Climbing in Arizona - Cochise and the Endgame (dis)adventure

Now there is more than 1 year that I've been living in the desert... the Sonoran Desert, not any desert... where the giant and old Saguaro cacti reign as the reincarnation of Native American entities among chollas, prickly pear, ocotillos, and palo verde trees, it's truly a forest of strong life. In the summer, lightning takes the sky during the monsoons, the rattle snakes unfold, the scorpions permeate the ground, the cacti bloom in big flowers, and the owls and hawks watch everything. Coyotes have a terrifying scream, javelinas eat the plants of your backyard, and lucky is who sees a bobcat or even a mountain lion... It's amazing how much life is living in this dryland, but this is also thanks to the rocks hosting all these ecosystems, and there are tons of weird rocks...

Rockfellow Group at sunset light, Eastside Cochise.

Cactus flowers in the Rockfellow Group trail


Ringtail "cat", although it's not a cat, common in Cochise.

Bat near the pool in the hike to the Rockfellow Group in Cochise.

Scorpion glowing under dark light, Sabino Canyon

Milagrosa Canyon, one of the crags of Mt. Lemmon with the Saguaro cacti.

I've never seen such a particular topography as in southern Arizona. Several rock domes that can reach 3000 m host a kind of alpine ecosystem forming the Sky Islands, which are separated by a "sea" of desert flatlands. The Sky Islands, such a cool name for the metamorphic and magmatic mountain domes, are now cracked by the long-lived dry erosion. Cracks and slabs, perfect world for adventure climbing, and the community is really psyched for traditional rock climbing, a world that is opening more and more for me, as I always dreamt. Having climbed a lot in South America and Europe I can say, climbing in western US is trad and rad!

Classic topography of southern Arizona: Sky Islands separated by the desert "sea"


Landscape from the top of the Sheepshead, the higher peak in Cochise Stronghold accessible from the Westside.

At the top of the Whale Dome, the Square Top in the background, in the heart of Cochise.

When I arrived in Tucson I knew three people from the Geosciences Department of the University of Arizona. One of them, another postdoc that became a great friend, immediately got my obsession with climbing and presented me other two postdocs that were going to climb a multipitch in the weekend. We had a coffee together and no way, we all go to climb a multipitch in Cochise in my second weekend in Arizona!


Me, Antonin, and Daniel departing to climb the Sheepshead, the highest mountain in the background. My first climb in Arizona by the classic route Ewephoria.

Climbing the slabs of Ewephoria, the liquen makes the rocks shining yellow

At the top of Sheepshead after Ewephoria, the little pods look like the eyes of chief Cochise.

Cochise is the trad niche of Tucson, Arizona. It's climbing history comes back to the 60's with a small group of Tucsonan climbers opening most of the trad climbs that are still the most beautiful lines of the domes. Today it has more than 350 established routes and many are sport (bolted) lines, but it’s still relatively isolated and characterized by the "runouts", when protections are very spaced between each other, requiring commitment. The granite domes reflect the sunlight in vibrant tones of orange, green, and the yellow of lichen, making the landscape magic.

Something that makes Cochise even more fascinating is it's Native-American history. This natural rock fortress in the middle of the desert was once the refuge of the Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise and his tribe, who fought the US army and were never captured. He calmly died somewhere in Cochise Stronghold in 1874, making it a sacred mystical place. Climbing in Cochise is a trip with deep connection with the rock, the desert creatures, and the indigenous history.

Walls of the End Pinnacle in the Rockfellow Group, at the base, the looking human-face can be another sign of native americans presence.

We rapidly transformed this place into a basecamp for climbing every weekend during the winter and spring. A good fire and camping-made pizza were a milestone of my first months in Arizona, rapidly deepening my skills and confidence in trad climbing.


Thanksgivig of 2023 in the campgrounds of the Eastside Cochise.


Dutch oven technique to cook in the fire.

In May we camped in the Eastside Cochise to celebrate my birthday, and the day after Heera and I departed to try the route Endgame at the Rockfellow Group, the most epic zone of Cochise Stronghold. Endgame is a sport 5.10 of 5 pitches, and I had already done it on Thanksgiving with Daniel. However, I had a bitter taste because we bailed in the last pitch due to strong wind and late timing. Me and Heera were feeling strong, but we started getting trapped in the rock in the 3rd pitch... This is the Endgame story (if you ever heard rumors about it..).

Cochise granite is known by the slabs and crack systems, but even more by the chickenheads! Jugs of rock that stand out the wall and are possible to sling, forming a natural protection. They are also really prone to catch your rope when you throw or pull the rope and can be a potential danger for rope stuck. The feature that calls my attention the most is the crocodile skin, when the granite cracks in hexagonal shallow shapes similar to contraction cracks, typical of clays in desertic regions, but we are talking about solid granite!! My theory is that alteration of feldspar to clay minerals at the surface, after a long time of slow weathering and erosion, allows these shallow cracks to form. The crocodile skin forms an infinity of centimetric cracks in different directions which are normally very good crimps.

Me and Daniel climbing Endgame on Thanksgiving 2023.

One of the main characteristics of Endgame is that it does a zigzag along pitches that go in diagonal, which was very important to get our ropes completely stuck... We were climbing with one rope between us (the orange rope), and one rope attached only to the follower (the green rope), and then loose below her. Ideally the green rope would come with the follower as we climbed up. However, that Sunday was a windy day... We climbed the strenuous first pitch, which goes in diagonal to the left without great problems, and then the second pitch which is runout but possible to add protection slinging chickenheads.

Heera climbing the first pitch of Endgame.

Pitch 2 of Endgame, which is a very runout 5.8 with chickenheads to sling, this pitch goes right from the anchor of P1. Notice the crocodile skin feature in the rock.

The third pitch is very overhanging in the beginning and goes in diagonal to the right. I led that one, and while I was belaying, I just noticed that my partner was taking a long while to reach me. She eventually yelled something at me, but I could not hear because of the wind. She finally reached me with a scared face and told me that she could not advance from the middle of that pitch because the green rope got stuck in some crack or chickenhead below us. The temporary solution she found was to attach the upper end of the green rope to a bolt and finish the climb (by the orange rope) to decide together what to do.


Pitch 3 starts here and uses the right crack.

Topo of End Pinnacle (available at www.toofasttopos.com), Endgame is the red route, green line is the green rope which got stuck in a chimney while hanging from the second climber, and the orange line is the orange rope between us

The only thing we thought was that we would have to downclimb this pitch and try to get the green rope back. I started going down with a rappel system, which proved to be extremely hard due to the diagonal and overhang character of that pitch. I had to clip my rope in each single bolt while going down, otherwise I would just swing away from the bolts and end up in the middle of nowhere and would have to ascend the rope with prosics (a heinous process). I finally got to the green rope and managed to get it unstuck and attach it back to my harness. I don't even remember it being hard to pull, I just remember having a real hard time rappelling down in the diagonal. The beginning of the 3rd pitch (end of the rappel) is real overhang, and keeping close to the wall required me to downclimb using a lot of strength. I finally got to the anchors of the 2nd pitch with the green rope with me, while my partner was still on the top of pitch 3. She also had a hard time in the rappel, and we even had to abandon a sling because we were could not take it back avoiding a big swing to the nowhere.

Situation after rappeling/downclimbing pitch 3: the orange rope gets stuck in the rocks between P2 and P3, and we stay at P2 with only with the green rope.

We were back together in a bolted anchor (top of P2), green rope was unstuck, and the orange rope was still in the rappel system between us and the top of pitch 3. When we started trying to pull it, we figured, we had the orange rope stuck!! Pitch 3 is so overhanging, diagonal, and full of chickenheads, all that created such a drag in the system that we could not pull that rope at all. Abandoning the orange rope in the wall and rappelling just with the green rope was the most likely scenario, but the top of P1 was too high for one normal rappel with one 70 m rope. Here, when I realized that reaching the ground was uncertain, I started panicking and messaged some friends to figure out what to do.

It took some time for our friends to realize that we were actually trapped in the wall. Eventually, some of them started driving from Tucson to Cochise to do a hypothetical friends rescue, when they would have to climb to us, and we would have enough ropes to rappel safe to the ground. In the meantime, Heera called another climber friend, who gave us good tips. There were two options: one would be climbing pitch 3 again, getting the orange rope back (having the green rope on us) and then rappelling down by a straighter line that would not get our ropes stuck. However, we were extremely tired, and none of us were willing to climb it again in the cold dark. The second option would be to abandon the orange rope in the wall and go down to the top of pitch 1 with the green rope, and then do a single string rappel to the ground, leaving also the green rope in the wall. That would cost us a lot of money by abandoning both ropes in the climb, but honestly, was the only feasible option for us at that moment. We did it, it took us a long time since the rope was getting constantly tangled with the wind, and my headlamp ran out in battery at the middle of the last rappel. But we reached the ground by our own means with no bruises.

Situation after abandoning the orange rope at P3 and rappeling in a single-string with the green rope to the ground (from P1 anchors).

At the ground we ate vigorously all the snacks we had, and I drank all the water. When we started hiking down, and I saw Andrew at "the dinner table", a flat rock at the base of End Pinnacle, I was so happy and relieved. We were proud of finding a way to reach the ground safe, and it was a shame when we saw Caleb and Karl hiking to climb and recue us with other ropes. But the vibes were good, we were fine, and eventually we got back to Tucson, although Caleb, Karl and Heera had to fight a flat tire in the way back, and got to Tucson way later, such an unlucky day.

This adventure somehow gave me and Heera a fame of being a bit messed up in our climbs, but I think we were very unlucky with the rope stuck, and we did a good job by reaching the ground by ourselves. We did learn several lessons, and now we do not climb with a second "loose" rope to which we have no control, the second rope is always between us although we have to fight rope drag sometimes. We also tend to climb with walkie talkies, even though it seems an exaggeration, it has been very important in winding climbs, and we avoid windy days! Wind can drag your rope and get it stuck, and so it has to be considered.

Me finding the green rope hanging from P1.

Me leading the first pitch. The green rope hanging from P1 appears in the left of the picture.

Moreover, this story was not finished until 4 days later after the incident... Our ropes were in hanging in the wall, it was the end of the season, and the valley was empty. We had our pride hurt, and although still a bit traumatized, we decided to go to Cochise again on Thursday and climb the route again, recovering the material we left in the wall. This time, we had twin ropes from a friend, and when we arrived and saw our ropes still hanging in the wall, we were psyched to climb it again. I led the first pitch this time, and released the green rope to the ground, first check!

Heera led the 3rd pitch, and we got the orange rope with us. Although there was a strong desire to get to the top, we were very conservative. The day was starting to get extremely windy, and we had such a great time that we decided to get down from this point (P3). This time, since we had all the ropes with us, we could rappel by a straight line knowing that there were other anchors below us (by Jimmywacky, also possible by Days of Future Passed or Magnus Veritas, see topo at www.toofasttopos.com). With 3 ropes on us, no way we would not get to the ground!

Rappeling with the orange rope rescued.

At P3, happy to recover all our gear.

At the ground, base of the chimney of Welcome to the Machine.

We reached the ground safely and stayed a long while in the dinner table just admiring the grandiosity of Cochise and the Rockfellow Group. Such a perfect shining granite at sunset, with tens of soaring birds flying with the potent thermal wind blowing around it. In the way back we were admiring each detail of nature and had so much fun with the hundreds of frogs screaming like sheep in the little pool in the middle of the trail.

Heera and me with 2 ropes each, after rope's rescue.

We faced our fear and had a good time. I have to say that I avoided multipitches in the summer, the upper crags of Mt. Lemmon were so beautiful and chill, and I just had a good summer climbing mostly sport routes. But the adventure bug has bit me many years ago, and of course I came back to the walls. After my first trip to Yosemite NP in October, climbing the Half Dome and in Tuolumne Meadows, I just got so psyched with trad multipitches that it has been the only style I have been climbing in the last months. More than ever, I am leading committing trad routes, taking whips on gear, and learning some aid and big wall techniques to come back to Yosemite in 2025. Cochise remains as my preferred place to climb in Arizona, and has one of the main places of my heart among the whole world. This fall and winter I did some important routes such as Be All End All and Cragaholic's Dream. Me and Heera climb a lot together, and the End Pinnacle is still one of our obsessions. More climbs are coming...

Enjoy Cochise and respect its history!