Tisha Spire 5,348′
Rock Climbing: Sedona Area
Total Time: 5:30
Distance: 3.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 1140′
Crux: 5.7
Pitches: 2
Companions: Holly, Colin Pickles, Brian Joseph
Trailhead: Midgley Bridge, $5 RR Pass, trash, pit toilets
Tisha Spire is a moderate two pitch outing in the Steamboat Rock area of Sedona. Overshadowed by its’ larger neighbors of Princess Spire and the main summit of Steamboat, it doesn’t see too much traffic despite being one of a handful of multi pitch summits rated 5.7 or less in the entire area. I hadn’t been up a new multipitch route since my accident, and Tisha seemed like a good option to get back into the swing of sandstone trad climbing. There was four total in our group, myself and Holly on one rope, with Colin and Brian on the other. We left Phoenix early and encountered the biggest difficulty of the day- trying to find a parking spot at the small Midgley Bridge lot. We wound up unloading the packs and I parked at a pull off about a quarter mile up the highway, having to jog down the narrow shoulder to rejoin the group.
We started up the fire road of a trail and passed several junctions, ultimately heading southwest on the Jim Tompson trail. My beta said to cut up the ridge after passing two telephone poles. I saw none near the trail, but spotted an obvious use trail that gained the main north-south ridge of Steamboat Rock and we started up the red, sandstone slabs.
The approach was fairly straight forward, with one bit of class 4 a little over halfway up that required a bit of pack passing and spotting to get through. Apparently this spot used to have a ladder placed by the boy scouts that has since been removed. Once we gained the plateau or figurative deck of steamboat Rock, Princess and Tisha Spires came into view for the first time that day.
The use trail continued as we skirted the summit of the Steamboat to the west, which held a few sandbagged 5.10+ routes of its own. The use trail briefly dipped at a shallow saddle before climbing up to the saddle between the north face of Tisha and the summit massif of Wilson Mountain. This was the only bit of bushwhacking for the day, as we stayed high on the use trail for Princess Spire and had to push through thorns and cacti to the Tisha use trail, which ran a bit lower on the slopes. Our bushwhack rejoin the appropriate use trail and we reached the notch between Tisha and the acropolis and the start of the route.
We racked up in the shade of the north face and I started up the first short 50’ pitch, essentially a sport route with 3 bolts up the sandstone face. The lower part of the pitch was easy with good ledges along the way. At the third bolt is the crux mantle to a wide ledge halfway up the spire. All the cams I had were too large for the crack below the mantle, but a nut worked nicely in the constriction. The mantle was super loose and gritty and I nearly fell just from the sand dusted on all the holds. A large boulder pre-wrapped with static rope served as the anchor for the first pitch and I brought up Holly to join me. Colin started up the first pitch as soon as Holly reached me, and we shifted the below to the start of the second pitch, a beautiful low angled dihedral leading to a traverse and the summit cracks. The dihedral ate cams of all sizes and I quickly liebacked up the first 20’, easily the most enjoyable section of the route. This led to the short and exposed traverse protected by a single bolt.
The climbing was easy although a swing likely would have been painful. The last 30’ of the climb was surprisingly tough, and we all agreed the crux. While my beta made it seemed like a low angled crack you could almost walk up, the lower 10’ was essentially a tapered off width, although my arm was long enough to jam in the very back. After sewing up the last bit I reached the two bolt anchor, located about 20’ below the summit of the spire. Holly quickly joined me as Colin belayed up Brian, leaving the gear in the rock for Colin to use as he led. Holly and I moved up to the true high point and enjoyed the views across the Sedona and warmth of the sun, having been in the cold shade of the north face for some time.
There was discussion of checking out some of the newer sport routes at the base of Steamboat Rock so one by one, we headed back to the rap station and rappelled down to the base.
We found the better use trail to drop down to the saddle with Steamboat and hiked back down the slabs to the class 4 section, again passing packs and spotting each other for the descent.
By the time we reached the trail, hunger was winning out over additional climbing, and we continued down the trail back to the trailhead. Colin walked with me up the highway to get the car and the four of us drove through an extremely congested uptown Sedona to find food and drinks before heading back to Phoenix.