Continued...
Following a successful climb of Castle Rock in the Turtle Mountains, we were
looking to a few more rock climbing objectives across the AZ border around
Lake Havasu. TomB wasn't too excited about the prospect of more questionable
rock, but he was willing to join us to check it out, at least. I tried to sell
him on Balance
Rock as a good place to practice using the ascenders, which may have helped
some, but he was certainly not all-in on this one. We had camped a second night
off SR62 southwest of Vidal Junction, having about an hour's drive to reach
Lake Havasu City. I left camp before the others so that I could get some
supplies at the Safeway in Parker, AZ, as well as some caffiene at the
Starbucks there. We reconvened at the Sara Park Trailhead off South McCulloch
Blvd, which conveniently has flush toilets and a place to refill water jugs.
Balance Rock - Lizard Peak
From , it's a 2.5mi trail walk down to the Colorado
River and Balance Rock. There are two trail options - the Yellow Trail follows
a wash while the Blue Trail stays above the wash on the north side. The Yellow
Trail goes through called
"" (a short section where the wash narrows considerably) where
helps one down , the crux of the
trail. We spent an hour on the trail to reach the river, turning right to
north to where
can be found at its edge. We had brought a rope
and climbing gear, but had mistakenly thought there were some bolts on the
feature. A better reading of the available beta would have told us there were
none to be found, and our gear would be inadequate. The Leaping Lizard Tribe
had used a 200ft+ rope (maybe a 70m would suffice?) to walk uphill on either
side of Balance Rock before pulling the rope taut to get it over the top of
the feature. Not knowing this, we spent some time searching on
for signs of bolts, including the
that TomG had waded into. Like the day before, TomB immediately said "No way"
when he got at the rotten conglomerate that somehow still
manages to stand. This time, however,
he hung around instead of running off to another peak, perhaps sensing
impending failure. After about 20min, TomG and I gave up the effort, and I
think I noticed a small measure of satisfaction in TomB's face as
.
Our consolation would be ,
a trailed summit not far from our route
to Balance Rock. In addition to the named trails, there are quite a few social
trails about the area that go off in various directions. Several trails go to
the summit of Lizard Peak. With , we followed (what we
think is) one of approaching from the southwest and
west. It wasn't the shortest route to the summit, but it is a scenic area and I
didn't mind the meandering path we followed. It took us about an hour from
Balance Rock to reach Lizard's summit where is located.
Google Maps has this called "Picnic Table Mountain Peak" which is pretty
unimaginative and used, I'm pretty sure, by no one except the person who
submitted it to Google Maps. On the descent we went off ,
then down from a saddle to the large
that was created by the Leaping Lizard Tribe. It has
been enhanced since it was first created, with white rocks added to the
reddish-brown ones to produce stripes on the long tail. After taking a few
photos, we returned to and then back to
shortly before noon.
Crab Claw
Having failed on Balance Rock, we were eager to have a better go at Crab Claw
on the north side of Lake Havasu City. We had visited this a year ago without
any climbing gear and failed, though we had gotten within about 15 vertical
feet of the summit. We drove the two Jeeps to within a few hundred yards of
the feature on . TomB didn't need a close-up look
this time to decide he wanted no part of it. He drove off to scramble up nearby
Shangri-La Butte and Little Haystack while the others carried gear up to Crab
Claw. Having scouted routes on the previous visit, TomG felt the best option
was an off-width crack on the south side of Crab Claw. We carried the gear up
to of the West Face, then up through a notch to reach the
start of the route on . The route looks a bit daunting
at first glance, but as Tom quickly showed, the crux comes at
and turns out to be no harder than 5.6 or 5.7. It
took Tom only 15min to complete
and set up an anchor
and for as . In all, it
took only 30min to get all three of us on the summit - this one was short but
fun. "Crab Claw" has been etched at the summit and
along with three different steel rappel chains/anchors, there is a Leaping
Lizard register dating . Most of the recorded climbs are by Tim
O'Conner and other members of the tribe - clearly the summit has been used for
a lot of training/workout climbs. After a short stay, we off
so that Tom could have a try on toprope at the West Face
that goes at something like 5.10 or 5.11. While he and
Iris were arranging things for the climb, I went back to the south side to
retrieve all the gear we'd left there, ferrying it over to the west side in
several loads. Meanwhile, Tom made of the westside route,
struggling only a bit at where the overhanging crux is
located. It was the first time I had seen Tom breathing heavily anywhere, but
then again it was the first time I'd seen him climb at a 5.10+ grade - all
quite impressive. After he was lowered back down, we pulled the rope and packed
things up, then to the Jeep around 3p.
It seemed like a good time to call it a day, so we went off to find a campsite
about a mile to the west, on the NW side of the highway. Not the best of sites,
but it would do. After showering and reconvening with TomB and Karl, we headed
into town for a meal and beverages at the Hanger 24 brewery. We thought it
good enough that we came back a second time the following evening.
Karl had planned
to head home starting this evening, but after plying him with an extra
margarita or two, we convinced him to stay with us for the evening and join in
the next day's hike to Tumarion Peak. After dinner, we headed back to our
campsite for campfire to while away the evening hours until bedtime...
Continued...