The Pickle

The Pickle ~3060′
Superstition Mountains
Rock Climbing
Total Time: 5:30
Distance: 4.1 miles
Elevation Gain: 1,370′
Crux: 5.4 PG13
Companions: Colin Pickles, Holly
Trailhead: Treasure Loop, Lost Dutchman SP, full services

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In the northwestern corner of the Superstition Mountains is a collection of small technical pinnacles. The Hand is by far the most famous and most climbed, and in fact was my first technical summit in Arizona for my AMC grad climb. I had been interested in coming back to try a few more. The hardest in the area, The Tower, is rated 5.8 R and a bit beyond my skills, or at least confidence in them. But tucked behind The Tower sits The Prong, rated 5.6, and the Pickle, rated 5.4. The latter was of special interest to me for the name alone: one of my climbing partners is named Colin Pickles, and some pickle on pickle action was too hard to pass up. Tacking on The Prong for two summits would make for a nice, fairly casual outing. We were nearing the end of a spell of bitter cold, and got a bit of a late start to allow the temperatures to warm up a bit more. There was a dusting of snow on the northern slopes of the Superstitions, and we hiked quickly up the Treasure Loop Trail out of Lost Dutchman State Park to keep warm.

We reached the Hand quickly, and Holly and Colin marveled at the formation, their first time seeing it up close. They were already discussing plans to come back and summit for our next outing.

But we had a Pickle to climb, and we continued past the Hand to the small spire standing along the flank of The Prong about 200′ upslope. We took a brushy line to reach the base, and would have been better off hiking a bit past the Pickle to a shallow saddle and heading up cleaner slabs to the base. The route up was along the south side of the small, squat spire. As I looked the short pitch up and down, I was struck by the lack of available protection for the entire lower half. While the rock had huge holds and lips, the entire spire was quite crumbly and the lack of gear placements made me a bit nervous despite the 5.4 rating. We flaked one rope and after racking up, and I began climbing. I searched in vain for any crack or weakness to stuff a cam, and didn’t place anything until about 15-20′ off the deck, slinging a large rock horn cemented off the side of the route.

There was a decent pocket to the right, but the entire flake flexed as I pulled on it, meaning the cam I had just placed was useless at best, possibly adding danger should I tear off a chunk of rock in a fall. A bit higher was another nice horn, this one quite secure, and I protected myself with a slipknot around the rock, looking like it was cemented into the rest of the crumbly spire. The route reached a roof with the first sound crack of the entire climb, which I stuffed with a few cams as I traversed out right. A final mantle move brought me to the small summit, and I clipped the two bolt anchor on the opposite side to start bringing up Holly.

The pitch was short, and she was on top with me in just a few minutes. After she untied, I tossed down the rope to Colin, and he quickly climbed up to join us, Pickles standing triumphantly on The Pickle.

It was about noon, and we broke out some summit snacks and drinks, which included a victory Pickle. Colin Pickles, eating a pickle, on The Pickle. I would say it was a defining moment in all of our climbing careers.

While we finished our beers, I sawed off the ancient webbing from the two rap bolts, added a quick link so it wasn’t running directly through the metal of the older bolt, and tied in some fresh webbing for the rap. The rappel off the southwest face was a steep start with some overhang, but we were soon all back at our packs at the base. Everyone was still game to try the Prong, and we started bushwacking through thick brush up the gully to reach the saddle between the Prong and the main wall of the Superstition massif. The Prong was actually fairly impressive from the backside, and I could see some webbing off the rappel anchors at the top.

The beta I had was basically to scramble along class 3 to a saddle between the Prong and a smaller sub-summit to the east called the Periscope. I could spot the saddle, but not a class 3 route to get there. I scrambled along, but would soon encounter 10-15′ downclimbs with death exposure, not at all fitting the class 3 description. I retreated and headed down the gully to the west, looking for an alternative way up without luck. I did spot a fixed rope heading up a steep gully between the Prong and the Tower, but that also didn’t fit the description at all.

I knew Holly and Colin would not be down to scramble this unroped, and by the time I reported what I had found to the other two, they had seemed to have lost interest in the climb entirely. So we headed back towards the Pickle, using the more forgiving slabs just to the east to get back to the trail. Since we had some time to spare, I wanted to check out the Tower and fixed line I had spotted, and climbed up the use trail up the gully south of the Tower. I found the start of the 5.8 route, and couldn’t help but notice that the first piece of protection was probably about as high as on the Pickle, although with much more difficult climbing. I also spotted the gully with the fixed line, and figured this was probably the preferred route to reach the summit pitch of The Prong.

I rejoined Holly and Colin staring at the Hand, and the three of us headed back to the trailhead after a relaxing single pitch spire and what will surely go down in history as ‘ The Pickle Inception.’