You can see it from much of the city of Tucson, Arizona – a steep, rocky tower perched atop a ridge. It’s aptly named, as from a distance it looks like an old-fashioned thimble used in sewing. Since it was on a list of peaks I needed to climb, Jake and I dutifully went there two years ago to knock it off. Seems like the mountain had other plans.

One interesting way to approach Thimble is to take the shuttle up Sabino Canyon. Ten bucks gets you a seat on this open-air vehicle with other tourists.

A thirty-minute ride with running commentary of the plants, animals and geology around us took us the 3.8 miles to the end of the road, where we disembarked. This put us at around 3,300 feet elevation. The interesting thing is that we stood a mere 3,000 feet horizontally from the summit of Thimble Peak, but oh, it would turn out to be so much more than that to reach our prize.

Two trailheads left from the road’s end – we started up one of them following the switchbacks, but shortly left it. Up a steep canyon we climbed, still deep in shadow.

A waterfall or two slowed us momentarily, but we thrashed our way on up through the brush, gaining elevation quickly. At around 4,000 feet, we cut across and up the steep sidehill and eventually came to a more grassy area.

From there, it didn’t take much longer to reach the ridge that runs north from Thimble Peak to its northern neighbor, Peak 5420. There’s some amazing geology going on up along that ridge.

Now, we had our first good view of Thimble.

It was an easy walk through open country, and before we knew it we reached the base of the peak. We had heard that the climb to the summit started with a scramble up a steep gully, and within minutes we found it. Write-ups called it Class 4, and it was. As you can see, there was a serious chockstone blocking the way. In fact, 3 places gave us pause.

It didn’t take long to get to the top of the gully. There, the angle eased up and we could relax. Since we hadn’t been there before, it was a matter of looking around and figuring out a route up the last bit. At the top of the gully, on your left side sits a steep wall of the lower, northern (or eastern, depending on your point of view) summit. To your right sits the higher summit. It’s easy to scramble up another 20 or so feet, but then things get serious. Here is a view of what it looks like from the slightly lower summit maybe a hundred feet away.

We looked around, but there was nothing obvious as a way to the top. Off to the left was an enormous dropoff – nothing doing over there. To the right was a small shoulder, and around it was a vertical dropoff down the Class 4 gully we had just climbed. It scared the bejeezus out of me even trying to peek around the corner, unroped – it was a good 100 feet straight down, and so I quickly gave up on that. Going straight up the front of the wall looked way out of my league. Jake politely deferred to my judgement (he probably shouldn’t have), saying he was okay with whatever I decided. My decision was to chicken out. I was bummed out, knowing I had failed us. This meant coming back at a future date, armed with  better knowledge, gear, or someone braver than I who could lead it. So near (we weren’t more than 30 feet below the summit) yet so far.

We started back down the gully, very carefully. Here’s Jake going first.

It seemed like a long slog down the mountain, with me deep in thought, replaying the whole thing in my mind and trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. Here’s a different look back, showing the summit area and the notch. The highest point is on the right.

Two years passed, as did 198 more peaks under my boots, and Jake and I figured it was time to go back and even up the score with Thimble. It took us a while to find a day that worked for us both, but on December 6th we finally set out. It made sense to go in the same way, so we caught the first shuttle at 9:00 AM. It was a chilly ride up Sabino Canyon, and 9:30 when it dropped us off. We set off immediately, using the trail for the short distance we could, then started up the steep canyon as on our first trip. Once higher up, we set off across the steep sidehill to the open ridge north of the peak. As we approached Thimble, we swore we could see others atop the lower north summit. Yep, there were three of them, and by the time they’d climbed down it, we had already reached the base of the peak on its north side.

We chatted with the two guys and one girl briefly. They had come in overland from Soldier Camp, using trails pretty much the whole way, and had made good time – they were dressed in shorts, T-shirts and sneakers. They took off at a good clip, and we got right to it, skirting the base of the lower peak to quickly arrive at the bottom of the gully.

Jake had been fighting off leg cramps for a while as we’d climbed. He hadn’t actually gotten a cramp yet, but could feel those sensations you get before you do, in his quads, and was justifiably concerned that if he weren’t careful he actually would get full-blown cramps. I knew he had to take it easy – personally, if I get a leg cramp, I’m done for the day. We both managed to get up the gully okay, but I could tell he was getting really concerned. After scrambling up a few more feet, we stood at the base of the short wall. It was déjà vu all over again.

Before this return trip to the mountain, we had talked to friends who’d climbed the thing, some of them more than once, some of them solo, most of them without any gear for protection. We’d looked at pictures posted by others taken during their climb on this last bit. One website had rated the climb as a Class 5.1 and that made us think it should be pretty straightforward. We’d shown up with a 200-foot 7-MM rappel rope, a pair of jumars, plenty of accessory cord, and even a borrowed grappling hook. Jake had even made a few wooden wedges in case they’d be useful.

So, as I was saying, there we stood at the crux. Nothing seemed really obvious or easy, even though we’d seen pictures which proved we were right there, right at the spot where others had gone up. One photo had shown a man getting a leg boost from his friend, so I kept hoping that, if all else failed, we could do that too. Here’s a photo that might clarify things a bit. The bottom of the yellow line shows a rock which can be used as a stepping stone to make a start. (To the right of the line, and around the bulge, is the steep gully in shadow which still scared me silly.) I tried stepping up on the rock, and managed to get my right foot up a few feet higher, but there sure didn’t seem to be much in the way of easily-reached holds beyond that. Losing confidence quickly, I asked Jake if he’d try to boost my foot up if I made a go for it – he did it, grabbing my right boot and pushing up on it from below as I groped for a meager hold higher up. Somehow, I manged to grab enough of something to pull myself up, and it was done. The top of the yellow line is right beside a purple sling (zoom in; this is an older photo taken two years earlier on our first trip). As I pulled myself up and sat beside the sling, I noticed a profusion of cord and slings tied in to a bolt and hanger. There was even a 20-foot length of proper climbing rope tied in to that, and it was hanging down into the steep gully.

I pulled up the length of rope from the gully, then lowered it down to Jake, who was standing at the bottom of the yellow line on the photo. We talked about things a bit. I suggested he tie a couple of loops in the rope, big enough to step into, and try using them to get higher up towards me. He did that, but found that when he tried to get up over the bulge ( that I’d only been able to do with his push), he felt his legs right on the verge of cramping up. Wisely, he decided to call it a day, and made his way back down. He told me his attempt was over, and he was okay with it.

I told him I’d quickly finish, and scrambled the last easy bit to the broad summit. There was a register with plenty of entries, where I too signed in. Here’s the top.

Here’s a view looking 1,500 vertical feet down to the trail in Bear Canyon on the east side of Thimble.

And here’s a view to the west.

After a few minutes, I returned to the rope and used it to help lower myself back down to Jake. We packed up and made ready to leave. Here’s one last look back up at the crux, where you can see the rope now hanging down (zoom in).

So, it was done. I had been working on completing a huge list of peaks, 740 in all, and this was the second-last one on the list. Now, I could go on to do the very last one with a group of friends, which in fact I did a few weeks later. So Thimble Peak turned out to be pretty important after all.

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