| Bailing on Finger Rock Trip Report |
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| Bailing on Finger Rock   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Arizona, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 32.36530°N / 110.8942°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Dec 31, 2003 | Page By: Jeff Moore Created/Edited: Apr 24, 2004 / Feb 26, 2009 Object ID: 169330 Hits: 996 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Previously I had hiked to the eastern base of Finger Rock on an ill-fated outing marked by a lack of water and dehydration-induced vomiting. We had not attempted to climb the finger that day because we were pretty intimidated by the climb. The hike itself was brutal since we didn't know how to get there and walked almost all the way to Mt. Kimball before descending the ridge through manzanitas and other nasty plants. Then we descended directly south and followed the wash all the way out, an endeavor that required rapping off tree stumps with a piece of webbing to descend multiple waterfalls in the wash.
This time I was determined to have a better go at it. I decided that for this attempt I would approach directly from the south, hoping to cut out some round-about hiking. I made my way off trail at the first time the Finger Rock Trail veered from its course which had previously been directly north towards finger rock (~1.5mi).
Descending the hillside I picked my way over cactus and soon reached the canyon bottom and began walking northward over large boulders and through prickly scrub trees. I came to a chock-stone that blocked my path and I veered left (west) making a few easy class 3 moves over slick rock. I began to ascend the gully that heads directly to the base of finger rock. From here the hike involved getting stuck by cactus and shin-daggers and scrambling over boulders and under brush. (Note: I do not recommend this route choice, the main route is much better, see approach section)
After some time I came upon a nice spot where slick rocks met a slight cliff and made for some fun scrambling. A little farther though, I arrived at a spot that I thought may stop my progress. My wash split, but both branches ended up in over-hanging sections about 50 ft high. I was pretty discouraged, but I noticed that I could back track slightly (sw) and ascend a gully to a ridge line that was west of the main gully. Once at the top I made my way along the base of the cliff south-west of finger rock, and finally scrambled my way up the steep final portion.
I had previously resolved that once at this point I would not continue any farther, to spare my mom and girlfriend the trials of dealing with my untimely death, but once presented with the proximity of such a goal, it was hard to hold myself back. After some messing around, I began to ascend a series of ledges that were slightly left (north) of the main crack. It was steep and exposed, class 4 I imagine, and a little sandy (some tree trunks helped out here), and the wind was howling. Anyway, I made it to the base of the finger proper after ascending this 100 ft or so. The top of the finger was another ~50' (class 5 - exposed!) up from where I stood on the 'fist' portion of finger rock, but I was too scared to continue. I snapped some photos and began to head down. To ease my nerves on the descent, I made up a little song that went something like: 'each move gets you closer to the bottom,' repeated many times over. I made it to the base pretty shaky and decided to head down, I had a dinner date with my mom. Images
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