Gibraltar Rock 5,731′ – Sedona Scenic Cruise
Sedona Area– Rock Climbing
Total Time: 10:30
Distance: 4.8 miles
Elevation Gain: 1500′
Crux: 5.9
Pitches: 5
Protection: Doubles to #3, one #4, 10 quick draws, two ropes
Companions: Alex Wallace
Trailhead: Bell Rock Pathway, $5 Red Rocks Pass, Trash, Toilets
Despite being the state where I first learned to rock climb and being back many times, I have had very few multipitch adventures in Arizona since moving to California. The last was over three years prior in 2022 when my climb of the Wasteland in Cochise sent Colin into an early retirement from climbing. Sadly, my last time climbing a successful multipitch in Sedona, one of my favorite climbing areas in the state, was way back in 2019 on Ursa Minor with Holly. But with another planned weeklong visit to Arizona, I was able to coordinate an outing with Alex to tackle a moderate multipitch in Sedona. I was hoping to tick off a classic that I hadn’t been good enough to lead when I still lived there, and after running through some of the options, we settled on Sedona Scenic Cruise, a 5 pitch 5.9 that is in contention for the best 5.9 route in the state. Starting and ending in Phoenix would require an early start, and we headed up I-17 before sunrise, stopping in Oak Creek for a bite to eat for breakfast and starting out from the Bell Rock Pathway shortly after 8:30 AM.
Our route climbed the obvious buttress on Gibraltar Rock directly ahead, the route itself in shadow and backlit by the early morning sun. I had a GPS track downloaded for the approach, and after a few turns on established trail and 1.5 miles later, we turned off into a drainage that led directly towards the base of the climb. We followed the wash fairly closely for about a third of a mile before a use trail materialized with an occasional duck that began to ascend more steeply to the base of the buttress. There was an unnamed pinnacle that we skirted on sandstone slabs to the left, finding an occasional class 3 step that made me happy for my approach shoes.
We were able to stay with the use trail all the way to the base of the climb, taking an hour and fifteen minutes from the car at a reasonable pace. I would be on the sharp end all day, as Alex hadn’t climbed outside since we cragged together in Looner Land 2 years prior, and hadn’t led in even longer.
Racking up, we did our final safety checks before I started up the initial corner. The climbing down low was quite easy, and I was lulled into a false sense of security as I reached the first splitter crack just below the crux of the entire route- an overhanging flake that forms an off-width crack with the main wall.
I started up the crack with great jams, but the grit of the sandstone made me doubt my placements, having been thoroughly spoiled by Sierra granite for the past five years. I double placed some protection in this section and bumped cams up towards the crux, probably quite unnecessary and expending a good deal of energy to do so. I plugged in a 0.4 in a slot below the crux and rested, finding I had pumped myself out fooling around with the extra protection on the crack below. There were actually some nice rails on the face to the left of the flake, and I initially tried to face climb next to the flake- and quickly fell. I then attempted to climb it by off-width technique, which also very quickly burned me out, resulting in another fall. After a rest, I tried what I should have done the entire time and liebacked up the crack, very quickly reaching the rail and plugging in a cam for protection.
The climbing got considerably easier above this flake but my forearms were already tired- between the extra protection early on and multiple falls and rests at the crux, the lead took me close to an hour. I clipped into the two bolt anchor and put Alex on belay, half expecting him to float up the route and make me feel like a gumby. But he struggled at the crux as well, taking just as long to follow the pitch.
Once Alex joined me at the belay, we had a brief discussion on the wisdom of continuing, with our current pace having us finish well after dark. But with the crux of the entire route behind us, the next pitch an easy 5.7, and an ability to descend at any point on the route, it felt worth continuing. Alex scrambled up a ledge past the anchor and moved to the base of the second pitch, rated 5.7 and entirely bolted. I took the quickdraws off Alex’s harness and started up, moving quickly to try and make up for lost time. There was a nice steep and featured arete to finish the pitch and I clipped into a two bolt anchor at the top to bring up Alex to quickly join me.
In contrast to the first pitch, the second had only taken us 30 minutes to climb, and it felt like we were back on track. Looking at the topo, I saw I had actually stopped at an option rappel station, the actual finish to the pitch about 20′ higher on easy terrain. I initially planned to link this in with the third pitch, but upon reaching the anchors, realized I was looking at the famous traverse to start the third pitch, and wanted to have Alex belay me nearby in case of a fall. Once regrouped at the correct anchor, I placed a cam in a slightly flared crack before starting out on the traverse, a great rail for feet and some okay knobs for hands. The move was more balance-y than hard, and I quickly reached the bolt at the end of the short traverse, clipping into a second bolt just above it.
The stance was entirely hands free, and Alex took a few glory shots of me before I started up, some steep face climbing leading to a dirty wide crack above a ledge. This dirty crack led to a well featured hand crack higher up, and I placed some protection before launching up, unfortunately dropping the rope trying to clip a higher piece which necessitated a hang once I eventually clipped it.
The crack ended in ledgey terrain, and I climbed past a rappel station and another bolt up a final short wall to a two bolt anchor at the base of the fourth pitch. Between the traverse and the upper crack, it had been my favorite pitch of the route by far, and I brought up Alex to join me. Way out of sight and with nearly a full rope length out, it was difficult to belay him on the traverse and he actually fell, the rope stretching enough to let him drop safely to the ledge below, but requiring him to rescramble up the ramp and restart the pitch. It was nearly 2:30 when he reached the belay and base of the fourth pitch, and I hoped to be starting our rappels of the route by 4 PM to be back at the base by dark. Although both pitches were 5.9, they were the two shortest pitches of the route with the fourth pitch entirely bolted sport.
The hardest move seemed to be climbing off the deck, and with a big pull I was able to face climb up to the bulge on the arete. I was able to climb this on the left, passing several more bulges up to a large ledge with a large three bolt chain rappel station and separate two bolt anchor for the final pitch. It was just after 3 PM, with an hour for us to climb the final pitch and finish the route. This final pitch was another pitch of 5.9 trad, with a tricky unprotected traverse to a chimney out right, the feet completely hidden by an overhanging lip of rock.
I shimmied out as far as I could before leaning into the stembox, plugging a cam down low before getting in a totem up high. Above me was a large chockstone, with protection options limited to the crack formed between the rock and the chimney on the left, I plugged in a few cams and made the big move around the roof, finding myself looking up at a second, even harder bulge directly above. Although the cam I placed below this bulge felt a bit more inspiring, the move was definitely harder with less features on either side to work around the small roof. I was able to work up just high enough to rock onto my left foot over the bulge, sinking a hand jam into a flared crack to get me over the last crux of the route cleanly. I plugged a cam in the flared slot before climbing higher, entering a large chimney that proved to be much easier than it looked from below, with large features and rails on the right wall, eventually leaving it entirely and climbing the arete next to it all the way up to the route anchors. Alex started up behind me taking a little over 30 minutes to follow the final pitch and join me at the anchors just a few minutes past our turn around time of 4 PM.
The true summit was only a short fourth class scramble above us, but with only 1.5 hours of daylight left and a rappel route notorious for stuck ropes, I felt it was in our best interest to start our descent as soon as possible. I quickly set us up for rappel, and we single rope descended to the top of the fourth pitch, where we had left our second rope. It had been a long time since I had needed to perform a double rope rappel, and after tying our ropes in a EDK, I started the second, largely free hanging rappel down the fourth pitch, past the anchors to the intermediate rappel station at a ledge further down. It was easy to see how ropes could get stuck on this rappel in particular, with the chains just long enough to extend over the lip of rock- but also long enough to accidentally pinch down on the knot or tails if you weren’t careful.
Alex ensured the knot and tails were free before rappelling down to join me, and we pulled the ropes without incident, rethreading and rappeling the remainder of the third pitch and entirety of the second pitch to a dedicated rappel station just below the tree on the ledge at the start of the second pitch. I was surprised to see that our two 70 meter ropes made it to this station with only a few feet to spare, thinking that the rappel route was set up for two 60 meter ropes. The final two rope rappel was considerably shorter, and we found ourselves back at our packs just as the sun dipped below the horizon.
Throwing our gear into our packs as quickly as possible, we started back down the approach slabs, getting past the class 3 steps and back into the wash before we needed to turn on our flashlights. It was completely dark by the time we reached the maintained trail, and we followed the final 1.5 miles back to the car, the entire outing taking about 10 hours. We ordered some chicken sandwiches in Oak Creek from our phone and grabbed it on the drive out, continuing on I-17 back to Phoenix and just missing Avery’s bedtime by about 20 minutes.