The New Year in Arizona

Howdy,

Got some pretty neat stuff to talk about since my last one of these. I hope the new year is treating you all as well as it is treating me! So I guess I will just dive right in.

This first picture is from the Superstition mountains. There is an endless sea of climbable rock and needless to say, a place where I spend a fair amount of time. Weaver's Needle is that big pinnacle on the right.



It has been a bit hard getting accustomed to big city life. Traffic, lines, and lots of other people have been absent from my life for a while and it is a change of pace to be living in metropolis. But for those willing to make an effort to find it, there is endless beauty in Arizona. Almost every single night there is a picturesque sunset. This was what we walked out to on another crazy day of climbing in the Supes.






Work has been pretty cool too. I may have to post another blog soon just so I can show some pictures from this cool project we just did. This picture to the right is from a house we wash windows on. It was THE most expensive cash purchase in all of Arizona. It was some ridiculous number like 12 million. This was their pool and hot tub in the backyard.

We have also been going down to Tucson on a weekly basis working at the University down there. They are building a bunch of new dorms and we are washing the windows.


We are still mostly washing windows at the Optima Apartments but we have had a few jobs kinda out of the ordinary lately. We recently installed a few windows and we are going to be getting a couch on a balcony next week. So it has been staying pretty interesting. This picture on the right is a "core shot" I did down in Tucson. The windows we wash have sunshades on them and the corners are sharp. It is a big hassle to deal with them when we go down there and you can see why here. Pretty exciting, right?



This past weekend my buddy and I went down south to a place called Cochise Stronghold. It is near Tombstone, AZ but fairly difficult to access. It was a long, rough road in but there was hardly anyone else there. This picture is from the start of a climb we did called Moby Dick. It is a 600 foot, moderate climb. We had perfect weather (except for the wind at the top) and not a single other person was there.





Moby Dick is a route that goes up the left side of Whale Dome. Can you guess why it's called that? Cochise is one of the coolest places that I have climbed. There are a bunch of big knobs on the route, called "chicken heads". It is pretty much like an over-sized granite door-handle. For a lot of the route we would just sling the chicken heads for our protection. Kinda spooky but pretty fun.






So I suppose that will about wrap it up for now... thought I had more to say... Going climbing again this weekend so I better go hit up the hot tub before I drink a few beers to prepare. It ain't easy being me, but someone's gotta do it.

Dan