Crying Dinosaur

Crying Dinosaur 3350′
Superstition Mountains– Rock Climbing
Total Time: 7:00
Distance: 4.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 1650′
Crux: 5.5
Pitches: 3
Companions: Holly, Colin Pickles
Trailhead: Siphon Draw Trailhead, $10 entrance, Trash, Toilets

---

---

When I took the Arizona Mountaineering Club Basics Course in 2016, my graduation climb was between The Hand and Crying Dinosaur, both in the Superstition Mountains. I was assigned to The Hand and had a fantastic time climbing the exposed arete. But Crying Dinosaur had been on my to-do list since then, and it was finally time to tick this one off. The spire, shaped like a T-rex crying with its’ snout to the sky, is located off the popular Siphon Draw trail that leads to the Flatiron. With our bags already packed from a climb of Ursa Minor the day before, Colin, Holly and I were on the trail early, cutting across the western slopes of the Superstition Mountains. As the trail began to climb up Siphon Draw, we could easily pick out Crying Dinosaur across the wash to the south. A smaller adjacent spire, looking a bit like a Brontosaurus lying down, is mislabeled as the Crying Dinosaur in one of the more recently published Phoenix climbing guidebooks.

There were a few thin use trails dropping down into the wash to cross the canyon, and we waited until we were almost in line with the spire before dropping down and across. It took a few minutes to find a use trail up to the grassy slopes on the other side, but we quickly found a use trail through the grass matted down by the AMC group that had come through a week or two prior. The use trail brought us into the brushy gully formed between the Crying Dinosaur and the main canyon wall, and we utilized damp slabs to climb above the brush to reach the notch just below the spire.

Although the start of pitch one was down around the corner, we roped up here, the rappel being about 100′ west downslope of the notch. We hugged the spire around the corner to the north, finding the start of pitch 1 easily enough with an obvious traverse to a detached pillar and hidden chimney as well as a belay bolt for the first move.

The online consensus was that the crux of the entire climb was this first move, pulling a bit of a bulge into a crack before clipping a piton and traversing right to the chimney. The entire route is 5.5 but the first move was closer to 5.7. Luckily it protects well, and I stuffed a well shaped pocket with a 0.75 before grabbing an excellent left hand and pulled myself up into the crack. I back cleaned the 0.75 to minimize rope drag and clipped the high piton before the easy traverse right, moving across on nice ledges and some deep pockets. The protection was a bit sparse, and I think I only placed one or two cams before reaching the ramp to enter the chimney.

It was basically walking to reach the first belay, a single bolt at the notch at the top of the chimney, which I backed up with an equalized cam. I was worried before the climb that this belay would be tight for the 3 of us, but it was actually quite roomy, and I brought up Colin first, then Holly who cleaned the pitch.

The second pitch meanders up the face to a crack and ramp, then traverses left across the ramp to a pair of belay bolts. There was supposed to be a hidden bolt somewhere to protect the first 10 feet of the second pitch, but I never found it, probably swinging too far out to the right. Luckily there were a few small pockets for cams and nuts, and I soon found myself at the crack just below the ramp. I clipped a piton hammered up high and was surprised by the trickiness of the move to mantle on to the ramp, ungracefully belly-flopping my way up the crux move of the second pitch before scrambling up the easier terrain to the two bolt belay. The views of the Flatiron were fantastic, and I brought up Colin and Holly to the cozier ledge.

The bolt protecting the start of the third pitch was straight overhead, and I had to essentially climb directly over Holly to clip it before moving on to easier terrain above. I drifted to the left to climb the arete, but found the rock extremely chossy and moved back to the face, topping out at the summit chains with sparse gear below me. Unfortunately the summit put us in full force of some high winds, and we huddled together to enjoy views of the Flatiron, Spider Walk on the opposite side of Siphon Draw and across Apache Junction.

The summit rappel webbing was a bit of a tattered mess, and I had read online that it needed to be redone. However, I wasn’t sure if the comment was for the first short rappel or the much longer and mostly free second rappel. There was a new sling backing up the system, and I wanted to save my new webbing for the lower rappel, so I volunteered to go first, emboldened by the fact that I knew a big group from the AMC had just been on the route. Rapping off the summit, I found the ledge about 50′ down with an incredible healthy saguaro, one side missing plenty of spines from all the suckers that had swung into it on the descent. I located the next three bolt anchor and clipped in before taking myself off rappel, finding that the webbing at that rap station was brand new. I wish I had replaced that upper tat with what I had brought….

Holly rappeled second followed by Colin, and we reversed the order for the final big rappel back to the base, making an excellent photo op with a beautiful framing of Apache Junction in the distance.

Back at our packs, we started down the mountain, having a harder time sticking to the use trail than on the ascent. It became easier to stay on track once on the grassy slopes, and we were quickly back to the main Siphon Draw trail.

As we hiked out, we passed a number of hikers eyes bulging at the sight of our gear, asking “Did you climb all the way to the top!?” 

“Sort of?” I replied.

They of course meant the Flatiron, not Crying Dinosaur, but I would leave that to their imagination. Beautiful afternoon light hit the Superstitions as we hiked out, and we started planning our next adventure admiring Spider Walk 5.7 and the Hobgoblin Spires hidden in a canyon above. Once back at the car, we drove back to Phoenix for dinner and drinks at AZ Wilderness Brewing to celebrate our first Superstition climb of the season.