The Homestead: Limestone Sport Cragging

The Last Several days of my Arizona trip were spent at the Homestead.  It turned out to be a really good and unique experience because the area is newly developed and there is really no guidebook except for a pdf that you can find online and mountainproject. This area was just featured in climbing magazine as an up and coming area that would have many good routes in the future .  I would call it the rumney of Phoenix the way that rumney is to Boston for sport climbers from cities.  

The Logistics of just getting to this area for a traveller are really difficult because it is in the middle of nowhere and up a 4 mile dirt road that in my honest forester opinion is getting worse and worse every day and I used to construct roads like this for a living.  Justin and I just had a corolla with off road tires and a cracked windshield. 

We started off by camping on Friday night near the entrance to the road that we would need to get in to drive to the area. It is a neat area because it is Sonoran Desert. Where we were was BLM land with a major Cholla (choya) cactus field.  They are called Teddy Bear Cactuses.  Camping in cactus country can be difficult with a dog.  Handy pliers can be recommended at all times.  Justin has been training Luna to stay close by and she is a very quiet dog.  At one point that morning we were both saying where is Luna and Justin called and she came limping from behind a cholla.  I think this was the last lesson for her of how close to get to the spiny cactuses.  Luna was always very patient when stuck by a cactus and I think that is the nature of smart dogs.  It only took her one time to learn not to sniff the cactus if it was stuch in her and I think a lab would have licked the thing but she did not. 

Saturday morning Justin and I packed the carolla and stashed a key so some friends could shuttle our camping gear up to the end of the road and we could camp for the weekend.  As we started hiking in the road a vehicle came up by the time we were about 500 feet in and offered us a ride.  We jumped in with them and got a ride the whole way there so it was a lot more climbing this day then we had planned.  I always find that climbers all in one area are very friendly because you always see the same people again later.

One neat thing about this area is that the canyon is small and full of birds (canyon wren) you can hear the calls echoing in the canyon.  Also the rock just appears and the cliffs get taller and taller as you walk in.  With sport areas sometimes you get the feeling that someone has bolted a route because it is there. This area is so new that some of the lines still had some loose rock on them but it was a great time.  When you have no guide you rely on looking at the climb with an objective eye to size up the rests and the gear (bolts) to make sure that things are safe before committing to do the line or not.  With bolts it is not very committing because you can always leave a carabiner on a bolt and bail from the climb. 

Bolew what it looks like in the canyon and at the cliff.

We ended up doing 12 routes over the weekend and we both really had a good time.  We were towards the end of our strength from coming off of two weeks of climbing but we still were able to crank routes I felt like. Looking at mountainproject after the fact I felt like some of the climbs that we worked from the ground up with no guide were in the 11c/d range and that felt really good to get an 11c with one hang to rest from the weeks cumulative muscle fatigue.  It made me feel like I could get them in one go if I was fresh and rested.  After seeing many people come back from trips to limestone saying "that is how I want climbing to be for me", I can understand why.  The climbing is intricate and the atmosphere is nice and relaxed. It does take some getting used to because the holds can be very hidden and trick holds are all over the place.

Below Justin is starting out on one of the 11s after I finished it in sub par style after missing some holds and footplacements.