Wildcat Summit Register

The Wildcat summit register was tiny compared to the North Rabbit Ear SR. It fit in an old-style metal Kodak film canister, and consisted of two folded pieces of paper, moldy and faded with various entries scattered around the page seemingly without any order. I think it is quite possible that recent summitters have not written on it for fear of destroying it. There are no entires that were dated after 1989 and I find it somewhat un-likely that this peak hasn't seen an ascent by someone in that time period.



Since the entire log was only 4 pages, it's easy enough to post the scanned images of the log here. While the actual documents are a little easier to read than the scans, they're not much better:

Wildcat Summit: Regular Route

Looking up Wildcat Gully (Dingleberry is the peak on the right)

Not two weeks after scouting out Wohlt's Welt, I came back to climb all the way to the top. My goal was to summit Wildcat via the Regular route, reportedly only 3rd class, but with many warnings about the tediousness of the bushwhacking. I left the car at about 1mile up Modoc Mine rd (before the gate) at about 8am and made good time up to the entrance to Wildcat gully. There was 4-8" of snow in the shady portions near the entrance to the gully, but the gully itself

was not too bad. It appears that a pretty serious rock-fall or other erosion event has occurred in the past few years and wipe out most of the undergrowth for the first half of the gully. While in this portion of the gully, I checked out climbing possibilities on either side. A nice slab formation on the south side of the gulley looks like it could provide a few pitches of decent climbing, but the better wall was the one on the North, which Ingraham calls the Guardian Buttress in his descrption of the Wildcat climbs. There were several nice looking steep crack systems on this wall, and the approach isn't that bad. Could be worth checking out.

Pictures from the lower Wildcat Gully showing rock-fall damage

The going began to get a little tougher near the top of the Guardian Buttress level. The rock-fall event must have occurred slightly lower, so for the last 100ft or so, I had to navigate around snow covered shrubs. This was easier by clinging to the North wall where passage could be found. The top of the lower Wildcat gully is clearly demarcated at a narrow saddle-like spot. Ingraham calls this the "narrow saddle, on whose left rises a sharp, small spire, into a wide valley running down west under Wildcat's SW face (the Swale)". I think I'll just call this place "the Swale".

At the "Swale"

From this point up to the saddle between Wildcat and Dingleberry, I had to battle up waist-deep snow drifts. I'd try to cling to one side of the gully, but usually could not keep it up for long as the sides were too steep or icy. Just below the saddle is a large oak tree, but before I got there, I had decided to take to the rock wall on the north side of the gully and start my ascent of Wildcat's final rock face. The first hundred feet of 3rd class scrambling felt harder due to the ice and snow obscuring the rock and making it slippery. But once I popped out onto the S. ridge and sunshine, it got a lot smoother. The rest of the South Ridge was pleasant 3rd class rock-hopping all the way to the summit.

Summit Shots

I replaced the summit register with a new one, and took the old one down with me for archiving. This register was a tiny old metal film canister (Kodak) and had only two moldy sheets of paper in it. I'll post the full ascent log soon. Looking to the North, the summit of Razorback is just a short hop away. I was almost tempted to go over to it, but the short hop involves a steep down-climb to an exposed saddle, and with ice and snow, it probably wouldn't be as easy as it looked. Besides, I need to have some good reasons to come back up here. Razorback looks like a great climb. To the South Dingleberry seems massive. there were a few climbable gullies ascending from the Wildcat gully and I considered trying to get up one of these on my way down. But this would be an extra hour or so of time and I wasn't sure what time it was to begin with. I decided it was best to head on down, and get back to Liz and my birthday feast.

For the descent was almost the same as the ascent except I tried to avoid the 3rd class down-climbing by taking a brushy gully on the SE side of Wildcat's peak. Even with a few feet of deep snow-drifts, the bushwhacking was egregious. I can only imagine how terrible it would be in summer conditions. The gully dropped me down on the East side of the Wildcat-Dingleberry saddle, and I had to climb up an icy chimney to get back onto the saddle and start making my way down. Going down the deep snow was much easier than coming up, I butt-slid the whole way down. I was back to my car at 2:15. Not bad time, and pretty much in-line with ingraham's suggested3hr time to summit.

The SW face of Wildcat

Temps throughout the hike were pretty reasonable, hovering around the 40s for most of the gully. It felt much colder than this with the wind though, and I quickly had to use my wind-protection layers to stay warm. I also was not fully prepared for the snow, I didn't have me gaiters. How I could have forgotten these, I don't know. My feet got soaked on the ascent and at the summit I changed into dry wool socks and put on "vapor-barriers" to keep my feet relatively dry. this little trick I picked up in Quebec, and consists of placing plastic shopping bags over your feet in your boot. You lose any kind of breathability, but you keep the worst of the snow-water off your socks, so it ends up being better if you're not sweating too hard. I certainly enjoy hiking these peaks in the winter. now if only the days were longer...

Wohlt's Welt Reconnaissance

I took Levin out this afternoon to do some reconnaissance; we hiked up the Modoc Mine Rd and then found Wohlt's Welt. This is what Ingraham describes as "The Highroad to the Central Organs" and from it one can access several peaks including Wildcat and Dingleberry.

Here is Google Earth's rendition of the route up to the saddle between Wildcat and Dingleberry. We only hiked up to the top of Wohlt's Welt, which is the gentle ridge or "welt" that goes from the Modoc rd up to the foot of the rocky cliffs. As far as bush-beating goes, it wasn't too bad, with ocatillo being the dominant shrub/obstacle. It is fairly steep though and there isn't much of a trail so it is slow going. Total distance from the top of Wohlt's Welt down to the Baylor Pass Rd is about 2.5 miles (according to Google Earth) and took us about 1.5 hrs to cover.

View from top of Wohlt's Welt looking at Wildcat and Dingleberry

Being the first time I took Levin out bushwhacking, I can't resist posting some pictures of him:

North Rabbit Ear Summit Register

Below is my transcription of the NRE summit register. It was immensely fun to do this, read all the entries from climbers past, learn about new routes. It sure has me psyched to get back up there and climb more. Also I'm now eager to get my hands on the other summit registers and sift through them.

I did my best to record all the original entries, but some pages are badly torn, weathered, or simply hard to read. I noted this in [brackets] in most places. I think I'll print this entire register out on sturdy paper and replace it back with the summit register so that others can read the history. I also will try to archive the originals (and original copy since the 1954-1969 entries were already re-copied once) at NMSU or some other local archive. Finally, the left-hand column estimates the Recorded Summit Ascent # by ascent party. It is approximate, especially in the later decades of the register as pages may have been lost, etc.. By this approximation, our last ascent was the 159th.



Some pictures of the summit register:

North Rabbit Ear: Boyer's Chute

I was contacted a few weeks ago through Mountain Project by a climber in Durango Colorado who was looking for partners in the Las Cruces area for bagging some of the peaks in our range. It seemed kind of strange that someone from Colorado would drive all the way down here (probably 10 hrs or more) when there are so many high peaks in his own state. But since I am also interested in climbing as many of the Organ Mtn peaks as I can, I mailed him back.

John Bregar was his name, a retired geologist and president of a local mountain club. He made it clear right off the bat that he was not into highly technical routes, and would not be interested in routes harder than 5.5, but that he enjoyed brush-beating up SW desert peaks and wanted to get up some of the more interesting Organ mtn peaks. Many of these have 3rd or 4rth class routes up them described in Ingraham's guide and I've been wanting to check them out as well. After a few email exchanges we settled on climbing Boyer's Chute on the North Rabbit Ear (NRE).

We left Las Cruces early, around 5:45 in order to start the trail-head before the sun had risen. We took only a single 60m rope and light alpine rack. Neither of us wore a watch, so my timeline isn't much good from here on. but it felt that we made good time hiking up the Rabbit Ear Canyon. We left Sasha at the base of the route. a 3rd class slab leading into a deep cleft on the west side of the NRE. After a few hundred feet of 3rd class scrambling, the chute narowed down to a 4rth class chimney. At the top of this was a ratty poot rappel station. This station happened to be at the top of a narrow fin of rock which separates Boyer's Chute from an adjacent chute to the north which appears more difficult. It also looked fun to scramble out to the edge of the fin, but we didn't have time to explore it properly. Next time.

An easy 100ft further and we encountered the first bit of 5th class, a narrow spot with a large chock stone to get around. Total height of this 5th class section is only about 20ft. The easier way is to the right, and John had previously led this way. However, he described it as mostly un-protectable and we opted to try a crack to the left of the chock. John tried leading it first, but quickly learned that it was harder than 5.5. It involves a bit of clever foot-work and stemming, possibly the use of a hand-jam to surmount. I estimated the move to be about 5.8, but it's been a while since I've done much climbing and I could be off. Immediately above this section is another fixed anchor, wire rope and rap-rings.

150 ft further up is the 5.4 crux of the route, a deep chimney with another large chock stone. The right hand wall had some nice cracks for holds.protection making the climb feel very secure. The 5th class climbing is about 30-40 ft long and an old and decrepit bolted rappel anchor is at the top of it.

The chute turns into more of a right-facing corner system at this point, and stays between 3rd and 4rth class for a while. There was an awesome live-oak in this corner, twisted and growing out across a slab of rock in a way that bonsai cultivators get wet-dreams about. Photos could do no justice. At the top of the corner is a final 4rth class head-wall and then we were at the summit.

I had the fore-sight to bring a new summit register and pen. The existing summit register is really something, providing history all the way back to the first recorded ascent in 1954. It had been painstakingly re-copied in the late 60s. The newer note-book which we signed dated back to the 80s. Since my last ascent in the spring of 2008, only 5 other people had recorded ascents, all via boyer's Chute (and often solo). I carefully packed the fragile records in a zip=lock bag to take down with me. Over the next few weeks, I plan to transcribe the register into an electronic document and post it on the web. If possible, I'd like to try to archive the originals somewhere locally. I also want to print out the completed register and return a copy of it to the summit, so future ascentionists can enjoy reading the mountains recorded history. Maybe it's an ambitious project for me, but I think it will be rewarding.

We descended the chute using the numerous rappel stations and doing a bit of easy scrambling.down-climbing. I think we made 7 rappels over-all, and for the most part didn't have to leave additional gear/webbing as John had already left new stuff when he was up here a month ago.

Adopt-A-Crag: La Cueva

Some folks from the OMTRS organized a trash pick-up at La Cueva. The Access Fund and Toucan market supplied goodies, and a team of OMTRS members, Adventure Crew teens, and church goers spent the morning combing La Cueva for garbage. I found a few really old stashes of coke cans (steel cans instead of aluminum) under some nasty thorns up high on the west end of the rock formations. Overall, there was not a whole lot of trash. Two immediate things come to mind; 1) not very many people come here to trash the place or 2) the recreational users of Las Cruces are good stewards. I prefer #2. Walking around the entire rock formation (not the eastern satellites though) I re-examined all the routes I've done here, and was reminded of how much more is still to do. I haven't seriously climbed here in a while. Well, since Levin was born this summer, I haven't seriously climbed at all. Being back at the cliffs made me reconnect. I know La Cueva isn't the best climbing out there, the rock is chossy, the routes are mediocre. But it is still a nice local spot, easy to get to and with plenty of variety. I hereby vow to make a point of coming back here as frequently as I can.

After the trash pick-up, we set up a couple top-ropes on the Sunny Side around the route Piton Power. Inevitably, this is the area that gets the most attention, but I always feel like it would be better to set up ropes on the back side instead. There's just more stuff on that side, especially for beginners. I'll suggest this next time OMTRS does one of these events.

Minerva's Temple

This year's WSTF Organ Mtn hike had a small turn-out. Last year, OMTRS/WSTF had probably 30 people summit, and a dozen or so camp out on the summit. Josie and I climbed the Organ Needle North West Ridge and also SqaureTop then. This year, we were only nine, and I was not among those sleeping on the summit. Despite not spending the night on the summit, I still brought climbing gear because Bob Cort had enticed me by suggeesting we do a route near the top. However, depending on how many people showed up, especially those who might need encouragement through-out the climb we hadn't planned on anything concrete. When I showed up this morning and there were only 5 other hikers in the Pan-Am parking lot, all seasoned hikers, we decided we could get away with a route.

We settled on Minerva's Temple as our goal. From the ORgan Needle Summit, this appears to be a small peak-let off to the South-East, but is actually a gigantic rock tower when viewed from Aguirre Springs. I remembered reading about it in Ingraham's Guide, something about the Yale Mountaineering Club doing the first ascent and that it was 5th class climbing up from a small gap between it and the "Retaining Wall". I figured it could only be 3 pitvhes at most, and if the Yale Mountaineering Club did it back in the 60's or something, it probably wouldn't be that hard.

We split off from the rest of the hikers at Hummingbird Saddle, ~10am. To get to the small saddle between Minerva's Temple and the Retaining Wall, we had to descend into the canyon/gulley on the east. This canyon was pure bliss, a perfect glade of 20-30ft tall mountain maples, in various states of fall foliage. Yellows and Oranges, thick layers of fallen leaves under-foot, that wonderful autumn smell. It made me miss fall in New Hampshire. And it was especially nice to discover that I can come here every fall, for my own little deciuos heaven.

We started our climb about 100ft uphill from the gap between Minerva's Temple and the Retaining Wall. Ingraham descibes a 75ft rappel from this gap into our canyon, but a quick look at the drop showed that it didn't look like the best climbing. By starting 100ft uphill we were able to traverse right into the gap. A Maple growing against the side of the wall makes a good marker for this traverse starting point. The traverse itself is 5.5 or easier, but fairly exposed and with loose mossy steps and lichen. We roped up anf I led the traverse to be on the safe side.

The pitch climbing up from the gap to the top of Minerva'S Temple W ridge is the crux. I could immediately see several variants, some of which looked very challenging indeed. I opted for what looked like the easiest route, climbing twenty feet up to a weakness and then turning the corner to the south face at a bush. This move ended up generating a lot of rope drag, which a payed for later. ONce established on the South face, I was on a sloping ledge that had 4-5 parallel crack systems going straight up to the top. The first was a burly looking off-width. The second a narrow un-protecable seam. The 3-4 looked like something I could on-sight. They were close enough together where it looked posisble to use features from both, and had sections of thin hands to fist size cracks. I started up the left one, got about 10 ft up it and starting losing my nerve. I wasn;t having difficulty with the mves yet, but the way the cracks were situated on the wall, I didn't feel like I had good feet, ubnless I smeared on the granite. The protection was good but it felt much harder than I was feeling comfortable with. I felt my way about making the move to jump over to the right hand crack, but this also felt more strenuous than I had bargained for. I started grunting and sweating more and wishing I had brought my chalk and a full set of cams (I only brought a light "alpine rack" consisting of chocks, a set of tri-cams, and Camelots #1-3). When faced with the decision to push myself or back down, I chose to back down. I cleaned my top peice and down'climbed-slithered back down to the ledge.

Fortunately there was an easier way to the top. A few more feet to the right was the last crack which als looked hard, but from this crack I was able to make an exposed traverse move over a knobby face and get into an easy corner. From here it was a cake-walk up to the top of the ridge, except for the fact my rope-drag now felt like I was hauling up a 50 lb weight. The exposed move turned out to be the crux, and even spit off Bob as he followed up. I couldn't see him from my belay, but he was stuck at one spot for a few minutes and all of the sudden yelled "Falling!" and the rope got tight. Fortunately, he picked a good spot to fall, where the pendulum from the traverse was almost negligable. He quickly established himself back on the wall and joined me on the ridge-top.

From the ridge we had an excellent view of the rest of our party over on Organ Needle. For a while it seemed as if they were spectators, grouped together on an overlook facing our way. While belaying Bob, I watched as they cajoled Sasha into getting up to the summit. To reach our summit, Bob and I still had to negotiate the exposed ridge. Bob took the lead and did a full rope-length of 4th class scrambling, over a mini sumit and to a nice clearing with low aspens. From here, he led another short 40 ft pitch to the true summit. This pitch actually turned out to be tricky, involving a steep final 10 ft in an awkward corner, and stemming out to a crack on the face. The summit was a beautiful slab of granite, gracefully sloping down to the easter side of the moutain, where it abruptly drops off. We looked around for signs of previous ascents and for a fixed rappel. I found some tattered pieces of blue webbing and an old biner, but not in the location we wanted to rappel. I was a little disappointed not to find a summit register. It would have been really fun to read about the Yaler's first ascent. But no register was found, and I doubt this peak sees many summiters anyways.

Now we just needed to find out how to get down. With no obvious signs of a rappel route, and no beta, we were on our own. Bob then played the rookie card and left it up to me how we were to get down (well, it was also my rack that would be at risk of attrition should we ahve to leave gear). I decided our best bet was to re-trace our ascent route, because this way we at least knew what were getting into. I left a small loop of webbing and biner at the summit to rap back down to the aspens, then we roped up and simul-climbed back over to the west end of the ridge. I almost chose a spot at the top of the ridge to set our final rappel, but ended up down-climbing about 10 ft where we were able to find a suitable place to leave a double-length runner and biner to rappel back down to the gap. It's a good thing we descened that extra ten feet, our rope only barely made it to the ground. From the gap, we roped up and traversed back over to where we started rather than leaving more webbing/biners to rappel the 75ft down from the gap. I didn't mind down-climbing the traverse, bu Bob said it was for the birds, and he had a point, on second he had a pretty decent fall potential.

We parted ways at Hummingbird saddle. It was 2:30 pm. The rest of the group had already made it's way down, except for the two who were spending the night. Bob climbed up to join them for the night, and I hustled my way down. The whole time I was hiking down, I was thinking about whether or not I would catch up to the rest of the group. They must have had an hour or more of a head-start, but one of the members in their group was sure to take a slower pace on the treacherous sections of the trail, and I played out the ope of over-taking them. At each point in the trail that offers a view of the trail below, I paused and tried to make them out, but never saw them. It wasn't until I got back on the Modoc Mine road and their car came in sight when I spotted them at the car. They were sitting back, and waiting for the last member of their group, Ilene, who was a few hundred yards away. I caught up to them at the car only a few minutes after her, and found out that I had done the entire descent in 1hr 40 minutes. Not bad at all, but my knees were aching. My car was still parked another two miles down the Modoc Mine rd, but Grady offered Sasha and I a ride. Sasha looked in worse shape than I, her pads were all beaten up and she barely had enough energy to get up. All in all, a very succesful day.

When I got home, I felt naseous. I had pretty much forgotten to eat all day. Lucky for me Liz had baked a fresh batch of molasses cookies, and whipped up a batch of turkey soup to calm my stomach. She sponged off Sasha's feet while I cuddled with Levin, relaxing and shaking of the fatigue from a long day. I'm thinking next year, if I turn this hike into a climb, it might be better to spend the night. But if I do that, I also know that I'd end up just doing more climbs, and being even more exhausted when I got home. At least now, I have a full dya of recovery before having to go back to work.