Here, in Brian Rundle’s words, is the continuation of our adventure, after the successful first ascent of the Ugly Sister. 

Our next objective was on the border. We drove a long ways along the border fence. We were expecting to see illegal aliens, Border Patrol agents, drug runners, and shoot-outs around every corner, but, alas, we saw nada. It was a very uneventful drive, even past the infamous Serapio’s Gate.

It does make you wonder though, about the porosity of the border. Welcome to the United States!

We espied our summit, then backtracked a bit to an isolated campsite where L.A. Dave and DM had camped once before.

The following morning again dawned as fair as fair could be. We had a leisurely breakfast (even though my espresso maker erupted in a geyser of coffee and steam that covered the entire back of DM’s truck, and I only was able to salvage ½ of a demitasse (a demi-demitasse?)). The caffeine was much needed, as I had been running on empty. I had not had a coffee for several days by this point in time, and was in clear danger of getting the heebee-geebees.

One of the neat things about this peak (2650) is that you actually do get to sneak into Mexico to approach the route. We weren’t too worried about it however, as the entire area seemed deserted. The hike in takes only a matter of minutes. There was a small amount of flotsam and jetsam left by desert travelers near the base of the climb. Can’t call them illegals though, as we were in Mexico and we were the illegals, or should I say “Undocumented Climbers‟.

The gravitational field exists for the outside observer; it does not for the inside observer.
– Al Einstein

We roped up at the base and cast off. The first pitch had a nice 5.6/5.7ish start move and then was an easy class 4 scramble to a notch, where the border monument was. It’s still a mystery how them guv’ment fellows managed to erect the monument where they did. There was a red rappel sling around the monument, which I suspect was left by L.A. Dave on his attempt. I brought DM up and we sussed out the next pitch. The ridge was an airy place with unhealthy drops on both sides.

The rock was reasonably good but the ridge itself, composed of many fractured blocks, balanced like a house of cards. At the start of the pitch I found an old ring piton hammered well home. It was rusty but looked reasonably solid. I equalized it to a small stopper and clipped in and went for it, with DM belaying me, tied into the monument. I placed a fair number of pieces of pro and even slung some of the larger and (hopefully!) bombproof blocks. It all went pretty quick and I soon called to DM that I was up. He followed, leaving the gear in place.

The logic was that on the descent he would down-climb the ridge with a top-rope through the gear that would minimize the swing in any fall that might happen. Traverses such as this can be fairly dicey. All went well with his descent and as it was only ½ a rope length he could actually top-rope lower me off of a sling I left wrapped around the summit block, allowing me a good margin of safety as I cleaned the gear. By the last piece however I was risking a huge and probably lethal pendulum if I were to come off so I routed the rope behind a block for the last little bit and it all worked out well.

We replaced Dave’s sling with a new one, and one short rap brought us to the base and 15 minutes later we were drinking Fat Tires on the border road back in the U.S.A.

Ya me dí al poder que mi
Destino rige.
No me agarro ya de nada,
Para así no tener nada
Que defender.
No tengo pensamientos, para así poder ver.
No temo ya a nada, para
ási poder acordarme de
Mí Serano y desprendido,
Me dejará el águila
Pasar a la libertad

We had an uneventful drive to Ajo where we had a fine Mexican dinner at the establishment known only as Don Juan’s. (Not sure if it is “the‟ Don Juan Matus) We quickly tanked up on petrol and ice and made our way back to the desert via the gas pipeline road. That night we camped within sight of Ajo. A fine evening was spent around the fire listening to great music and enjoying some fine tequila.

The following day came early and, armed with the DM’s intimate and formidable knowledge of the back roads, we were soon over the military boundary and onto the bombing range land, approaching our next project: Tom Thumb. An easy walk brings us to the base of it. There was bombing going off in the distance, and the wind was howling through the area, adding to the feeling of seriousness of the whole situation. The wind was gusting so hard that it blew my pack away, the only thing saving it from going down a steep slope was the creosote bush it got caught in.

After checking out two potential routes, we settled on one that had free climbing possibilities for us. It started in a wide cleft that soon narrowed into a chimney of sorts. The rock is very steep, loose and unconsolidated, with only marginal opportunities for placing gear. I was able to place two pieces; a small cam and a small Tri-cam, before I ran out of options. After several tentative forays I made another couple of moves and was able to poke a cam into a crumbly pocket. The next moves past a deep cave and onto a sloping area that formed the bottom of the chimney proper looked easy enough, but the poor rock quality and unknown protection potential above, had by that time got me totally unnerved. That was it. I knew right then that it was all over in Dodge. I am sure that route will go but it will have to wait for a gutsier climber than me to lead it. And so with that oft used and abused phrase about discretion being the better part of valour I chickened out and gingerly down climbed back to DM.

We were fairly silent on the walk back out to the truck, each of us lost in our own thoughts. It is easy to rationalize or shift blame onto a variety things: The rock was too crummy, it was too windy, I needed that #2 cam that we had left on the Ugly Sister, etc, but it all percolates down to: talk minus action equals zero (t – a = 0). In almost all real life situations, and climbing in particular, it’s all up to the individual. One has to want to go up more than one wants to come down. That day I guess I wanted down more than up. DM at least offered objective words of consolation, after all Tom Thumb isn’t going anywhere (unless those Air Force flyboys get trigger happy). One half of me was flogging myself for not being up to the challenge, but the other half was starting to conjure up methods to do the aid climb on the other side. There was this really nice splitter crack system. Yeah man, that’s it. Thin and overhanging, but it ran all the way up to the ridge, and the rock was much better looking on this side for sure. Why, with a rack full of TCUs and aliens, I bet it would go at C2. Heck, you could even throw in some knifeblades, and a hand drill if you were really serious about getting up this thing. Now we’re talking. This is gonna be great. Oh yeah! I got it all figured out…safely back at the truck, eating a sandwich, drinking a Fat Tire…

All goal-oriented enterprises have failure as their antithesis.
– Mark Twight

The last part of the trip:

Although my “official duties‟ as rope gun were over for the trip, there was still plenty of other good stuff to do. DM’s list of TOIR summits still had some items to be ticked off. (Tom Thumb, is not, of course, on the list). A number of these are in the Sauceda Mountains. I still had time in Arizona, so off we went. There is this “road‟ that heads out of Stoa Pitk and heads deep into the heart of the Saucedas. We are talking about REMOTE. This place is like the dark side of the moon. We drove in a very long way and made a camp near Donkey Benchmark.

This was the only time we had any calamity on the entire trip, and a relatively minor one at that. While we were sitting around the fire enjoying some Capitan Beefheart on the stereo I noticed that the front passenger side tire on DM’s rig was dead flat. DM was not too perturbed. As he said, “you only have to start sweating once you break into the second spare tire.” I think, though, that he secretly blamed the flat on the weird atonal time signatures of Beefheart’s music.

Over the course of the next two days we hiked up 8 more summits, all NTD, including one that we had discovered that qualified for “peak‟ status, yet had not made the official list. So now the new and improved list stands at an even 400. We couldn’t help but paraphrase the old CCR song “99 ½ Won’t Do” to “399 ½ Won’t Do” (got to be 400…) All of the summits were easy walk-ups, although we racked up 900 M of elevation gain on each of the two days we spent out there. So sleep came easy at the end of each of those days.

Unfortunately the desert is not very alive and healthy this year. Southern AZ has not had any recorded rain since last August (this was in 2006). The prickly pear cacti are paper thin, and there are no animals anywhere. We saw a few birds, a few jackrabbits, and two javelina, but that was it, and certainly no people.

Who is the guru of climbers? The desert, perhaps? But the desert never says a word. That’s the point. (paraphrased from Taiji Matsuda).

Although this latter climbing was not technical, it certainly was in a striking area, and we both enjoyed the stark solitude of the landscape. The silence and the space of the desert had a deep calming effect that we both humbly accept as a precious gift. For all of the remoteness, we did however find signs of civilization past and present in a number of areas. We came upon an abandoned corral and well. The well actually had water in it, but no way of pumping it out, save for lowering a bucket or some other container. So alas, it could do thirsty animals no good. This site also had a partially maintained shrine, and had been a campsite for indocumentados. I pity anybody being un- or under-prepared in that location.

At various times on the trip, out close to the bombing range as we were, we were witness to many varied and wild light shows put on by the Air Force at night. These were most puzzling, as planes would fly by at great speed and “eject‟ patterns of flares that would appear to hover in formation for a relatively long time. We think these may be used for aerial target practice, but are not really sure. On the summit of Donkey Benchmark, we spotted something glinting in the morning sun down on the desert floor. It was on the way back to the truck, so we tried to find it. Which we did. Turns out it was a “Flare Parachute Aircraft‟, courtesy of Morton Thiokol. An aluminium tube about 16cm in diameter, and over 1m long. It had had a parachute attached to one end. The unit was heavy and had a yellow plastic solid end cap on the other end. It certainly had the appearance and feel that it had been a dud and had not activated. The phosphorous or whatever was inside seemed to be intact, so we were very cautious around it.

DM thought I should take it for a souvenir, but I’m sure the airline would have taken a dim view of me trying to check that as my luggage.

The other cool thing was a graveyard of automobiles we came across. Six old cars circa 1930/1940. All were stripped to bare bones and totally rusted, mostly reclaimed by the desert. I was able to salvage a nifty GMC grill ornament from what was left of a pick-up truck, but all other components were gone. How these vehicles ended up in this one spot is anybody’s guess.

So this brings us to the close of another great desert adventure. Which as we all know of course is just the starting point of the next one. Anybody out there up for a wicked aid climb up Tom Thumb……….???
If an animal or a man bends his whole will to a certain end, he achieves it.
– Hermann Hesse (Demian)

Credits:

Soundtrack: (soon available on Area 51 records)

Los Straight Jackets; Bob Dylan; Johnny Cash; Black Sabbath; Ravi Shankar; The Blasters; Neil Young; The Rolling Stones; Captain Beefheart; Dr. Didge; CCR; Doc Watson.

Spiritual Advisors:                                                                                                        Juan Matus                                                                                                                  Juan Valdez                                                                                                                   Don Patron                                                                                                                Erwin Schröedinger

Special Thanks:
LMP
The Tohono O’odham People
The U.S. Border Patrol

Catering By:
Don Juan’s (Ajo)
New Belgium Brewing Company

Disclaimer:
CLIMBING IS DANGEROUS. YOU CAN DIE

This production took place entirely in Arizona, Illinois, and Mexico. All of the stunts are real. Some names have been changed to protect reality. No animals or climbers were injured. Any inaccuracies, half-truths, or bald-faced lies are intended to promote emotional gravity and are purely the responsibility of the author.

The things we see… are the things which are already in us. There is no reality beyond what we have in us. That is why most people live such unreal lives; they take pictures outside themselves for the real ones and fail to express their own world. One can of course live contentedly enough in that situation. But once you know about the other, you no longer have the choice of following the majority way. The way of the majority is easy,… ours is hard…
– Hermann Hesse (Demian)

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