Streaker Spire 5,140′
Total Time: ~7:30
Distance: 2.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 900′
Crux: 5.7+
Companions: Holly, Colin Pickles
Trailhead: Chapel of the Holy Cross, pit toilets, full services nearby
After a successful outing up Queen Victoria in April, I was itching to test myself on some more Sedona sandstone. Although climbing in Sedona in August is iffy at best, I hadn’t led outside in some time, and thought an early start, a short approach and a shady route would make for a possible day. Once I narrowed it down to things I could actually lead, I was left with Streaker Spire, a beautiful sandstone peak near Chapel of the Holy Cross. It, along with North Spire, The Minister and Pulpit, and Christianity Spire, make up the Church Spires Group, sometimes known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Streaker Spire was by far the easiest of the four, with the Original North Face Route rated 5.7+ with a tough off width crux. I’ve never been particularly good at off widths, but Queen Victoria had gone well, so why not give it a shot? Our friend Colin, who hadn’t been on real rock since Hanging Gardens in the spring, was also looking to test himself a bit more outside and we headed up to Sedona on a Saturday morning for the climb. We parked just down the road of the chapel trailhead within the chapel gates. A sign said they closed at 5 PM, but I figured that would give us plenty of time starting out before 10AM.
Streaker Spire was directly ahead as we started down the trail, backlit by the morning sun. We followed the trail beneath the south face of East Twin Butte, leaving in a slabby sandstone wash and aiming for a series of gullies southwest of the spires. I had expected to pick up a use trail but only found the occasional cairn indicating we were on route. We were at last in the shade at the base of a series of gullies, and I matched the gully further up to the beta photos, heading up a brushy and shady canyon underneath a huge wedged rock and up and over a chokestone. We had to pass up the packs to each other for the tricky third class section before continuing up the next tier of sandstone slabs.
We were now directly below the slightly larger Christianity Spire, going at 5.10 and originally climbed by the famous late Fred Beckey. We stuck along the wall to our left a bit longer before hooking right on a long ascending traverse directly beneath Christianity spire, ultimately bringing us to the gully between Christianity and Streaker Spires. The gully had a good amount of loose soil, but a use trail got us the remaining distance to the saddle and the start of the route. We geared up here, leaving our packs next to a shady tree.
Holly and Colin were both uncomfortable soloing the short fourth class section to get us to the start of the first pitch, so I scrambled up roped in and brought up the two of them to the ledge that starts the route. The first two of the four pitches of the North Face route are actually completely horizontal, traversing a limestone band to reach a crack system around the corner. While the climbing is not difficult (I’ve read 5.5 somewhere, but I felt like it was way easier) both the leader and follower are at risk for a pendulum in a fall. I decided to lead the route on double ropes and had both Colin and Holly belay me from their respective ropes. There were a pair of bolts on this short first pitch which I supplemented with a pair of cams along the route, trying to minimize any possible pendulum in the event of a fall. The first belay is an obvious ledge only about 50′ from the start, and I built a quick anchor from an old bolt and piton and belayed Colin over. He was sure to only unclip his rope and leave Holly’s rope in the pro, keeping her protected from a swing when it was her turn to climb.
After I belayed Holly across, we re-flaked the ropes for the second pitch. The second pitch is very short, maybe 25′, and often combined with the first or third pitches. I wanted to be able to see Holly and Colin on the longer traversing section and knew the belay stance at the end of pitch 2 was cozy, so I decided I would combine pitches 2 and 3 instead. After placing a piece on the ledge before the start, I continued the traverse, slinging a small tree and rounding the corner to find a bolt marking the end of the second pitch and start of pitch 3 and the vertical climbing. I had read a good deal about the fourth pitch crux and was surprised to find this section was actually quite tricky to get started, an off width for about 15′ that quickly tapered to a finger crack. The entire system took pro beautifully and I very slowly sewed up this section before moving into a much wider crack/ chimney system a few feet to the right.
The easier section of this pitch was made quite difficult by the incredible drag I was experiencing as the rope pulled around the corner then straight through several cams to me. Fighting the drag was exhausting, and even though pulling around a bulge at the top of the pitch was straight forward, I used about 5x as much energy pulling myself through the final moves of the third pitch to the next belay. This belay station was even bigger, and I set an anchor off a small pine tree and started to bring up Colin. Communication was difficult with the wind, but I was able to get across that he needed to clean all the cams in the vertical section so as to reduce the drag when I was bringing up Holly. Colin hadn’t cleaned a route before, and I could hear him cursing through the off width as he tried to work out the cams, one of which he had to leave for Holly. Probably should have had him practice first…
Once Colin made it up pitch 3 I brought up Holly, who made us both look bad by cruising up the off width and only burning a few minutes to free the final stuck cam. The final crux pitch was directly above us, with easier climbing lower down leading to the slightly overhanging off width. I started up the final pitch, pausing briefly to work through one slightly tricky spot about halfway up until I reached the large ledge below the crux. I decided to climb up and place some pro first before attempting to pull around the bulge, and climbed down for a short breather before heading up to go for it.
The holds were solid lower down, it was really just a matter of trusting yourself and pulling away from the rock to get around the bulge and an arm up high above the narrow slot. Once I had my shoulder wedged in the crack, I knew it was just a matter of fighting and squirming the remaining few feet to reach the upper chimney. I was able to take a breather here as I set up some webbing to help Colin and Holly through the crux if needed (they didn’t). After that it was some straight forward stemming, made a bit more challenging by just enough rope drag to be annoying, although nothing compared to the third pitch. I ungracefully emerged from the chimney on slabs just below the summit, and slowly started hauling up the rope, building a belay off a small tree directly above the crux. Colin came up first, doing fairly well at the crux and climbing better than he had on the third pitch. Rather than bring Colin the remaining distance up, I had him wait just above the crux and brought Holly up, just in case she needed a hand through. We had also forgotten a third helmet, and this would allow him to pass her my helmet to use through the crux (not proud of this). She also breezed up the lower section and quickly through the crux not needing the webbing or a hand from Colin. Looks like that time at AZR is paying off.
After that, I quickly brought the two of them up through the final chimney and we headed to the summit to enjoy our summit beers, eat some snacks and give the helicopter and Pink Jeep Tours a show (it is Streaker Spire after all….).
The summit was hard fought, and I was in no rush to leave…. until we noticed the time. After spending at least 45 minutes at the summit, it was now a bit after 4PM, and I had completely forgot about the gates closing for the Chapel at 5! I hadn’t even considered parking outside of the gates, thinking there was no way we could possibly take that long. We kicked it into gear and I quickly set up the rappel, sending down Holly first, then Colin. As they were rappelling, I called the chapel to explain what had happened. They had told me I had until 5:30 PM at the latest, then I would be locked in for the night! Holly spotted the second rappel anchors and we used both ropes in order to rap the short fourth class section near the base.
Holly again went first with Colin following, and I probably nearly set the rope on fire with how fast I rappelled down to the base. It was just before 5PM and I left Colin and Holly to pack the ropes and headed out alone, trying to get to the car before we were locked in. I half jogged down the sandstone slabs, barely breaking stride at the chokestone and hitting the trail with 11 minutes to spare….
It was hard to maintain a fast pace wearing a harness loaded with trad gear, a pack with more trad gear and no more water in 90 degree heat, but I reached my car at 5:30 on the nose. I peeled out of the lot…. only to find the gate padlocked shut! I flipped around and headed to the church, thankfully finding the last few workers leaving for the day were able to let me out. Once beyond the gate I called Holly and ran to Circle K to buy us waters and Gatorades. Unfortunately, Holly and Colin got a bit turned around near the chokestone not remembering the exact descent route, and it was almost an hour until they made it to the car, slowed by routefinding, the heat and also running out of water. We left Sedona for Phoenix as the sun was setting, exhausted, dehydrated but pleased with another successful adventure and trad climb on Sedona sandstone.
