Uploaded December 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Climbing The Hand in the Superstition Wilderness
Breven's channel: youtube.com/@MoonJuiceHikes
Troy's Channel: youtube.com/@walkingwithawookie1097
I got the thumbnail from a really nice guy on Instagram named Ben. I cannot for the life of me take a good picture, and he's a great photographer, so he let me use his picture. Check him out on Instagram @ ben.unfairchild He's got a lot of amazing shots on there.
Since I've been hiking and backpacking, I swore I would never rock climb. Rock climbers are insane. They risk life and limb to climb rocks that can be appreciated safely from the ground. I appreciate rocks from the ground.
My friend Breven apparently cannot appreciate rocks from the ground. He needs to be up close or on top of them. So Breven met this other crazy guy named Troy. Troy climbs things. So they started doing crazy rock climber things together. But hey, they're grown adults, so I'm not going to tell them what to do.
But that just wasn't good enough for them. They wanted more. Those evil bastards wanted me to climb rocks.
I honestly can't remember exactly how it got started, but the next thing I knew, I was at the rock climbing gym with Breven and his wife climbing. This is perfectly acceptable and actually kinda fun. You may be surprised to learn this, but there are no actual rocks to climb in a rock climbing gym.
But this was only step 1 of Breven's evil plan. Step 2 was to tell me how much more fun it was to climb at Camelback Mountain. He said it was a beginner climbing area and would be good for me or something like that. Before I knew it, I agreed.
A week later, I found myself at Camelback Mountain. This is where I realized that climbing in the wild was very different than climbing at the gym. Firstly, the hand and foot holds at Camelback were not made of brightly colored and easily identifiable plastic. These were made out of rocks. Most were not even U-shaped into perfect hand holds like the ones at the gym. Many of the safety features such as fall pads and auto belay devices were not present. Worst of all, the rock faces were not sloped at 45 degrees like I had been led to believe. They were more straight up and down. Like a wall of rock. A rock wall. Something like that.
But we were there so I climbed them anyway. I did not die, which I found very encouraging. It was then that Breven entered into step 3 of his plan. "Hey, let's walk up to Praying Monk. Just to check it out. We won't climb it." (Praying Monk is a rock formation on Camelback Mountain)
So that's how we climbed Praying Monk.
And sitting on top of Praying Monk, in the midst of an adrenaline rush, I remembered his video about this thing called The Hand. The Hand is a much more intimidating rock formation in the Superstition Mountains. The reason it's more intimidating is that it is very thin (thin enough to straddle in spots), with a couple hundred feet of exposure on both sides.
But I thought his video looked cool and I'd just been tricked into climbing another route on my first day out, so I said "I want to climb the Hand."
This is where people may say "Well, you climbed with this guy twice, then asked if you could climb The Hand, so maybe this is your fault?"
You shut up. I know my story doesn't really track if you consider things like logic and accountability, but I know what happened. It was his fault. I was tricked. Breven is diabolical.
So anyway, we climbed The Hand. It was awesome. We're already making plans to climb some other stuff.
Please send help.
Music by Artlist:
Kids Having Fun - MooveKa
Flower Duet - Lakme
Philosophy - Wild Tulips
The Summit - Sebastian Pangal
I Don't Know - Ge Filter Fish
Climbing The Hand in the Superstition Wilderness
Breven's channel: youtube.com/@MoonJuiceHikes
Troy's Channel: youtube.com/@walkingwithawookie1097
I got the thumbnail from a really nice guy on Instagram named Ben. I cannot for the life of me take a good picture, and he's a great photographer, so he let me use his picture. Check him out on Instagram @ ben.unfairchild He's got a lot of amazing shots on there.
Since I've been hiking and backpacking, I swore I would never rock climb. Rock climbers are insane. They risk life and limb to climb rocks that can be appreciated safely from the ground. I appreciate rocks from the ground.
My friend Breven apparently cannot appreciate rocks from the ground. He needs to be up close or on top of them. So Breven met this other crazy guy named Troy. Troy climbs things. So they started doing crazy rock climber things together. But hey, they're grown adults, so I'm not going to tell them what to do.
But that just wasn't good enough for them. They wanted more. Those evil bastards wanted me to climb rocks.
I honestly can't remember exactly how it got started, but the next thing I knew, I was at the rock climbing gym with Breven and his wife climbing. This is perfectly acceptable and actually kinda fun. You may be surprised to learn this, but there are no actual rocks to climb in a rock climbing gym.
But this was only step 1 of Breven's evil plan. Step 2 was to tell me how much more fun it was to climb at Camelback Mountain. He said it was a beginner climbing area and would be good for me or something like that. Before I knew it, I agreed.
A week later, I found myself at Camelback Mountain. This is where I realized that climbing in the wild was very different than climbing at the gym. Firstly, the hand and foot holds at Camelback were not made of brightly colored and easily identifiable plastic. These were made out of rocks. Most were not even U-shaped into perfect hand holds like the ones at the gym. Many of the safety features such as fall pads and auto belay devices were not present. Worst of all, the rock faces were not sloped at 45 degrees like I had been led to believe. They were more straight up and down. Like a wall of rock. A rock wall. Something like that.
But we were there so I climbed them anyway. I did not die, which I found very encouraging. It was then that Breven entered into step 3 of his plan. "Hey, let's walk up to Praying Monk. Just to check it out. We won't climb it." (Praying Monk is a rock formation on Camelback Mountain)
So that's how we climbed Praying Monk.
And sitting on top of Praying Monk, in the midst of an adrenaline rush, I remembered his video about this thing called The Hand. The Hand is a much more intimidating rock formation in the Superstition Mountains. The reason it's more intimidating is that it is very thin (thin enough to straddle in spots), with a couple hundred feet of exposure on both sides.
But I thought his video looked cool and I'd just been tricked into climbing another route on my first day out, so I said "I want to climb the Hand."
This is where people may say "Well, you climbed with this guy twice, then asked if you could climb The Hand, so maybe this is your fault?"
You shut up. I know my story doesn't really track if you consider things like logic and accountability, but I know what happened. It was his fault. I was tricked. Breven is diabolical.
So anyway, we climbed The Hand. It was awesome. We're already making plans to climb some other stuff.
Please send help.
Music by Artlist:
Kids Having Fun - MooveKa
Flower Duet - Lakme
Philosophy - Wild Tulips
The Summit - Sebastian Pangal
I Don't Know - Ge Filter Fish
