Evolution and the Arizona Six

 Bit of a wild weekend. 

Last Saturday, I went up to Snowbowl with Stijn and Keane and we decided to hike up the bowl and ride down. I attached a video, but keep in mind that the steepness on the video is never as steep as it actually looks in real life. I hadn't ever snowboarded a black diamond ever so it was a bit of a wild ride! For what it's worth, the rest of the lines seemed much easier. 

The next day, I went out to Oak Flat with a crew consisting of Kenzie, Brad, Kim, Jake, and Sav. We went out aiming to try to send Evolution, one of the more notable classics in Arizona. I'm pretty happy about it, and I would be psyched to try the line again in better style. 

This was the end of a two-year effort. When I started climbing, I had a goal to do a group of problems that I named Arizona's six: Six of Arizona's sought-after classics at the V6 grade. For some reason, Arizona has a lot of high quality V6s! Whether or not they were of the actual difficulty, I'm not sure, since I heard half the problems on the list could go at V7, but whatever. I might create a new goal to climb at least seven notable V7s and onwards. Anyways, here's a list, along with locations:

My/word of mouth from others in CAZ on the list of Arizona V6s:

Moonstone (Groom Greek)

Anorexic Sacrifice (Priest Draw)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (The Fortress, Superstitions)

Elephant Tree (Pima Canyon, South Mountain)

The Rail (Oak Flat)

Evolution (Oak Flat)

Others (some done, and others to be done):

Caveman (Pima Canyon, South Mountain)

Booze Pig (Drysdales)

Cleveland Steamer (Kelly Canyon)

Donkey Punch (Kelly Canyon)

Twister (Priest Draw)

Pufferfish (Priest Draw)

She Lives (Priest Draw)

Crystal Ball (The Cemetery, Superstitions)

Alien Baby Left (The Anvils, Sedona)

Starseed (Valhalla, Superstitions)