This area is closed from March 15 - June 30 for nesting peregrine falcons.
Matt Birch on Hard Day at the Orifice.
Description
The Fortress is a great place for a long day of climbing. Its location near the summit of Mt Lemmon means generally cool weather and great views. It has the longest sport routes in Tucson, some over three pitches in length, as well as some gear routes. They range from 5.7-5.12 in difficulty, with a high concentration of stars in a relatively small area.
Pretty hard to beat this crag!
Getting There
Driving up the Catalina Highway, turn right on the road to the ski valley. Continue past the ski valley, through a gate, and down a rough paved road. Drive to the gravel parking lot on the left just before the observatory. Park here and continue on foot, up the road, following the 'trail' sign. (Stay left when you see the sign at the observatory).
Ten minutes will bring you to a metal shed on the right hand side of the road. There is a spring here on the left...its probably safe, but drink at your own risk.
Continue past this shed for another couple hundred yards until you see a green transformer on the right. A trail will lead off left, downhill toward the crags. Five minutes on this trail will put you between the Ravens and the Fortress. Keep right and follow trail down to the back of the Fortress. From here, a ten minute bushwack down and around the eastern slope will put you at the climbs. Hug the base of the rock for the path of least resistance.
Steel Crazy starts up the face near the left end of the Fortress. Look for the well-bolted line just left of a large corner.Pitch 1: Pumpy climbing up and over small overhang (crux?)to easier climbing above. Continue up easier terrain, slightly runout to sloping ledge. Scary, thin moves up steep face past more bolts lead to small sea of chickenheads. Follow these to two-bolt belay on huge ledge.Pitch 2: From the belay ledge, Steel Crazy foll...[more]
After topping out, head north into flat and vegetated area. Locate gully between the West Pillar where most of the routes top out and the East Pillar. From the top of the West Pillar, the climbing up onto the East Pillar looks substantially harder than it actually is when you're looking up at it from within the gully.
To get into the gully, downclimb into it by going back south, then east, then north again into the cleft. Head north into the gully about 2/3 of the way until you see a riblike formation of rock on your left. Across from the rib you can see the obvious weakness heading up the East Pillar. There's an initial dynamic move, maybe about 5.8, to get established on the slab, then about 20 feet of easy 5th classing to get out (5.2-5.3?)..If you're squeamish about the soloing, I'd say a selection of Camalots .5 to #2 can be used to protect the climbing.
The initial 5.8 move didn't seem protectable, but if you blow it, you won't really go anywhere, there's a bit of flat space to fall safely. Stronger climber can always spot the weaker climber.
After getting your bearings the first time, you can pretty much head diagonally straight from the top-outs to the downclimb into the gully.
The Fortress
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