Hike Montezuma Head Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, AZ

Mar 23, 2022 — Montezuma Head wins for the most adventurous technical climb I've participated in to date. It's a burly-looking peak located in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument that blends somewhat into the desert skyline of the Ajo Mountains when viewed from 3+ miles away on the highway. We had lots of information about the route from Desert Mountaineer which was very helpful, but we somehow misinterpreted a few of the beta points and proceeded to have short spurts of stress in route-finding. Chris kept us as safe as possible with his trad climbing knowledge, but I wouldn't call it a safe route. This is a remote and dangerous desert tower with all the scary stuff that comes with that (loose rock, poor service, rusted anchor bolts and sun-bleached webbing, etc.), and will certainly be my last of the sort for a while. That all said, what an excellent day out with friends on a mountain that kept my brain alert and my nervous giggle persistent.

A dirt road leads east from the Ajo Mountain Wayside, a parking lot off AZ-85. It is closed to vehicles, but serves as a nice trail for the first two miles or so into the open desert. The road then bends south, so we left it and continued toward Montezuma Head, which still felt quite far away. Overall the terrain is flat with a couple of small arroyos that need crossing. Pitahaya Canyon is the largest of these small washes, not taking any sort of significant work.

The Montezuma Head "massif" has two pinnacles, the taller southern one (our summit for the day) and its much lower northern outcropping. The most direct route seemed to ascend on scary-looking cliffs, so we instead ascended along a steep Class 2 ridge to the base of the northern lower outcropping, Class 2. A short series of Class 2+ moves through light brush got us to the base of its western cliffs, and then easy walking continued south along the short ridgeline to an incredible viewpoint of Montezuma Head and the route to come. I think it's fair to say from here it looks like a three-layer cake formed by the cliff bands. We could see the first pitch clearly, a dark-looking chimney at the top of the first layer. Some Class 2+ on colorful rock brought us to the base of the chimney, some fun zig-zagging required to get over the first layer of cliffs. An easy slope with some brush led into the narrowing feature housing the start of the technical climb.

We were happy to have jackets and our positive vibe going into the start of this pitch, because as Desert Mountaineer reports, "the start of this pitch is a dark, cheerless place." We agreed with his assessment. After quickly gearing up, Chris started the climb. He made his way up the pitch and then belayed me up.

Pitch 1: 5.6, 140 feet
A solid set of moves just right of the chimney led to a very rusted piton that Chris chose not to trust. A bolt was situated 15 feet or so above the deck on a wide lower ledge. From here I had to get into the chimney itself to continue the climb, no more nice solid rock. The rock is absolutely horrible. After Chris had yelled "rock" roughly a thousand times on the way up, we all sort of agreed to just pay attention and not yell anymore since it was happening so frequently. The chimney can maybe be best characerized as a solidified mudslide. So, I took my sweet time feeling all the potential holds, really just mud moreso than rock. The chimney would actually have been immense fun if I wasn't constantly concerned that my helmet would dislodge a boulder above me. I wasn't pleased.

The crux of the chimney was shortly after leaving the lower ledge, where a stemming move was necessary to more safely use the walls rather than trust the absurdly dirty and breakable holds within the chimney. We all seemed to generally choose stemming up the flared walls rather than pulling on anything. Chris seemed like he had no problem finding places to put protection, using small holes and tiny natural arches that may or may not have held if taking a fall. Higher up the climbing became slightly less loose, and the walls closed in enough to allow more feasible stemming, making the climb a bit more enjoyable.

I reached a significant upper ledge on my right with a big bush on it, the route Chris chose to go. I then looked up at the chimney still to come and noted it was quite vertical and intensely loose. Chris had attempted to go that way and decided it was a horrible idea, instead choosing to leave the chimney and traverse along the upper ledge instead. I wrapped around the bush that he had chosen to use as a place for protection. Fortunately the ledge was just a nice walk because a fall here would have had me pendulum quite a distance over a pretty horrifying drop. At the end of the ledge 20 feet later, a short 5-foot Class 4 downclimb led to a smaller ledge, and then more Class 4 led directly up to where Chris was sitting at the anchor he had built, a sling around a small natural arch of dubious quality. He backed it up with some nuts. He also wasn't pleased. There was no indication anyone had been here. I was concerned we were off-route by taking the ledge, and also that the rest of the climb would be this loose. Chris was too. He had chosen to set an anchor here to see if we needed to use it to rap off and bail. Matt walkie-talkied up to us in his typical stoic voice "guys, I'm not comfortable", the cold of the chimney finally pushing him to indirectly ask us in his midwestern politeness to hurry up. This immediately lightened our moods and we cracked our typical array of jokes about butts and whatnot.

After Matt reached us we determined the best option would be to ascend directly past this small arch and up a Class 4 arete with solid holds. It was quite exposed and we didn't know what was next, so Matt roped up and led to just above this move, where he found a massive boulder with old webbing attached. We would later replace this webbing for our rappel later. Excellent, we were in fact on route. This short Class 4 pitch likely should have been included within Pitch 1, but we hadn't known at the time that such a beautiful boulder as this higher up existed.

Just past this boulder was Class 2 sloped terrain with no exposure, a nice resting spot to gather our wits.

Pitch 2: 5.5, 60 feet
At the top of the Class 2 slope was a wide ledge with what appeared to be a dead-end and some pretty intense exposure. The only reasonable options would be a serious traverse out into thin air (which, as the follower, I tried later and backed off), or ascend a 10-foot face. Two huecos formed a nice foot ledge that would serve as the crux of the pitch required to get over the lip. We built a stack of rocks to use to get up to this narrow ledge to facilitate getting hands over the lip to make the pull. Past the lip was some scrambling and easier low Class 5, followed by more easy scrambling to get to the end of the pitch. Here was some more old webbing wrapped around a boulder that we didn't quite like and would replace later for the rappel with a sling. I'll note that for the rap later there was a smaller boulder in front of the anchor boulder that was loose and scared us a bit since it moved slightly when weighted, but it was too big to move out of the way so we had to lower ourselves slowly on the rappel.

Now at the top of Pitch 2, we found ourselves baking in the sun due to its reflecting off the light-colored rock. A pleasant ledge led up Class 2 to safer, less hot, grassy ground above. Here we could see the remainder of the route, a significant tower, the final layer of the Montezuma Head cake.

We built a cairn to mark the descent spot, which would have been easy to miss on the way back.

Pitch 3: 5.4, 60 feet
Pitch 3 was the featured pitch of the climb, an incredibly exposed horizontal ledge on surprisingly solid rock. If my nerves hadn't been jostled all day I'd probably call this layer of the cake very fun. After Chris let us know he had set up the belay after successfully making it up without much issue, I started up. A short section of Class 3/4 leads up an initial face and up to the ledge, where I could walk quite easily for a few feet before being confronted with a laughably exposed gap in the ledge. I had to remind myself multiple times that I was on a rope and that stretching across this gap with my nubby legs would be fine. There was a rusty piton here that Chris had backed up with a nut. Both leader and follower on this pitch are at severe risk of a horrible swing if one were to fall. I crossed over the gap and located a series of nice, solid holds that led 6-8 feet up a short face and to easier scrambling and ultimately the belay station.

We took a moment and laughed at the fact that we'd be pretty screwed if there were no bolts here for an anchor. We honestly couldn't find anywhere worthy of building an anchor. Fortunately the bolts were intact and we felt we could safely use them for a rappel on the way back, but if they deteriorate by the time you get up here, be aware that this would be a difficult situation. I guess you could continue up Pitch 4 and combine 3 and 4 since they are relatively short pitches, but this would likely mean a lot of rope drag from horizontal traversing for the climb and then an odd, diagonal rappel.

Pitch 4: 5.6, 60 feet
The start of Pitch 4 has a short Class 2+ move to gain another ledge. This comfortably wide ledge continues for 30 or so feet before reaching a Class 4 dihedral that lasts only 10 feet with serious exposure. Above this is a really pleasant set of moves on a 15-foot vertical face, the crux of the pitch. Matt was belaying me from just above. I reached him at his anchor station (bolted), but there wasn't much room for us both.

I peered up the remainder of the route, still a significant scramble of a hundred feet or so to gain the summit. I audibly exhaled, unsure how I felt about it unroped. It was very steep and very exposed. After taking the amount of time hesitating that is suitable for a sane person like myself, I started up the Class 3 scramble, leaving Matt alone on the small ledge in order to belay Chris up since there was no space.

The first 20 feet were easy, but then the rock became slightly more steep for 5 feet or so. While likely not harder than Class 3, the curvature of the mountain beneath me was daunting. Fortunately the rock was mostly solid and I moved through the scramble and continued on easier terrain and ultimately up to the summit.

We took in the views of the surrounding peaks and enjoyed the feeling of being surrounded by sheer drops on all sides. I rarely write anything in summit registers, but I was surprised to find a fair number of signatures in this one, adding something like "You are all psychos. Back to Class 2 for me forever."

We descended the Class 3 and then rapped down Pitch 4. Pitch 3's rap from the anchors led directly off the face, skipping the ledge traverse. We rappeled Pitch 2, which was a little awkward due to the angle of the climb, and then down Pitch 1. Fortunately the final rap was easier than expected because coming off the larger boulder led directly down the face and skipped the wide ledge and also the loose chimney.

We made our way back through the desert and as the sun began to set we shook our heads with some indignation, realizing our intended finish time of 2pm would be exceeded by 5 hours. Again, excellent day. Wouldn't do it again.