Peaks For Freaks: Cochise Stronghold- Bouncin Around The Room

January 3, 2026

Bouncin Around The Room is an amazing classic climb in Cochise Stronghold, featuring all the classic Cochise styles- chickenheads, friction slab, funky cracks, in addition to several sections of wide mind boggling chimney requiring unconventional techniques. This route does NOT top out on the true summit of Rockfellow Dome, rather reaching a lower southern summit about 200 ft away. Though not very far from eachother linearly, there were a series of difficult dropoffs between the two summits, and we did not attempt to travel between them.

Routes climbed:

Name	Grade (YDS)	# Pitches	Quality (1-5)	Type
Bouncin Around The Room	5.11+	6	4	trad

Gear

- 70m rope

- tagline (required for one of the raps)

- cams: singles .2-2

- a few small stoppers

- 16 alpine draws

Total Stats

4 miles

1,600 ft gain/loss

The approach took us about 1.5 hours total, with a short section of class 3 rock scrambling at the end. We wrapped around the west side of the Rockfellow Group until we were at a corridor between Rockfellow Dome and Chay Desa Tsay. This corridor marked the southern side of the popular Inner Passage.

Pitch 1 (5.11-, 100 ft)

Looking up from the entrance to the corridor, we spotted a bolt 25 ft up followed by more bolts. We spent 15 minutes of shenanigans using a large stick as a makeshift stick clip, taping open a draw to it and hooking the hanger. I started out leading up, utilizing wide starfish-shaped stem, with my legs at a 120 degree angle on either side of the corridor. Further up, the corridor continued to widen and I was forced to do a full body bridge, with both hands on one wall and both feet on the other. About 60 ft up, the wideness was too much even for that, and thankfully some jugs appeared on one side of the wall. I grabbed them and fully swung my body over to that side. This was a cool dynamic move that required fully cutting both feet for a second. After this, a few more bolts of chill juggy climbing brought me up to a belay at a massive chockstone. Most of the jugs were reinforced with glue, since there was a high chance of them eventually ripping off on their own. This pitch required several draws (at least 13) and no gear.

me bridging up pitch 1 (photo by Andrew)

David on the wide section

Pitch 2 (5.11, 100 ft)

I crossed over to the opposite side of the chockstone to the obvious line of bolts and worked my way up an easy plated face. After a small roof, the bolt line doglegged left and followed a flake with poor feet, although the hands were quite decent, to a hanging belay. The rock quality on this pitch was superb, much better than the previous one. This pitch was more tightly bolted as well, and no gear was necessary.

Pitch 3 (5.11, 130 ft)

More bolts continued leftwards, with some funky moves off the belay into a shallow crack that rounded an egg-shaped arete. Once around the arete, I climbed straight up an obvious hand crack for about 10 ft, then peeled left at a bolt onto some easy/moderate slab. Another bolt further left brought me to an anchor with lowering biners. I belayed here to split the pitch in two. Once Max arrived, he lowered me through the anchor as I downclimbed 50 ft into the chasm below, at first downclimbing on glue-reinforced jugs before the opposite wall came close enough to stem. Upon reaching the bottom, I came off belay and lowered Max the same way through the anchors.

initial section to the egg-shaped arete

looking down the downclimb

Pitch 4 (5.11+, 130 ft)

An obvious left-leaning crack headed up from the belay. It started out with some funky 5.10 climbing, but quickly increased in difficulty as the crack doglegged straight up after about 50 ft. This 15 ft crux section was all on bolts, as the crack mostly closed up and placing any gear would block the few good fingerlocks that existed. The terrain eased back up after this short crux, and the remainder of the route headed up and left on all bolts. Most of this pitch was bolts (~15 total), but I also placed a selection of cams from .2-1.

looking up pitch 4

Pitch 5 (5.11-, 80 ft)

I followed the obvious slightly overhung bolted face that was full of chickenhead jugs. The short-lived crux consisted of a few pumpy dynamic moves. This pitch was all bolted.

Pitch 6 (5.11, 80 ft)

From the belay, a couple difficult moves of friction slab headed dead left on bolts. After shaking out my feet post-slab, I headed straight up the obvious easy corner for about 20 ft. A finger crack split off left, marked with a bolt. I high-clipped the bolt, climbed up to it, and liebacked left to access a finger crack. A few fun moves in the finger crack brought me up to easier terrain and the anchors. There was one set of anchors for belaying and another set for rapping.

initial slab

finger crack

Descent

- rap pitch 6 and 5 with single ropes

- tie together two ropes and rap from the top of pitch 4 down into the chasm, looking for an egg shaped boulder with bolts on it

- rap single rope from the egg shaped boulder further into the chasm onto a bunch of stacked blocks, and walk to the edge of the blocks (facing away from the domes). Locate two bolts at the edge

- rap single rope down into the Inner Passage and do an easy downclimb back to the start

preparing to rap