Panoramic from Middle Mesa including the Mace summit
 |
Tom Grundy's Mace 50th Anniversary Shindig Page
A view of Middle Mesa with "the pirate" in green
 |
The first ascent of this classic sandstone spire was possibly Easter 1957, or maybe some other Sunday in April. The first ascensionists were TM Herbert, Bob Kamps, and Dave Rearick. Yvon Chouinard missed out on it because he went to Church instead of Cathedral (rocks). This was the first technical ascent of a spire in the area, and ended up one of the Sedona classic must-do lines. Thanks guys, it is a good one. In any case, festivities were planned to celebrate on April 1, 2007. Among other things, sushi, slacklining, and other nonsense were part of the plan. I am pre-emptively apologizing now for forgetting people or getting their names and any other details wrong.In preparation, on Friday, Josh and Jen climbed the Mace to fix lines, and Erik and I climbed the Pirate on Middle Mesa to fix lines on that. This was to help speed up the slackline setup on Saturday, and ease access for the crowds on Sunday.
The Pirate was old school 5.10+, and it took a lot out of me to lead it. The first pitch featured some delicate moves across a face and up a seam to crack. Good thing there were bolts where I needed them. The second pitch started in a mellow (if you don't have a pack and a camera and tons of gear strapped to you) chimney and turned into some wide weirdness and then a mostly thin crack in the back of a flare. I fell once on the second pitch, and grunted a lot on each pitch. The third and top pitch featured some lousy rock and extra awkward positions. It felt like we were taking ages to get up, but we topped out about the same time as Josh and Jen on the Mace. We searched in vain for a summit register, and decided to bring one back up Sunday.
I think Erik is the one responsible for getting this plan underway (I am blaming him anyway). He convinced Josh to do the slackline, but Josh was swamped, Luckily Clay stepped up to the plate to help set up the slackline. Doug was in for Sushi, Tim with a barbecue and Margaritas... Things actually came together rather than collapsing at the last minute.
The night before the big event, I camped out somewhere down there with Erik and Tim. The prime camping spot we were gunning for was completely overwhelmed with some sort of frat party, but we managed to find our own spot of desert to stay up too late around the fire.
Erik battling The Pirate - ARRRR
 |
I am stable in the chimney on pitch 2
 |
Erik nears the top of pitch 2
 |
Josh and Jen on the lower Mace Summit
 |
Josh gets to the Mace Summit
 |
Josh on the Mace Summit
 |
Josh fixes a rope to the summit register
 |
A backlit Erik on the Middle Mesa summit
 |
The big day we had a big relaxed breakfast and got to the full parking lot around 11:30 or so. There were 3 cars waiting when we got there, and more pulling up. Luckily there is fairly rapid turnover of the people doing the short hike. I headed up to the base and started jugging the fixed lines. I didn't really have my system dialed, especially with the pack. This wasn't too bad on the first pitch that went against the wall, but the next part involved going through a chimney and then a free-hanging section. This was no fun with a pack, and I got a pretty good bicep workout before I got some 'biners hooked up to my backpack strap to keep it from flipping me over backwards. When I got to the summit, Josh and Clay were working on the slack line. Unfortunately the day before they had tied the loop on the end of the line too short and were unable to pull it enough to tie it off, so they had to untie the tightened knots and move the loop closer. Unfortunately, this meant the line wasn't ready for immediate use. In fact, it wasn't ready for use for a long time.
Meanwhile, I looked at the old summit register (which needs to be replaced, it is full, and now gone). It was nice to see my previous two ascents in there, both excellent days, as was this day.
Clay works on taping a dynamic rope to
the doubled webbing line
 |
Erik enjoys some of KFC's finest along
with a PBR
 |
Rodney was formally attired
(and brought the KFC bucket)
 |
There were a number of parties that climbed up the Mace without knowing that these events were going down. These included a party of 4, and a couple with an 11 year old kid. (Good job making it up). They were quite pleased to be entertained on the summit and provided with food and drinks. At least 9 people climbed the actual route, and there were at least 9 others who jugged the fixed lines.
The rich tourists had to gawk
 |
Josh pulls the line tight
 |
Just when it looked like the line was going to get set up, it exploded like a gunshot and whipped Josh on the leg. Luckily we had tied off a secondary safety line, so the whole mess didn't fall down into the gap. I still am not entirely certain what happened, but it involved a snapped 11 mm static line (admittedly rather worn), and having the gates on 2 'biners inverted. The picture show what that looked like afterwards. needless to say, that set the schedule back a ways. Finally we got things back on track and tensioned the line. Unfortunately we were unable to get the pin from the turnbuckle through the loops, so finally settled for many layers of webbing. TA DA (the sun was setting at this point).
You never really like to see this
 |
Julie jugs up the final pitch...
 |
...and is rewarded with a margarita
 |
Josh and Clay work on the improved line 3.0
 |
Unfortunately Josh (the only one who had walked this line before) was injured by the line failure and couldn't walk. Isaac, Clay, and Myself all tried it with varying levels of non-success. Clay got nearly halfway across on his best run, and Isaac and myself only got a few steps. I haven't walked a slackline in over 5 months, and never was very good at long heavy lines with gusty winds anyway (that's my story), plus it was scary. Still, it was cool to give it a try. Unfortunately the light was going by the time we got to try, so that decreased the photo quality and prevented me from tyroleaning across to get some photos from the other side (Erik did this and put up our pathetic summit register on Middle Mesa though).
Rodney cuts a fine figure
 |
Isaac gets on the line
 |
Clay stands up on the line
 |
Clay in the middle of the line
 |
The first step is a doozy
 |
About as well as I did on the line
 |
The moonrise was spectacular
 |
Eric on the Middle Mesa
 |
Isaac sits on the line before standing
 |
Moonshadow on the opposite wall
 |
The lights of Sedona
 |
All this time, I had been waiting for the Sushi Doug hauled up. Unfortunately the gusty wind made him wait a long time to get started creating. Meanwhile there was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken hauled up by Rodney, hot dogs, tofu dogs, and elk steaks barbecued on Tim's propane grill, and some chips, not to mention a selection of adult beverages (margaritas and beer).
The sushi was worth the wait. All sorts of good stuff including uni, smoked salmon, seared tuna tataki, ikura, tobiko, masago, kona kampachi (I don't know what all that is, but I must say everything I ate was excellent).
A number of us (myself included) went out on the line to hang in space a bit. Hanging a few hundred feet in the air in the dark is an interesting experience. It is too bad I didn't get a few photos from there during the daylight. I might have to go back...
A view back to the summit from the line
 |
delicious sushi - yum
 |
Doug with the anniversary rolls
 |
Once the Sushi ran out, we packed up and rappelled back to the ground for the hike down. I was pretty tired by the time I got into bed around 11:30, but it was well worth it.
Supertopo forum link (pics, spew)
Erik's page on Cascade Climbers
Tim's page with photos
Video of Clay on the highline
My other Mace climb in 2007
My old (2003) page about climbing the Mace
Panorama of the Sedona area from the summit of the Mace. (earlier photo)
 |