The Fin P300 RS
Brins Butte P300 RS
Brins Mesa
Sat, Oct 8, 2022
| With: | Tom Becht |
| Iris Ma | |
| Tom Grundy | |
| Eric Smith |
Sat, Oct 8, 2022
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| With: | Tom Becht |
| Iris Ma | |
| Tom Grundy | |
| Eric Smith |
The 
starting point is the Jordon Road TH (at least, that's what Google
Maps calls it), about half a mile southwest of the summit. For such a short
distance, it would take us quite a few hours to get five of us to the summit. We
made very little use of the trail system, leaving it to start cross-country
almost immediately. A promising 
use trail petered out all to quickly as
we found our way across 
a small drainage and then uphill to
the base of the South Face, roughly in its middle. There is quite a bit
of 
class 3 scrambling on sandstone slabs and rock to get us to the start
of the more serious stuff, marked by 
some flagging on a pine tree. From
the tree, the route goes up 
a sandstone dryfall, rather steeply. In his
book, Rambles & Scrambles, Purcell mentions that some folks might prefer
a rope here. We kept our gear in our packs and went up cautiously without using
it. Above this, we 
traversed crumbly slopes, went up
a narrow gully, and then proceeded to the base of 
the ramp,
now in plain sight. The ramp is mostly standard 
class 3, albeit
a bit airy, with a 
class 4-ish dihedral somewhere above
the middle of 
the ramp. An hour and ten minutes after
starting out, we'd reached the 
top of the ramp. Time to get out the
gear.
If this had been the route to its summit, it would be rated a really good
scramble. But there was more work to be done here. 
The start of the
climb is pretty obvious, the route less so. Per usual, we let TomG work out the
route on lead, and as usual, he did a pretty good job sussing it out, quickly
finding that the easier route goes to the left of the edge, not directly up it.
He set up a belay once above this first step, primarily to keep it short so we
could get everyone up on the two ropes we carried without having to toss either
back down. TomG then 
belayed Iris up (where she could did
a little dance), followed by 
the rest of us, 
in turn.
Once I had 
joined them as the last in line, TomG went up on the second
pitch, finishing it quickly. His speedy work of it belied the crux of the route,
a steep and somewhat slippery 
sandstone slab that confounded the rest
of us, for at least a minute or two. A bolt in the middle of
this section helps to protect the leader, but of course it had been
cleaned by the time I came up last, once again.
We left the ropes at the top of the second belay, and returned to
scrambling the rest of 
the way to the top. This was a fun bit
with some stiff 
class 3 and some 
engaging exposure. Finally,
by 10:30a, we had five 
at the summit - over three hours to go half a
mile. Quite the summit, and with some pretty spectacular 
views, though
to be fair, most Sedona summits do. I recognized about half of the names in the
two-page 
register, at the bottom of which we added our
own names. We did not spend much time at the summit as Eric, in
particular, was not able to relax until we had gotten back off this thing. The
others lingered a bit longer while Eric and I 
started the
scramble back to the ropes. Once we had reconvened the whole group, we
set up for the first of four rappels that would take us down the South Face. The
1st three raps were fairly short. We first 
rapped down to
the top of the 1st pitch, the 
2nd rap then off
the South Face into the ramp we had climbed earlier. Our landing spot
was only a short distance below the top of the ramp, so while the others were
coming down, I made several quick trips up to retrieve boots and other
gear we had left there. We then 
scrambled down the ramp to a belay
sling around 
a tree above the short dihedral. It seemed safer to rap
rather than 
downclimb this, and since we had all the gear out, it
didn't take much extra time. A 
4th rap exited us from the ramp to the
right, down 
the South Face a second time. This bypassed much of
the earlier scrambling on the lower half of the ramp.
I was curious about finding a shorter way off the bottom half of the mountain,
suggesting we 
head west/southwest instead of retracing our ascent route
to the south. There were some 
ducks that suggested this might be the
more regular route, but it led to some cliffs lower down that needed to be
worked through. TomB and I turned south and zig-zagged 
our way down in
that direction while TomG led the others off the west side on an easier line.
TomB and I had nearly worked our way to the easy ground below when we got
stopped by a last 15-foot section of cliff. For this I got out a 20-foot length
of webbing, using a small tree to sling around and allow us to
lower ourselves down the short face. This worked quite nicely, the
webbing just long enough to get us down without having to drop. After
TomB followed, I retrieved the webbing, tossed it in the pack, and we
headed off to find the others. After descending through forest and
along 
a dry creekbed for about 10min, we emerged at 
the TH
where we found the others had beaten us back by a few minutes.
Brins Mesa Trail north and northwest for a mile
and change to where it goes over 
a broad saddle on the mesa
above Mormon Canyon. Good use trails then lead left and right to our summits.
We headed to Brins Butte first, following 
the social trail up through
a rock band that requires some class 2-3 
scrambling, nothing
tricky. 
The summit has more than 400ft of prominence and
good views overlooking 
the broader area, including a fine one
of 
Morning Glory Spire just to the south (tomorrow's adventure). After
returning back down the same route to the trail junction, we took the other
social trail 
northeast up to Brins Mesa, an LoJ-only point with little
prominence. This was an easier effort, with only a smidgen of
scrambling at 
the very end. The point sits up against the base
of the far higher, and more massive Wilson Mtn. I wondered out loud if it were
possible to descend the mesa to the north and then down a steep drainage that
would lead back to Mormon Canyon and our trailhead. TomG was the only one who
showed any interest, but that was enough to get us off on one last adventure for
the day, while TomB and Iris elected to return back via the trail system.
From the top of Brins Mesa, it wasn't at all clear that there was an exit off
the mesa to 
the north. But after descending 
steps and ledges
for a few minutes, we found several options, none harder than stiff class 3.
Once 
off the mesa, the canyon drops quickly, a 
messy affair
of rock, downfall and other debris as we slipped and slid our way down. After
dropping 200ft, we reached 
easier ground in the bottom of
the dry creekbed which we would follow south for almost two miles. At one point
we noted 
a prominent duck leading out of the creekbed, to what we
guessed was a climbing route. After later research, it appears this is to the
feature called 
Goliath, found on PB, SummitPost and elsewhere. The
hike down the creekbed wasn't a piece of cake, but it held no unexpected
dryfalls or other serious obstacles. It was a fun bit of Wilderness scrambling,
only modestly brushy, and good fun, too. We eventually popped back up on the
Brins Mesa Trail with only a few minutes left to return to
the TH. TomB and
Iris had beaten us back, as expected, but not by much. It was now 4:20p and
time to call it a day as we headed back to our campsite off the USFS's Loy
Butte Rd...
Continued...
This page last updated: Fri Apr 7 12:33:40 2023
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