The Wasteland

Wasteland Dome’ – The Wasteland
Rock Climbing– Arizona
Total Time: 12:30
Distance: 2.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 1300′
Crux: 5.8 +
Pitches: 6
Protection: Trad rack with double to 2, lots of single and double length slings
Companion: Colin Pickles

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After a full year without multipitch climbing, it was time to reintroduce myself to the craft with another visit to Cochise Stronghold. I had ratcheted up the difficulty of the climbs with each visit, climbing What’s My Line 5.6 on the first trip, Four Course Meal 5.7 on the second, and Ewephoria 5.8 the year prior. My plan this year was to climb the Wasteland, which although also rated 5.8, did not have the benefit of bolts or an easy walk off that made Ewephoria a much tamer affair. The route finding was also notoriously difficult with two full traversing pitches making for a solid adventure route that Holly would definitely hate. I teamed up once more with Colin and the two of us drove down to Cochise early morning, although probably not early enough for the first week of October, the temperatures already in the mid 70s by our 9 AM start time.

Knowing it would be a fairly warm day, I decided to climb in shorts, something I rarely do and almost immediately regretted as we pushed through knee high grasses and brush, the use trail completely overgrown from the excellent monsoon season southern AZ had. We lost the trail more than a few times as we headed west up the drainage, Wasteland Dome out of view by the larger Out-Of-Towners and Entrance Domes on either side.

I had a GPS track open to find where to hook north up a very steep gully, with a thin stream of water cascading to our left. Although the approach had so far been brushy but relatively flat, the last third of a mile climbed steeply to the base of the dome, made worse by the overgrown grasses and increasing temperatures. I went up ahead of Colin to find the start of the climb and start organizing gear.

By the time Colin reached me, he already looked pretty beat- having taken the summer off of climbing, he was admittedly out of shape, covered in thorns, burrs and cactus spines, and overheated from wearing pants and a sun hoodie. It would be our first conversation of several on whether it was wise to continue with how Colin was feeling- but after a break in the shade and a little water, he felt we should try for it having already made the approach. Although many report route finding on the first pitch to be rather difficult, it wasn’t too hard to spot the chimney and arete of pitch 3 up above, and trace the pitch 2 crack down towards the start to figure out the general line. I started up a dirty, grass filled fourth class corner to the left of a tree to a large ledge, then continued trending to the left to a natural arch slung with multiple slings and webbing, which was also the last rappel station. I used a double length sling to hitch the arch and began trending to the right with a short bit of face climbing to access the crack that would lead all the way to the start of pitch 3. The rock next to the crack was so featured that crack technique was hardly necessary, although the crack did offer nearly limitless options for protection. I neared a treed ledge off to the left and end of the first pitch, although it looked like I would need to traverse over on unprotected slabs to get to the tree. Though this looked easy enough, I had plenty of protection left to link the first two pitches together, and with how Colin was feeling, it might be best to expedite things. So I continued along the crack, mostly 5.7 climbing with a few 5.8 moves sprinkled in. With a 70 meter rope, I had just enough to reach the base of the chimney and build an anchor in a crack to bring up Colin.

He started up slowly, with grunts and curses echoing on the cliff below. Although the break had helped him, climbing the route in the hot sun was causing him to bonk again quickly, and he needed to pause at multiple places on the route to catch his breath. It ultimately took him quite a bit longer to follow the pitch than it took for me to lead it, and it was already after noon by the time he joined me on the small belay ledge, both of us crammed below the bottom of the chimney to take advantage of the shade. We again had a conversation about bailing, but this now would require leaving gear and given the featured rock, could get bad quickly if the rope got stuck on a pull. So after another rest, he agreed it made the most sense to continue upwards, the next three pitches offering the 4 star quality climbing the route was known for.

The third pitch begins with a ~20′ chimney, and I needed to take my pack off to squirm up into the narrower base. A thin crack running up the main wall offered opportunities for protection as I stemmed upwards, finding good hands and rails on the outside of the chimney about halfway up allowing me to climb more easily to the top of the detached block forming the outside wall of the chimney.

A crack offered bomber protection for the step across the chimney back on to the main wall, quite a bit easier than it looked initially. With a short bit of face climbing, I had reached the sea of plates, knobs and chicken heads that make the route a classic, swinging out on to the arete proper on jugs that are hard to find outside of a climbing gym. Although the route is best protected by slinging knobs and chicken heads, I actually found plenty of options for nuts and small cams as well, the alligator skin face creating many shallow parallel cracks. I followed the arete to a pair of parallel cracks and built a semi-hanging belay off the crack, some slung knobs and a fixed cam. Now in the afternoon, the route had moved into the shade providing some welcome relief from the early autumn sun. Colin started up the chimney, but found the rest at the belay did not help his stamina recover much, particularly considering the strenuous nature of the chimney itself. His larger follower pack made it even more difficult, and it took him some time to climb to the top of the detached block before moving to the more enjoyable climbing on the arete. Unfortunately, he was so taxed at that point that what should have been one of the more enjoyable pitches of climbing was just a fight to get to the anchor and shaded belay.

The next two pitches were almost completely horizontal traverses, and although positive and low angled, it would be a challenge to protect the route as well as I could for Colin who continued to struggle. I set out on the long traverse under the roof, intially staying fairly low before moving high along a seam. The protection opportunities were about as good as one could ask for on a traverse, and I was able to place pro for Colin every 10′ or less for the horizontal component of the pitch.

As I cleared the bottom of the roof, I needed to pull up and through a crux bulge, and from below, it was unclear as to where to start climbing more vertically. I continued to the right, finding the knobs fizzled out in to low angled slabs before deciding to commit to the bulge above a horizontal seam. Although slightly overhanging, the massive holds keep the climbing 5.8 and I quickly worked back left to build my belay, spying a two bolt anchor from a different route down and to the left to let me know exactly where I was on the wall. Thankfully, now in the shade and with much of the climbing <5,6, Colin had less difficulty with the traversing pitch until pulling through the crux bulge below the anchor.

The fifth pitch was another long traversing pitch, this one now above the roof I had been below on pitch 4. This also featured another 5.8 bulge to surmount, and from the belay it was unclear if I should hit try for the bulge a bit lower or slightly higher. I traversed over to both options, finding the higher one steeper but with better holds. There was also a huge knob that I could lasso and essentially make the harder move on top rope, which was ultimately what I decided to do. In retrospect, this was likely a harder variation than staying low, as the move was definitely harder than 5.8 and the knobs fizzled out staying horizontal at this level, requiring a short 5′ down climb to get back to the large knobs and plates. Once I was back on the southwest corner of the dome and in the setting sunlight I climbed straight up to a large ledge and start of the final, short sixth pitch.

I had read that this could be linked with the fifth pitch, and in the interest of time, I continued upwards clipping the only bolts on the entire climb (although I felt only one of these was actually necessary with no other traditional protection options). It was about 4:30 PM when I reached the summit, and quickly slung a large boulder to anchor to bring up Colin. I was a bit worried about him pulling through the harder variation I had taken but he actually was able to climb that clean, although falling at one point on the traverse but with minimal swing.

By the time he reached the summit, there was little time for relaxation or celebration- with multiple rappels between us and our packs and about an hour of daylight left, we needed to get through as much of the descent as possible. I found the two bolt rappel station on the northwest side of the summit and set up the rappel with our single 70 meter rope, dropping in first to a narrow slot formed by Wasteland Dome and the higher cliffs to the north.

Colin headed down second, and about 15′ of scrambling brought us to the second rappel station off a tree. This rappel continued down the same mostly third class gully to a ledge with a huge cairn off to the left (if facing out from the gully). This was the route finding crux of the descent as we did a quick coil of the rope and followed the cairns to the southeast as it wrapped around back towards the main face of Wasteland Dome, requiring first a short class 2-3 downclimb to a ledge leading to a large bouldery notch, then two more short 10′ class 3 down climbs to a large treed ledge and our next rappel station. By now it was dark but there would be no more scrambling between rappels- this rap led to another tree anchor, followed by a free hanging rappel leading to a ledge with a bolt anchor off to the right, followed by one final rappel off the slung natural arch, dropping us at our packs. We actually reached our packs before 8 PM, although it felt much later given how long we had been moving in the dark. With nothing but the brushy approach between us and the car, we started back down the gully, doing a better job sticking to the use trail in the dark initially, only to lose it over and over as the grass grew taller closer to the car. Again covered in seeds and burrs, we threw our gear in the car and headed back north, grabbing a late dinner in Benson before parting ways in Tucson.