Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

March 7, 2026

915m

Tucson, AZ

These are some of the lesser summits in the urban areas SW of the city of Tucson but Beehive Peak is actually a rock tower that offers some mountaineering interest. The easiest route goes at 4th class via the west ridge but it’s very easy to get sucked into climbing terrain if one’s not careful with route-finding. The downside is the private property issue as these peaks are completely surrounded by private houses that I don’t think there’s a legal way of doing them without trespassing. But those who know me know that trespassing has never been a problem for me. In fact, I sometimes think that the requirement to trespass is what actually make some of the objectives attractive.

This was the 5th day of the Arizona peak-bagging trip. Caspar and Erica was not committed to do anything so I was down to find my own partner. Thankfully Matthias was interested in joining for half a day (he had some family commitments in the morning). I would be located in the Tucson vicinity and the objective was eventually decided to be Beehive Peak. I had never heard of this peak previously but I was instantly sold. I even managed to convince Erica and Caspar to come along, but their plan was to join as an independent rope team and potentially do a harder route. That’s perfectly fine as the “beta” we had was Jesse Johnson’s trip report which described the ascent as “low 5th class”. It wasn’t very clear where exactly Jesse went, so we did our own route-finding in situ and ended up climbing a completely different route, which was longer but technically easier. I think our route (west ridge) should be the standard scramble route for the future parties, but those who go up there with a rope can rappel off Jesse’s route. Beehive Peak itself would be too short for Matthias to drive 2 hours away from Phoenix, so we had to tag a secondary objective afterwards, which would be that unnamed but higher and more prominent peak to the north.

The morning was spent relaxing in Caspar’s dad’s home. Caspar and Erica opted to explore the city in a separate vehicle so I drove out alone at noon, and met the rest of the team at the starting point. There was an obvious sign of “private property” but we drove through nevertheless. The last bit of this access road was gravel with some inclines, but imposed no issue to the 2WD vehicles. While gearing up a neighbour came over and informed us that we were technically trespassing if we didn’t know the property owners. Thank you, sure, but we would climb it anyway. That guy had a friendly tone so I didn’t bother to argue with him and we just pretended that we weren’t aware.

There’s some game trails on the west flanks of Beehive Peak but we really didn’t need them. The terrain was mostly “open country” anyway. I was trying to follow Jesse’s GPX track but the track was useless when it comes to the micro-terrain, so I eventually gave up following. It would be much simpler to rely on our own observations anyway since we are all experienced in this kind of shit. Our route started from a class 3 gully on the climber’s right side of the initial wall, which gave way to an exposed 4th class arete with questionable rock quality. I thought the route was already not matching Jesse’s description but carried on nevertheless. Caspar scrambled ahead to scout things out. The next section involved a sloppy traverse to another 3rd class gully with a harder mantle move to finish with, followed by an exposed, chossy and down-sloping 4th class “groove”. A few exposed moves were then required to traverse across the summit ridge to the true summit, but the entire route went as a “scramble” and none of us felt the need to take the ropes out. We together carried two 60m ropes, two racks and rock shoes all for weight training.

We found that electric cable “handline” and Caspar and Erica decided to cut it down. I sure wouldn’t rely on an electric cord if I were to pull myself up Jesse’s route. Caspar and Erica decided in situ to descend Jesse’s route with one rappel, whereas Matthias and I went down the west ridge retracing our steps. The main reason was to retrieve our ditched trekking poles at the start of the scramble. Otherwise I would have joined their rappel as well, as it seemed simpler given that we had brought ropes with us. The down-climb involved some dedicated moves. Both of us felt the worst was to down-climb that chossy groove as all of the “holds” were down-sloping and chossy. Despite the difficulties Matthias and I still got back to the vehicles quicker than Erica and Caspar, as our route was overall more direct.

Not doing much linger Matthias and I drove around to the NE side of “Peak 3302” following Jesse’s GPX track again. And sure enough, this area was also in some private properties. We again parked on some gravel roads hidden from view, and quickly dived into the bushes. The slope appeared bushy but was actually not. We more or less just ascended straight up using a spur feature, but then had to lose some elevation traversing the summit ridge to the true summit.

On the descent we aimed directly towards the vehicles and the going was of similar difficulty, but the route was more efficient. There were some loose rocks and some bushwhacking, but nothing really worth noting. Our round trip time for the unnamed peak was just over an hour. I still had a couple hours of daylight to kill, so decided spontaneously to add Cat Mountain into the itinerary, whereas Matthias would take his time driving back to Phoenix.