you led something when you're done. Bravo Mr. X!
Mr. X. snapped a pic of me sitting on top of the spire. It made me think of the picture below...
Check it out! Standing in the same place as I'm sitting in the picture above, but this was October 1990. I'm all hipster doofus style in my Harley Davidson t-shirt, neon Oakley shades, neon lycra shorts, my original neon REI climbing harness and my old Five Ten Vertical shoes.
Mr. X rapping off the back of the spire. When I wrote the guidebook, we were still using mostly 50m ropes, and you needed two to get off. Only need a single 60m to get off nowadays. Everything shrinks with age.
