Tucson sport climbing in La Milagrosa
NOTE: Hello readers, this is the first blog post I’ve made for this site. Mostly it’s to develop Bighorn Mountain Guides’ SEO, but it will also have some fun anecdotes and useful beta on different climbing areas — mostly around the Western U.S.
About me: My name is Ben Ramsey, I am the owner of Bighorn Mountain Guides. The company currently operates May-Sept., giving me the winters off. This is the third year I’ve spent my winter in Arizona.
I hope you enjoy.
After some guiding and guide training in Tucson, I got out for a couple days of sport climbing.
I had a very productive day climbing with a friend in Milagrosa Canyon. This area is one of the lowest and warmest crags around Tucson and has amazing sport climbing. It’s not great for beginners, but if you can climb 5.11, it’s wonderful. Right now, Tucson is in a beautiful dry spell, and the temperature is perfect for climbing. Warm in the afternoons and brisk in the morning.
The rock in Milagrosa is extremely smooth gneiss, making the holds very defined. Tiny crimps and edges are the name of the game here, which are epitomized in the classic climb The Wizard (12a). I had tried this climb a few times in years past, but I had never done it without weighting the rope.
We got into the crag around 9:30 a.m. and went straight to Valentine Arete, which is a classic 5.9 +. It was awkward and slippery at the start. If you go to this area, I recommend a stick clip. I led all the routes that day and I started almost every climb by saying something like “OK, I’m going to see how these holds feel. We might have to bail on this route.” But once the first bolt was clipped, the climbing was fantastic. Most of the routes we climbed were of high quality and flowed well. As a bonus, we bumped into Eric Fazio-Rhicard, one of the main developers of the area and Mt. Lemmon and author of Squeezing the Lemmon, the local guidebook. He was great hang out with — very friendly and welcoming.
After Valentine, we did Stealin’ (11a) which has some tricky little moves to access a little ledge, then a paper-tiger roof above. Then we moved to our left and climbed I Been Robbed (11c). I misread this route and had to hang. It’s tough! The best beta I found was to go out right, where a steep exfoliating bulge provided some hidden pockets to get through to the final short, sheer headwall.
After that, I put up the classic 10a Community Service, which my friend enjoyed, then it was time to hop on The Wizard.
I had a little bit of anxiety as I got on the base — three years ago I’d taken a nice whipper when I blew the clip at the fifth or sixth bolt, and fallen all the way to the second. It was a techy little climb with tricky clips.
This time, I flowed through it smoothly, feeling strong on the tiny handholds and obscure footholds. As I pulled up to the chains I let out a little whoop. It felt so nice to finally cross that one off my list.
When I got down, Eric told me the route had recently been re-bolted (I think he was involved?), to make the clips easier and safer. I thanked him for the improvement to the route. It had been a joy to come back and send it!
What a great season it has been already! That was the third 12a I had done on my first attempt that season (the other two were true onsights in Dark Prophete at Prophesy Wall, and a cool little route at a secret crag in central Utah). Though I had tried The Wizard in the past, I didn’t remember much of the beta. It certainly wasn’t an onsight, but it felt like something close.
Next we climbed Welcome to Milagrosa (10b) and the bolted crack to the right of it, then finished on a harrowing ascent of Three Sheets to the Wind (11c). I don’t recommend this route, though some of the moves are awesome. It has pretty high potential for decking, and unless you are a very confident and comfortable leader at 5.11, you could easily get in too deep and mess up an ankle by falling on the ledge, or taking a sizable whipper while making the precarious transition onto the final wall.
All told, we did about eight pitches that day, which was great. It was another beautiful and rewarding day out climbing.