Cochise Stronghold

In early May Amanda and I were able to get away for a few days to climb.  The forecast was pretty horrid for most of the western states so we headed south 9hrs to Cochise Stronghold where the weather looked a little breezy but was at least it was warm and dry.  With only 4 days off it was a lot of sweat to sweet but the draw of a new area convinced us.  Plus Amanda hadn't been climbing much and wanted to get in some milage before we headed to Spain at the end of that week.
She picked me up from work in Farmington as my shift was ending at the Fire Department.  Long road trips are great for us to catch up and talk about things that we normally either don't make a priority or don't have time to discuss.  We pulled in that evening and found a campsite under a big shade tree that you might expect in the serengeti.

Amanda on 'Ewephoria'.

The next day we hiked to The Sheepshead and got on a classic called 'Ewephoria'.  Amanda prefers powerful, steep, single pitch sport climbing on limestone or sandstone.  Where as Cochise is slabby, multi pitch, trad climbing on granite.  There may have even been the occasional, "this is why I fucking hate climbing" comment dropped a few times throughout the day.  Luckily having known Amanda for 16+ years I know that what she is really trying to say is, "This is great! Lets do more!"  With this in mind I suggested that we climb a route called 'Mystery of the Desert' on The Muttenhead next.

Pouty Pants

As the weather report had predicted it was dry but windy.  We had set up our large 4 person car camping tent when we arrived but decided instead of listening to the tent rustling all night that we would sleep in the car.  So we pulled the cooler, climbing gear and camping gear out of our little Mazda 3 and piled it into the tent.  Needless to say we slept soundly in the back of our little hatchback both nights.
The next morning we packed up camp and headed out to Whale Dome where we climbed a route called 'Mody Dick'.  Although the hike was a little farther than anticipated the climbing was fun and varied.

With that our climbing was at an end and we started the long haul back to Durango, spending the night half way back at a small campground in rural New Mexico.