Although I live in Canada, I have spent many months in this awesome American National Park, which offers a combination of beautiful scenery, excellent camping, and thousands and thousands of (mostly short) climbing routes. Even better, it is often possible to climb right through the winter (although the camping can be frosty). It can be unpleasantly hot from May-September. The nearest city is Palm Springs, but the park is also just a half-day's drive from Los Angeles and Las

I was lucky enough to get the chance to visit this area in central Arizona at the end of February, when the weather elsewhere still felt like winter. The mountains and canyons just east of Phoenix harbour a bunch of climbing sites, including tons of bouldering around Oak Flat, several popular sport climbing areas, and even some trad, multi-pitch and tower climbing. The rock quality varies, but in general is a soft, flaky tuff, with varying amounts of a harder dark brown varni