Cochise Dome 6260′
Rock Climbing
What’s My Line
Total Time: 12:40
Distance: 3.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 2150′
Crux: 5.6 A0 R
Pitches: 4
Companions: Holly, Alex Wallace, Colin Pickles
Trailhead: East Cochise Stronghold
Legendary climber and dirtbag Fred Beckey compiled a list of his 100 favorite climbs in North America extending from Alaska to Mexico, including my only tick from the list- Pico de Orizaba. Three of these 100 climbs lie within Arizona- ‘The Classic’ 5.7+ near Prescott, ‘Moby Dick’ 5.8 in Cochise Stronghold, and ‘What’s My Line’ 5.6 A0, also in Cochise. ‘What’s My Line’ has a reputation of being the best moderate climb in the entire state, although difficult to protect and not recommended for beginner leaders. It had been on my to-do list for years, held back by the combination of the long 4 hour drive and spring closure for roosting falcons. I wanted to get my first Cochise trip in before any winter storms, and Holly, Alex, Colin and I headed south for the weekend to work on some of the easier area classics. Cochise Stronghold is a series of domes and spires cutting east-west across the Dragoon Mountains, which run north to south. What’s My Line is on Cochise Dome, nearly in the center of the stronghold and can be approached from the east of west. We choose the east for our approach, which although shorter was much steeper. The east side also had an established campground where we planned to spend the night. Despite our best intentions of an early start out of Tucson, a stop for coffee and setting up camp put us on the approach trail at about 9 AM.
The trail, although not maintained by the forest service, was very well established and worn, and we followed it up the steep drainage with Waterfall Dome up to our right and the Rockfellow Domes, the largest domes in the Stronghold, high above. The first quarter mile of the ascent was gradual, but the grade rapidly increased as we followed cairns up steep and sometimes slick slabs past Waterfall Dome to the high valley between Rockfellow Domes and Cochise Dome.
As we crossed beneath Waterfall Dome, the grade improved and the use trail followed a sandy wash upcanyon. We reached a saddle with Rockfellows domes and had our first view of Cochise Dome for the day. We paused for the classic view of What’s My Line, with Vortex Tower (FA by Beckey himself) on the left and 3 parties of climbers spread out on What’s My Line to the right.
Continuing along the use trail, we kept an eye out for a turn off to find the “class 4” approach route to bring us to the start of the climb. We found a cache of packs where other parties had stashed their gear and dropped our own packs to rack up for the climb. The plan was for me to lead all the pitches on double ropes, with Alex going second and Holly third, towing a line to bring up Colin last. Harnesses on, we followed cairns through the boulder fields to a steep slabbed ramp where we broke out the rope for a quick and dirty belay.
Some easy scrambling under huge boulders and through mini tunnels and caves brought us to the crux of the approach where many parties choose to rope up. There was a party at the belay ledge above and since we needed to wait for them anyways, we roped up and I led the approach pitch, rated ‘class 4.’
I know Cochise has a reputation for being sandbagged, but calling that approach class 4 felt almost insulting. I’m not saying it was 5.7 climbing, but the last 20′ was a difficult to protect vertical chimney that came out on the rather small first belay ledge. The party of two ahead of us was halfway through leading the first main pitch of climbing, and it would be another 20 minutes before I could build my own trad anchor behind a huge flake and start bringing up the others. I had Holly belay up Colin while Alex lead belayed me in both the interest of time and belay ledge space, and after organizing our piles of ropes the best we could, I looked around the corner to the two bolt anchor to clip to lower for the pendulum. I was surprised at how thin the move was to clip the bolt, and plugged a small cam in a pocket down low to protect myself as I clipped into the anchor, which I immediately cleaned once clipped in. I only clipped in one of the two twin ropes- the one attached to Holly (third climber), and Alex lowered me about 20′ as I ran back and forth sideways across the wall trying to reach the start of the chicken heads. He had to lower me further than I expected and after about 10 tries I was able to grab a hold of one of the huge rock knobs and move on to the “chicken head highway.” The use of double ropes allowed me to protect myself earlier on the route than had I been using a single rope by slinging chicken heads when I was eye level with Alex on Holly’s rope only, which he could clean once he started up the route. I used slipknots to sling the first chicken head, tightened it down the best I could, then watched it slip off and slide down the rope towards the bolt once I was five feet above it. Not at all comforting. I slung two more chickenheads back to back and they seemed to hold, and I followed the route slightly to the left to sling the main pendulum point for the rest. One knob had a nice cut in groove and it looked like the go-to knob for the pendulum, and I slung it tight before traversing to the right to reach a brown water stain and the first nearly hanging belay off three bolts.
I tightened up Alex’s rope, clipped only into the main pendulum chickenhead (and all the slings after it) and he swung out onto the wall to clean the lower slings. Aside from some difficulty freeing Holly’s rope from some chicken heads lower down, he joined me quickly and the two of us crammed tight on the small knobs while I brought up Holly. Holly was feeling pretty sick with a headcold that was only getting worse, but climbed well as the three of us hung off the three bolts hundreds of feet off the valley floor. Again in the interest of space, I started up the next pitch while Holly belayed up Colin. The second pitch was a long 150′ of pure chickenheads to the corner of the dome and another hanging belay, this one boltless and off three chickenheads.
The three best looking knobs were above a ledge that really only had room for one person, but in the interest of making it as bomber as possible, I went with the largest I could find. The idea that up to four of us may be hanging off three rock knobs made me a bit nervous, and I wanted to start across the final pitch before Colin got up. I hadn’t read too much about the third pitch but quickly found it the most difficult. Some nice pockets made the first half of the pitch straightforward and easy to protect. But the hands disappeared just before a single bolt with thin moves to a ledge where I could clip the single bolt and only solid pro of the pitch. The route only became slabbier past the bolt, an aside from a single pocket a foot level where I could get in a a good cam, it was a bit run out to the corner of a 20′ chimney.
Some people choose to belay here in order to see one another on the traverse, but we were moving slow with four climbers and it was already after 4 PM. So I continued up the chimney, difficult to protect but more physical than exposed. The top of the chimney brought me to a ledge 10′ below the top of the route and I slung a horn near a bush as a redirect before clipping in to the two bolt anchor at the summit.
I pulled up the slack and clove hitched both Alex and Holly to the summit anchors, and Alex took Colin’s rope so the ever sicker Holly could do the traverse with less drag. It took them a bit to sort the ropes before Alex started out, moving slowly across the slabs to the chimney. There was actually a ramp that would have been much easier than the chimney, but Alex was forced to climb in thanks to my redirect, made even more difficult by his pack. He didn’t clip Colin to give him the option of the ramp, and tried to pull up the rope for Holly to start- and found it completely stuck. I was pretty sure it was probably either kinked or twisted around Colin’s rope, although we were able to pull his up for him to climb. So Colin climbed the final pitch third, finding Holly’s rope twisted around his at least 3 times.
He danced around it to untwist it and headed up the ramp to join Alex and I. Holly went last, and we were losing light fast thanks to some thick clouds on the horizon. She made it to the bolt, then became understandably worried about a pendulum fall on the thin slabs not being able to see the rock well in the low light and feeling sick. So we dropped her a rope from above offering a second belay point and she moved across and up the ramp with the confidence of a second belay point. It was after 6PM when the four of us topped out on the route, the sun setting behind the clouds.
Descending in the dark was a certainty, so it seemed silly to rush as we set up the rappel off the backside- traditionally done in two single rope raps but can be done in one long double rope rappel. It was completely dark by the time Alex dropped off the edge into the abyss, finding the intermediate rappel anchor on a huge ledge halfway down, continuing past on the tied double ropes to the base of the gully on the backside. Holly went second, followed by Colin and myself as the anchor. With the four of us at the base, I pulled and coiled the ropes and we descended the steep and loose trail down the gully. We were briefly cliffed out at a rock fall as we hugged the rock face, but found away around around it to the left. The trail became more defined as we descended, and we ultimately reached our packs at about 8PM. It was a good time for a break, and we drank water and had some of the first food in many hours before hiking back down the use trail to camp. The slick slabs were even less pleasant in the dark but we made it back to camp without any falls or injury, the entire day taking over 12 hours. Holly’s illness was peaking and the entire day was more exhausting and involved than any of us expected. So we unanimously agreed to cut our trip a day short and head back to Tucson for real food, a hot shower and a comfortable bed after one of my longest days in the mountains in a long time.