Sedona Scenic Cruise is a pretty cool moderate outing that has been gaining popularity over the last few years. The crux is often figuring out where the route is located. If you look east from highway 179 between Bell Rock and the Church Spires, there is a jagged high ridge of rock running roughly north-south. SSC goes up the leftmost formation on this ridge. At first glance, the rock looks way too shattered to be a good place for a climbing route, but surprisingly, it's pretty good.
P1) 120' Climb up corner to a big flake sticking out to the left. The crux of the pitch is skirting this flake out to the left. (tiny cam or Lowe Ball useful here). Above the flake, continue to a two-bolt anchor (no chains). From here, you can look out to the right (climber's right) and see the rap anchors for the last rappel.
P2) 160' Scramble around to the left and up onto the ledge with large tree. Set pro for anchor. Second pitch starts behind the tree, up face past several bolts. At the top, veer right across a slab and one bolt, then up a short corner to a bolted belay on a ledge.
P3) ~175' all the way to the blocky ledges. Traverse straight left, clip bolt, continue left and up (bolt), then into a corner system. Climb this to a nice looking vertical crack, then step up and jam your way up the steep hands to big hands crack (pretty good face holds as well). A short chimney bit will put you left of a sloping ledge with the bolted anchor w/chains (note this as a rap station for the way back down). You can continue up to the left up a short face with a single bolt and combine this pitch with the next one. There are two bolts with no chains at the end of this.
P4) Face climb up and right along the right side of buttress past 10 bolts to belay on ledge. Very nice pitch. You can see a long chain on the ledge just north from here that is the rappel anchor on the way down.
P5) Climb around corner to the right across "spicy" traverse to gain chimney with chockstone. Climb up and over chockstone and continue up crack to belay on ledge. There is a small canister with a summit register here.
You can scramble (4th cl) to the top from here. Highly recommend belaying this portion!
Descent:
R1) Rappel from the last anchor back down to the top of the fourth pitch (85'). If you have a 60m rope, it's probably easier to leave your second rope here rather than hauling it to the top.
R2) Airy rappel (TWO ROPES!) from the long chains back down to the sloping ledge with chains noted in P3 description above. Watch the rope pull on this as the blocky ledge above tends to eat the ropes.
R3) Rappel (two ropes) off the sloping ledge down to (this is what we did Feb '07) a two bolt anchor with slings and a rap ring at the top of the vertical section of the second pitch. Seems like there used to be chains at the top of that second pitch or something, but they're not there now. Either way, I think the 2-bolt anchor atop the slot on that second pitch is a better pull in some ways. You're headed for a bolted anchor with chains down a slot just below the buttress where the second pitch starts.
P4) Rappel (two ropes) back down to the ground, just south and around the corner from the first pitch.
Protection
Standard rack, two ropes, helmet.
Location
Gibralter Rock is at the left end of the jagged ridgeline that runs north/south between Courthouse Butte and the Church Spires. Park in a long pullout with a barricade at it's north end. Hike from the lot onto the main tourist trail and head north on it until you come to a bridge. Hop down off the bridge into the wash. Follow the wash until you see a big right turn marked with cairns. Head into that wash until it drops you at the base of the slabs leading up to the wall. You should see cairns and signs of traffic to get you to the base of the wall and the route (see pictures for a shot looking up pitch 1).
Photos of Sedona's Scenic Cruise aka Four Flying Apaches Slideshow
Just an update for y'all I'd have to say this is a John Burhcam route for sure. I'm also pretty sure I've got an old topo floating around calling this 5.8
Climb is 5 pitches long, we wimped out on the 5th pitch because it was getting late but up until that point the crux was the wide crack on the 1st pitch. Pitches 2 and 4 are 5.7-5.8 sport.
Great job with this route. Not as many pitches with full-on crack climbing as some of the other routes in Sedona I've been on so far. But, the great position, and good varied climbing make it one of my favorites in Sedona so far.
The working name of the route was Four Flying Apaches but John Burcham and James Martin (First Ascensionists) renamed the route to fit it's classic character to Sedona's Scenic Cruise.
We parked at the "long pullout with a barricade at it's north end". The GPS coordinates using UTM format for this parking area are: 12 S 0430027 3852461
Coordinates for the start of the route are: 12 S 0431085 3853130
NOTE: Make sure your GPS is set on the Datum of NAD27 or your GPS will be off.
I'd like to add that I saw this route in a newly published guidebook, and the apprach described and pictured therein is definately wrong. The approach described here is the correct one.
Feel compelled to give better parking/trail info. The parking lot they talk about is a triangular shaped parking lot and it is the third parking lot after the official very large "Bell Rock" parking lot. When you get on the trail (through the gate), you will walk the trail for a while and than follow the old wooden power lines for 1/4 mile, when you hit the man made stone bridge that crosses the wash, drop of to the right and follow the wash. It is well cairned and you can't miss it. Route wise; these directions are straight on, however, if you should happen to get a photo copied sheet or got to RC.com, be aware that you can run pitch 2 and 3 together, just use a xtra long sling on the last bolt of the "second pitch" before you traverse out across to the singular bolt and up the short dihedral. Also try to link up the fourth pitch to the short fifth pitch 40 ft chimney. As you take off on the "fifth" short 40 ft pitch, put an extra long sling on the bolt to the left of the anchor, to ensure a nice easy traveling rope.
If Kole is talking about the approach described in the Weekend Rock guidebook, then I can verify it definitely works to get you there and is not wrong, only different. Most of it involves hiking on the well maintained Llama trail.
Did this route last weekend. I thought it was ok, but did find some of it to be contrived. Especially pitch 2 where the arete was bolted 5 feet away from the obvious chimney and thus the natural line. Also on the second to last pitch...going up and left to the ledge instead of putting a belay on the obvious ledge at the base of the crack system that makes up the final pitch..thus forcing you to do the "spicy traverse". Other than that the climbing was pretty fun.
Also I went up via the approach described here...then descended via the Llama trail. They both have their good and bad...I'd call them about equal.
We climbed this route Fri. 11/16 and found a fenced in road construction materials yard temporarily occupying the parking lot described above. Who knows how long it will remain. We parked across the street. Greg n' Laurel's approach worked great for us. While climbing pitch 2 do not belay at the 1st set of anchors encountered (we goofed here, this anchor is only for the rappel), instead continue up right passed one more bolt to another set of bolts at the start of the 3rd pitch as per Greg’s description. Highly recommend climbing to the summit, but stay roped and make sure you mark where you climbed out to make it easy to find on the return. Great climbing, raps and views!
Right above the belay for pitch 5 (spicy traverse) there is a bolt that kind on protects the traverse. Do NOT get confused... this is not useful and should be ignored. DO NOT clip the bolt and climb past it... The rock gets very scary and there are no bolts above this rogue unnatural protection.
Did the route 2 days ago with nothing but Greg's directions from here. Great info! Great route! Much thanks. The specified parking is still being used as a construction materials storage.
After approaching and descending on different sides of the mountain two separate times now, I realize that the southwest side is the correct aspect to go up and down. It is the only portion of the mountain that has stable ground and where you will be less likely to get taken down by massive, shifting boulder fragments on unstable, eroding slopes. There is also a faint trail up this side (if you can find it). Aim for a somewhat indistinct ridge that rises up and conjoins with the SW side of the mountain. One section of the ridge is light in color and drops away on both sides of the trail suddenly for a short time near the middle of the trek up. At the top, a trail traverses around to the NW side and ends under the route. Going this way will prevent further considerable erosion damage by climbers as well.
When John and I established the Sedona Scenic Cruise we did it originally all trad and that line can still be repeated if one chooses. We took a lot of time to consider the best possible way with one goal in in mind a fun and safe moderate route that we all can enjoy... the 5.7 choss chimney can be climbed to right of the bolts on the 2nd pitch. It is not that fun I climbed it maybe 5 or 6 times establishing the route along with some other crumbly cracks up high.
We did not add the bolt above the last pitch, this was done by someone else, do not go this way it is not correct and could result in injury!
Regarding the approach please, please do not follow the mis-informed guide book and stick to the original description above. John and I spent a lot of time on the trial with another goal in mind, minimum impact to the environment and ONE path that has the least erosion, please follow that well worn path to the base and element's further damage and social trails.
Be aware that the recently constructed road has eliminated all of the pullouts. We ended up parking at the lot just north of Bell rock, but there is a metal fence blocking the shortcut to the bell rock pathway, forcing you to go almost to bell rock before being able to head in the right direction. even with all the shenanigans, it still only takes ~1hr to reach the base of the climb.
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