It has been a few months since we were outdoors climbing last time. We have been spending more time in the climbing gym which does not make any sense at all because the past month has been the best, temperature wise, of the year. But for some reason we have just not made it outdoors. Today it was time. We drove to Queen Creek which is just past Superior about an hour east of Phoenix. Just next to the highway is a fairly large climbing area with both bolted and traditional routes.
The image shows a very nice 5.9 route that we spent some time on. It had some nice moves and was a lot longer than what we are used to in the climbing gym.
The main objective today though was to try out some new gear we bought last week. A set of 6 cams is the happy addition to our rack.
We are currently learning traditional climbing where you have to place your own protection (like the cams in the picture). The routes are not bolted. This takes a bit getting used to. First you have to spend more time to actually find spots to put your gear. Second, you have to be sure that the stuff you put there will hold. And the gear weighs a bit so you are heavier than you are used to. It simply needs practicing and that is what we are doing.
Being able to do traditional climbing will make us more flexible during our trip. We like multi pitch climbing and actually reaching a peak of some sort. These routes usually requires that you place your own gear so this is something we just have to do.