Sedona
Pretty red rocks in Sedona!
Oak Creek Canyon lies just north of Sedona on Arizona 89A south of Flagstaff in the Coconino National Forest. There is a vista overlook that is very popular among passing through tourists. Its the type of place that you stop at for 15 minutes, take a look over the edge, get back into your car, and continue on. It just so happens that this particular vista overlook, overlooks a canyon with a 80 to 100 foot basalt cliff along the top. The basalt has formed into beautiful dihedrals, aretes, and cracks off all sizes. The basalt is easy on the hands, and grippy on the feet. The oak Creek Canyon Vista climbing is a major gem for the traveling climber, especially if soft sandstone and hard grades aren’t you and your partners thing.
Driving into Sedona
The climbing underneath the overlook is closed due to tourists dropping stuff and falling over while taking pictures of climbing. I can totally understand. This place is a zoo. Cathedral Ledge overlook usually has one or two people at the top, but Oak Creek overlook had about 30 when Syrah and I visited on a mid-week day. A little bird told us that after they close the gates at 5:30pm, you can sneak in and climb.
View from the top of the climb
First, we climbed a wonderful 5.6 double crack system called Duck Soup. This is the first 5.6 that I’ve climbed that required hand jams and stemming. Not only that, but while stemming, your jamming above to move up the stem! on a 5.6! We both really enjoyed that one. I did it a couple times with some variations. One variation I did was climbing the crack to the right without following the obvious weakness to the left. This was a lot harder, and incredibly fun!
The next climb we did was right next to Duck Soup. It was called Burnt Buns. A 5.8 dihedral and face climb. After getting through a couple blocky face moves, the climb falls into a perfect dihedral with a finger crack at the joint. The locks were not straight forward, and I bet if my fingers were the size of Syrah’s it would have been easy locks the whole way. The second to last move is an exposed, desperate step. After finishing the climb, I had Syrah lower me down so I could do it again! I’m in love with basalt now.
Burnt Buns
Tim rapelling down off Oak Creek Canyon Vista cliff
We went for a rad hike at Wilsons Mountain! Here are some pictures…..
View from top of Wilson Mountain. Highly recommended hike!
Another from top of Wilson Mtn
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