Climbing Journal

Third Peak Summit Register

2011-06-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

On a lot of the "minor" Organ mountain summits, I cannot find an old summit register. I was pleasantly surprised when I found this old film cannister on the top of 3rd Peak back in May. The 3 tiny sheets of paper in it date back to the 50s. Nothing more recent than 1972, wow!

Little Squaretop Summit Register

2011-06-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

I retrieved the summit register from Little Squaretop back on May 13th 2011. There was an old metal kodak film cannister tucked inside a newer plastic container. The old container had a sheet which had been recopied from a previous register, but it had information dating back to the first ascent parties in the 50s. always cool to read that old stuff.

Middle Rabbit Ear Summit Register

2011-06-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

I retrieved the old summit register from Middle Rabbit Ear May 21st, 2011. It consisted of a PVC tube. The contents were not in good shape, and haven't been since 2007 when i first found it. I left some fresh paper (our route description) in order to sign, because the only other stuff in the tube was a moldy, wadded up piece of "paper" crammed in the bottom. I wasn't able to decipher much from this old sheet of paper, but what I could decipher is transcribed below. I plan on placing a copy of this transcription back up on the summit this weekend.

Sugarloaf: Simul-climbing with Jon Tylka

2011-06-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've been going strong the last 5 week-ends, piecing together portions of the Organ-peaks-linkup, and this weekend was to be a break from that. Jon and I are going to try our big day next weekend. So instead of climbing or scrambling along the Organ Needles, we struck out for Sugarloaf today. We went to have fun and practice using my brand-new set of half-ropes, which we'll be taking with us for our big day. After some previous weekend trips, we decided two ropes were necessary and I was leaning towards getting a new rope anyways, so I bit the bullet and ordered a set of 8.1mm half ropes. Sugarloaf was our proving ground.

A few other OMTRS climbers, Bob Cort, Marta Reece, Matt Wotford and Cat Wu, were also wanting to climb Sugarloaf so we decided to head out as a big group. Once again, Eddie South agreed to let us in the BLM gate early, and we met him promptly at 5am to be let in. It was forecast to be a hot day, and it felt hot even at 5am. We spent a little while gearing up but were soon on the trailhead and flying up the trail. It took us 1h20m to reach the base of North Face route. Jon and I stopped here, planning to simul-climb this route first and then try another route later in the day. The other two parties had their sights on the Left Eyebrow and continued up a little bit further to the base of their route.

Instead of the light alpine rack Jon was used to seeing me bring, I had a full compliment of cams and nuts, and loads of runners. We discussed simul climbing details before starting up, such items as good communication, keeping solid pieces between climbers, and clipping both ropes through each piece (using them as twins). this last item is important because while simul climbing you cannot feed the ropes at different speeds, so they both need to move together. I racked up first and started up the immense and beautiful slabs, still in the morning shade.

Jon cruising up the North face

We made a steady and good pace up the route. I paused a bit at a slabby run-out variation on the "3rd" pitch, clipping both 1/4" bolts along this section. For the most part, simul climbing is about being comfortable and confident on the rock, climbing fluidly together. After a little while, my world narrowed to a focus of climbing movements. Eyes darting to each good hand and foothold, stepping up and feeling for slack or tension in the rope, and always moving upward. I ran out of gear a little over half way up the route, on the huge grassy ledge. I set an anchor, but Jon on belay and brought him up quickly. He already had most of the gear with him, but I gave him the remainder and tried my best to point out the route for him to lead us to the top. "It goes right to that block," I pointed. He nodded and agreed, and then proceeded to climb straight up well left of the normal route. I reminded him a few times that he was off route left, but he was already on his way. That's one of the beautiful things about leading, is you can pick your own way, travel up whatever looks best to you. In this case, it meant a little dirtier climbing, more lichen covered sections, and some loose rocks, but overall decent climbing. Jon eventually met up with the normal route near the upper pitches, and when i reached him at the top he was all smiles.

Jon tossing the rope for the east side rappel

Our ascent had taken 2 hours, it was about 9:30. We rested a bit on the top and then talked about the descent. I have always rappelled down the south side, but we had noticed a newish looking suing on the East side and decided to give this descent a try. We were able to scramble lower than this first sling to another rappel station, and set up the ropes for a double-roped descent. I went first, sliding quickly down the two brand-new half ropes. 60m put us on a large ledge where there was a single 1/4" bolt rappel point. It looked to be in decent shape and we were sure to be able to reach the ground from there, so we pulled the ropes, only to get one of them stuck. The orange rope had caught on a flake and was not budging. We tried all manner of flipping the ropes and gently tugging, but I was worried about damaging my brand-new ropes, so I had Jon put me on belay on the purple rope, and I climbed up to free the stuck loop. Turns out it had wedged into a small flake and came out easily by hand. No harm done to the rope, I down-climbed back to jon and we set the 2nd rappel. This time Jon went first and immediately tacked right when he spotted a nest of climbers booty. He is still building his rack, and any gets super excited about finding climbing gear. Since he wanted to work on cleaning the two wires and tricam (plus 5 carabiners), I went ahead and rappelled down. Attached to the booty-anchor was a ratty old rope, sheath completely missing and totally coming apart. I tugged it down while rappelling so that we could trash it.

Bottom of 2nd rappel on East side

Jon was successful in cleaning one nut and the tricam, but couldn't get the last nut. Still a nice find, he was over the moon about it. We packed up the ropes and scrambled down the east side gully of Sugarloaf. This area was pretty heavily burned out by the recent Abrams Fire, and there were some large felled trees as well. some sections require a bit of down-climbing finness but overall it was a decent route. Still, after getting a stuck rope, my preference lies with the cleaner South side rappel route.

Our decent had taken nearly two hours, almost the same amount of time as climbing the route. Still, there was plenty of time to get on another climb, and the other two parties could still be seen high up on the mountain. We rested a bit, and refilled our water from the generous water cache the Bob and Jon had hiked up last Wednesday. I can't stress how utterly awesome it was to have 4 gallons of water here at the base of the cliff for us. I'm sure we all could have done with just our own water, but we were in oh so much better shape with it. Despite the heat, I was feeling good, not fatigued at all.

For our next route we were both interested in the hard slab route, Science Friction. We made our way up to the base of it, and stared up at the intimidating blankness. Unlike the North Face route, this one is steep slab, thin 5.10 moves between widely spaced bolts.It didn't take me long to balk at leading it. I told Jon I'd belay him, but didn't think I was up for leading. He was seriously tempted still, but ultimately decided that he wouldn't want to fall on the initial pitons. Our eyes then turned to the large right facing corner just to the left. My topo called this 5.8 corner Banana Peel, it didn't look easy.

Attractive right-facing corner of Banana Peel

The right leaning corner looked like a powerful layback climb, with almost no feet or rest stances. Jon though was game for it, and racked up. This time we decided not to simul climb, letting Jon place as much gear as needed, and use the half-ropes as they are intended, clipping either rope as needed to reduce rope drag. This worked beautifully, as seen in the picture below.

Half-rope technique displayed, on Banana Peel

Jon muscled up the layback, and looked to me to be confidently sailing the route. Right above a small rest-stance, he dropped the set of nuts while trying to place them, and by some lucky break they stopped short in a flake just below him. He was able to retrieve them and continue up. He did appear a bit nervous in one section and took a rest at a stance above to recover. I discovered why on seconding, the layback was committing and draining. There were some good stances though that couldn't be seen from the ground, the key is all in the footwork. But even with good footwork, placing gear from the layback position is strenuous and I can see how he could get a pump trying to work in a piece. At the crux section, a fixed cam was overcammed way back int the crack. Jon had clipped it, but it was difficult to even clip because the wire-;loop was deep in the crack. This is where Jon had exerted the most effort, and I could certainly understand what was going through his head on lead. Above the crux section the climbing got a bit easier, but it also worked over this hollow huge hollow sounding flake. Easily a couple body-widths across, it resonated with each step I took on it. It didn't appear to be in danger of falling, but that ringing boom is enough to make anyone nervous.

At the top, Jon had set his belay right at the corner of the ;edge, but there was a bolted belay 20 ft back and at a better stance so I went straight for that, and then pulled the rope over to me. Since the rope was then stack for Jon to climb again he took the next lead. We decided to get back to simul climbing, the corner above us looked very easy, and then it joined right up with the Left Eyebrow. Matt and Cat were still high up on the route, and we exchanged a few hollers before heading up.

Easy middle pitches of Left Eyebrow Route

Jon made it all the way up to the large dead tree beneath the crux pitch, but a poorly planned gear placement had left him with terrible rope drag and he decided to set up his belay there. I racked up at the tree and got to lead the high quality upper pitches. The only other time I had climbed this route was with John Hymer years ago, and again we had simul-climbed it. I didn't really remember the route, but had a good enough idea. plus a fresh trail of chalked holds had been left by the party above, so i could always just follow their lead.

The exposed crux pitch was awesome, and as good as it gets for a 5.7 multi-pitch route. Probably 1000' above the floor, you swing out to a committing move around a roof/prow, not being able to see what's on the other side. You can swing your feet and out, and yelp away, then pull over and find bomber jugs to haul up on. really a stellar feeling, maybe even the best move on all of Sugarloaf. Above this move the climbing stays interesting, with run-out slabs, gneiss intrusions dotting the rock and providng holds, and the opccasional old 1/4" bolt. I took my time threading through the terrain, searching out the best rock and most protectable features. I also made sure to holler back down to Jon to make sure he let me know when he reached the crux moves. I knew he wouldn't have a problem with them, but I also wanted to make sure I had a decent stance when he got to this section. With simul-limbing, communication is key to avoiding sticky and uncomfortable climbing.

I reached the summit just a minute behind Cat. 10 minutes later bob Cort came into view atop the north face route. He and Marta had heard Matt complaining about a loose pitch on the Left Eyebrow, and decided to switch over to the North Face route at the large ledge. The timing was perfect, with all six of us on top together. It was around 3:00pm, it had taken us a little over 2 hours to climb another route on Sugarloaf. Once agian I forgot to birng up a proper summit register, but thanks to a geocache on the summit, I left a make-shift tiny register in the summit cairn. It should last 6-12 months, by which time maybe I will be back to put a proper log-book up here.

Myself and Jon, with the ridge-line we hope to conquer in the background

After the requisite summit tom-foolery, we set-up a fixed line down to the South rappel. With 6 people and 4 ropes, we made good time setting rappels and getting down. Once again we all refilled our water and drank the last of the 4 gallons of water. We took a leisurely pace on the hike out, making it back to the cars by 7:30pm. Bob had a cooler of ice cold water and beer waiting for us, now that's what I call prepared!

Left to right, Top: Jon, Cat, Marta, Matt. Bottom Aaron, Bob

Last Peak, Nordspitz and Baylor Pass

2011-06-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

The North rabbit Ear looms behind a yucca from the summit of Last Peak

I reached a special milestone today. Ever since we moved to Las Cruces, I have wanted to climb up all of those jagged peaks on our horizon. Today I reached the summit of the last two. Well, to clarify, the last two of the jagged "needles". I still haven't been on Baylor Peak, or even Organ Peak (restricted are). No matter, I am happy anyways. Reaching these last two peaks also gives me a little more confidence about the upcoming Organ peak Marathon. I have a basic familiarity with all the peaks on our route, ways to get up and down, information which is key to our attempt to link all of these peaks in a single day.

My hike today started before the sun came up. I bade my sleeping family a quiet "goodbye-morning" and jumped in the car around 5am. I parked at my usual spot a mile or so up the Topp Hut road, and started hiking up. I decided not to bring any climbing gear with me, but my pack was still heavy because I was carrying an extra 4 liters of water to cache. I was also solo today, Marta and Jon had decided to team up and hike up the Organ Needle and familiarize themselves with the northward route from their (they made it all the way to Lost Peak). Being solo is nice sometimes, and I took a several extra geocaching diversions on my way up.

The hike in was nice and cool, and stayed cool all the way through Rabbit Ears Canyon. There was an unfound geocache on top of the Citadel which I decided to go for. I dropped my heavy pack in the canyon and took a 30 minute detour to grab it; Normally, the Citadel can only be topped out by 5th class routes, but I was pretty sure I could find a scramble up it. I remembered a hidden gully to the west of the route Wish You were Here, which was an easy scramble. It topped out on a large shoulder a few pitches up on the West Ridge. This left me with a little bit of exposed climbing, but after looking at it carefully, I was confident I could get up it. I did have a few second thoughts about coming back down. After all, I had no rope or gear to rappel with. Pushing those thoughts aside I summited anyways, thinking there was probably another descent/scramble on the south side. I did find nice rappel chains on the SE side side of the summit, but no easy scramble down. However, down-climbing wasn't as bad as I had feared and I was soon back down to my pack, and on my way up to Last Peak.

My approach was up the main gully on coming down from the north end of North Rabbit Ear. About half way up a rocky ridge divides the gully. I had been up the right-hand side before, on a previous trip up to the CWM, so I decided to try the left-hand side this time. It had a few sections of tough bushwhacking, but was pretty easy and direct. I was soon up to the saddle between the CWM and Last Peak. I stashed 2 liters of water and scoped out the potential routes up Last Peak. There was a promising route right up the south face that I was interested in. I could see a way to scramble up some ramp systems to a shoulder mid-way up the face. from here I could only see a 5th class corner to the top, but the rock around the corner was hidden from view and I was thinking that it might have a scrambleable gully. I decided to have a look. The initial "scramble" section involved a 5th class move, and once again I worried about reversing it. Still, I went up hopeful for the nice gully around the corner. I got up to the shoulder and looked around the corner, and was dismayed. Not only was there not an easy corner, but it was actually steeper over there. right above me though, was a very attractive route up a narrow rib. It looked in the 5.6-5.8 range, but there was no way I was going to solo it. Lucky for me, I did not have to reverse the hard move I had done to get up here, instead finding a secure (but 5th class) down climb in a crack system with good holds. Safely back at the saddle I made my way west around the base of the wall to look for the regular route up.

South Face of Last Peak, and my aborted route attempt

Only a few hundred feet away was the 4th class (3rd class Ingraham) route, up a nice weakness to the top. I quickly ascended and was on the lovely summit ramp in no time.

4th class route up Last Peak

I found a small summit register left by a recent Geocacher, and added my name to it. The log was only a single sheet of paper, so I think I'll bring up a proper notebook when we come here next. It was still early in the morning, so I found a nice spot to sit and eat breakfast. I had birds-eye view of the summit of The Citadel where I just was an hour ago. I took my boots off and let my feet air out, munching on trail mix and gulping water.

Dry feet are happy feet

Agave blossom/fruit on summit of Last Peak

After a suitable rest, I peered over the north side of the peak to scope out the descent down to Nordspitz. A jagged ridge led directly towards the saddle. There were a few spots that looked like they might be difficult to negotiate, but overall it looked doable and direct. I started down the exposed ridge-line, carefully climbing over blocks and down boulders. About half-way down I was stopped by a steep section. It would be a short and easy rappel (although I saw no rappel gear from previous parties), but I had no rope. However, there was a weakness on the east side which i thought I could down climb and I decided to go for it. I had to be extremely careful here, using the crack for solid jams and carefully placing my feet and testing the rock as I lowered myself down. It was indeed down-climbable but when Jon and I come back this way on our big traverse, I think we'd be better off rappelling.

Looking down the North Ridge of Last Peak

Getting up Norspitz was a cinch, a simple 3rd class scramble up the south side. There was another new register placed by the same Geocacher. I looked around for signs of an older one, but didn't find anything. It's pretty unlikely that this peak sees many ascents anyways.

Summit shot on Nordspitz

I didn't stay on the summit long, and started scrambling down the North side of the peak. The scramble off was nice, over some beautiful slabs and past some nice old trees. I had to zig zag a bit to avoid a large steep wall, but it was all very straightforward and actually quite pleasant. Minimal brush-beating, not too much slippery gravel, and slightly shady from the North-facing aspect. When i finally got to the bottom and looked back up, Nordspitz actually looked like quite a nice peak, with gently slabs growing up into a nice little summit. It would probably be a nice hike to come up this way from Baylor pass, but my goal today was to do the opposite.

North Side of Nordspitz

The first 1/4mile along the ridge towards Baylor was the worst of the bushwhacking. I delicately threaded myself through mahogany, cholla and yucca, eventually reaching a small summit. From there it was a bit easier although still brushy. There were occasional faint traces of "trail" and I was before I knew it I was down at Baylor pass. I cached another 2 liters of water under a shrub, and pondered my next move. Getting back to my car on the Topp Hut road would take some doing, I could go back the way I came but what fun would that be? Another route I considered is a sort of ridge-line which goes from the top of the Lambda to somewhere near the pass. Ultimately though, I opted for a lower elevation route, skirting around the base of the some unnamed cliffs. Partially this was motivated by a few more geocaches, which I picked off lower down, but I also was interested in checking out the impressive cliffs on the North side of the Lambda Wall massif. I've often stared at these cliffs while driving along Baylor road. There are some obvious corner systems which beg to be climbed, and I was interested in some reconnaissance.

All smiles before I left Baylor Pass trail

I left the Baylor Pass trail a little bit below the camping spot, and aimed for a small pass to the south.from there I was able to scramble over maintaining my elevation to another little pass, overlooking the canyon beneath the unnamed wall. So far the brush hadn't been very bad, but I could see that traversing around the base of this wall was going to be tough. The steep slope beneath the wall was boulder-strewn and choked with vegetation. I didn't see any possible easy route, so just forged ahead trying to maintain some elevation. I got a good look at the corner systems, they look like they could be really awesome routes. The approach from Baylor Pass would be reasonable, although it would be better in the cooler months.

Unnamed Cliffs North of Lambda Wall

My water was running low, it was the hottest part of the day and I was in the worst terrain the Organs can throw at you. It seemed like forever, but I finally rounded the corner underneath the Lambda Wall, and made my way back into Rabbit Ears Canyon. To my surprise there were hikers there, two guys coming down from Rabbit Ear Massif. they had just passed by the campground and lost the trail. I helped them get back on track, and then hiked out with them. One of the guys, Andre, actually grew up near the Gunks, and went to school at Plymouth State, right near where my Dad lives in NH. Small world. I enjoyed the company for the last hike out, we commiserated about our lack of water, and the hostile Organ mountain plants, and cruised back down the Topp Hut road. Overall route stats: Hike came in around 10.8 miles with a total elevation gain of about 2500 ft. Car-to-car in about 9 hours.

Hot and hazy looking South-East from the Nordspitz

Traverse of the Low Horns

2011-06-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

This week-end's Organ Mountain challenge was to complete what we had set out to do last week-end, namely traverse the low horns from #6 through #1. This time it was just Jon and me. We got an early start thanks to meeting th BLM host Eddie South, who met us at the Aguirre Springs gate a little after 6am, and let us through. Starting up the Pine tree Trail early makes a huge difference. Most of our elevation gain is getting up the ridge-top, and the cooler monring temps definitely helped us not sweat our brains out. We reached the saddle between Horn #6 and The Spire a little after 8am. We left another water stash to lighten our load.

Jon at the high-point of our aborted route on the S face of #6

While I was pretty sure we'd end up scrambling around the west side of the base of Horn #6, in search of the normal route up, we had made good time and after gazing at the south face Horn #6, decided we'd try a route. A series of cracks and ledges seemed possible, so I racked up and started up. Only about 40ft up, I ran into a crux move where the wall got steeper and there was an awkward pull up into a thin corner. I approached the move from a few different angles, but ultimately decided I wasn't up for it. Maybe the extra weight of the pack worried me, or my lack of much recent climbing... either way, I balked. Jon wanted to give it a go though, so I left my high piece in and down climbed. When Jon got up to the high-piece, I was sure he would get passed. He pulled up on the hard move, and was almost established in the corner, where easier climbing lay ahead. but then he too chose to back down. He was able to clean the gear while down-climbing.

Jon on the sketchy slab traverse

Thus thwarted, we scrambled to the west around the base of Low horn #6. The west side was still shady and cool, which felt great. We dropped a bit of elevation, but were then able to traverse across a smooth slab and get into the gully which leads up to the saddle between #5 and #6. I made it up there first (Jon thought the slab traverse was SKETCH) and relaxed a bit, checking out the potential routes. When Jon reached the saddle, he realized that his water bottle had become unclipped somewhere between us and the Spire saddle. Since I was all rested up, I volunteered to scramble back over and look for it. I took a different slightly better traverse of the slab this time, and found the water bottle right where Jon had though it might be. This ate up a little more time, but it was still early. The scramble up the north side of Low horn #6 was easy and clean. The summit was pretty large and we spent a little time searching for a summit register, but not finding one. I left a new register and we headed back down to the #5/#6 saddle. The time was 10am. On the way down we scoped out possible routes on #5.

The South flank of #5 did not appear to have a 4th class route up it. There was a short 5th class section to reach a shoulder, then a final headwall broken by what appeared to be a chimney. I was referring to the Ingraham description and was convinced an easier route must be around the corner. We scouted to the east side, but nothing looked easier there. To get around to the west, we would need to drop down in elevation again, and take a ledge north to unseen terrain. We put our packs back on and headed that way. Once we turned the corner, we were confronted with steep, blocky and dirty terrain leading up to the mini-saddle on the south side of #5. It looked scramble-able, and indeed it was, but it had a few scary moments for me. It was the kind of terrain that ends up being steeper than you expect, with less positive holds, and more exposure than you bargained for. Also, there was a lot of lichen, dirt and vegetation in the cracks. The only positive was that we were still in the shade, and it was nice and cool. We eventually made it up this section, but I don't think we'll go this way again.

Low Horn #6 as viewed from the NW along our route around #5

We roped up for the final chimney, and I took the lead. I was a little worried at first, as it was hard to tell if the chimney was wide enough to squeeze into, but it turned out to be perfect. I had to dangle my pack beneath me, but could comfortably put my back to one wall and climb up features on the other. A small crack on the left wall provided ample protection and I was soon at the top. I think this is probably Ingraham's Chimney Route, but I wouldn't call it 4th class, more like 5.6. Jon quickly joined me on the top and we spent a while relaxing and enjoying the summit. It was about 11:30am, and we still had a ways to go, but I was hoping the hardest climbing would be behind us.

Myself on the Summit of #5

After our nice rest, we loaded up the packs again and started scrambling north. We had been warned about several false summits, and indeed there seemed to be a few of these along the way, but we were able to scrable along the top of the ridge without much problem. We passed a new-looking rappel station closer to the northern flank, but didn't use it, down-climbing all the way down to the #4/#5 saddle.

Jon on the beautiful ridge-line north of #5

The rappel station Marta and I had used last Fall was still in good shape and we could clearly see it from the saddle. Climbing up to it didn't look too hard. There was one steep crack section near the bottom, which involved a little grunting but was quite manageable, and didn't pose a serious fall. We were able to 4th class all the way up to the top of #4, nabbing the rappel gear as we went.

Jon does the "grunt" move up the S Face of #4

We didn't hang out on #4 very long, just long enough to scope out the next peak. We down-climbed the same route that Marta and I had scrambled up. I left another water cache on the #3/#4 saddle. There appeared to be an exposed 4th class route up the south face of #3, but we decided to rope up for it just in case it was harder than expected. Jon took the lead this time, and made short work of the face.

Jon leading the S. Face of #3

It was indeed as easy as it looked, although Jon opted to make a few 5th class moves instead of taking an easier ledge system, which saved him from potential rope-drag issues.I quickly joined Jon on the knife-like summit of #3. There wasn't much room to hang out, and #2 is so close, so Jon looked for a down-climb while I coiled the rope. He found a good 4th class down-climb on the NW ridge, and before I was even finished with the rope he was on his way up #2.

Jon scrambling past the crux boulder problem of the S. Face of #2

The south face route up #2 is very straightforward. from the saddle, there is a single 10ft boulder problem move, and then it's easy scrambling up to the top. Marta and I had rappelled this section before, since there was already a rappel station available, but it could probably be done without a rappel. I caught up to Jon on the summit of #2, and he was already scoping out routes up the south face of #1. getting down the North side of #2 though didn't look trivial, but there is a good rappel station already there, so I broke out the rope and we made a 30m rappel down to the #1/#2 saddle.

Me showing off a cool geocache container on the top of the Horns

The time was 2:30, we were finally starting to pick up the pace over the last few horns. After scrutinizing #1's south face, we opted to scramble around to the east, and then up the easy 3rd class East Ridge. We topped out on #1 at 3:00, completing our run of the horns! Our water situation was pretty low, but we were both feeling good. Jon really wanted to "tag" Gertch since we were almost there already. I didn't really get this, Gertch doesn't even have a discernible summit. But we down-climbed #1 and went over there anyways, and lo and behold, found a "summit" register. It was only recently left in 2007, and was marked by a dead branch stuck in a pile of rocks. It was logged a few times by apparently the same group of hikers, always coming up from Aguirre springs. I never really thought of Gertch as a destination hike, but I guess it would be pretty fun.

From Gertch we made the brushy descent down to Big Windy Saddle. Marta had added to our water cache here, and I quickly found the bottles she had left, but it took a good search to find the original 2 quarts we had left. I had tucked it way under a rock so that it couldn't be seen from any angle. We decided to put it next to the other water bottles to make it easier to find. the time was now 4:00 and we were down to less than 1 liter of water between us. Still Jon wanted to press on and tag Rabbit Ears Massif, and maybe even the SRE. I knew this would cause us to run out of water. It was hot, and that is a long detour. There also wasn't much of a point in bagging those peaks either, we know the way up them already, and Jon had already tagged the SRE. Still, there is a certain appeal to being "hardcore" and pushing ourselves. Against my better judgement, we started off towards the Rabbit Ears.

View South from Big Windy (#1 flank in back-ground)

We made good time getting to the top of Rabbit Ear Canyon, but it was still very hot and we used up almost all our remaining water. We dropped packs at the saddle there, and scrambled light up to Rabbit Ear Massif. There is a geocache up there that I was hoping might have a little stash of water, but no luck. Just the regular Geocaching type knick-knacks. We scrambled back down, put on our packs and started over to SRE. It actually made sense to go to the SRE/MRE saddle and then descend to Aguirre, rather than try to go back to Big Windy and descend. I've never done this descent before but Marta has mentioned several times that it is her preferred trail to the summit of SRE, and it would probably save us time. in getting over to the SRE saddle, I got ahead of Jon and lost sight of him. I found a shady spot on the saddle and waited and waited, trying to resist drinking my last ounce of water. When he didn't show up, I started to worry. I dropped my pack and started back down the SRE west gully, calling out for Jon. Eventually I got a reply, from way over at the NRE/MRE gully. He had somehow missed the SRE gully and traversed too far north. Serves me right for not sticking close, but I still wonder how he could have missed the SRE gully. We weer here only a few weeks back...

The rest of the descent down the east side of the SRE gully we were dehydrated. our water was gone, and we were tired. At least it was shady though. The gully is mostly bare rock until it reaches the bottom of the SRE cliffs. I seemed to recall that it exited the gully down here, adn followed a ridge-line. I struck out on the wrong ridge-line for a short ways, but then we doubled back and found the correct ridge-line and a faint trail marked with cairns. We followed this trail all the way down, losing it only a few times near the bottom, where it meets up with the Baylor pass trail.

Happy to be back on Baylor trail, and almost to the car.

It was an exhausting day, we were back to the car at 7pm, making for a 13hr car-to-car trip. We were both a little dehydrated when we reached the car, but we also felt pretty good. Our speed over the Low Horns had been reasonable. The first two took the longest, and Jon nicknamed them the "Slow Horns". Now that we know the routes though, I think we'll be able to make good times across this entire section. Plus, we now have a few more water caches to help us along the way. A ver successful day!

From Wildcat to the Spire

2011-06-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

After linking up the Rabbit Ears, the next big question mark for me on Organ Ridge through-climb is between Wildcat and the Low Horns. We this in mind, Marta, Jon and I struck out to find a route through these peaks.

View from Pine tree Trail showing the "green ramp" between Dingleberry and Wildcat dead-center

We got to Aquirre Springs campground a little after 8am and ran into the BLM host. Eddie South is his name and he was kind enough to give us his phone number and allow us to call him to open the gate early should we want to do so in the future. What a champ! We quickly started hiking and opted to take the elusive Ghost Fire trail in hopes that it would save us some time. the Ghost Fire trail/canyon was first shown to me by Marta on our trip up the Wedge last fall, and is a nice shortcut to the middle of the Pine tree Trail. Marta made me lead, and I got it wrong in a couple of spots, but now I have a nice GPS track of the route.

jon digging the nice slabs on the approach

Marta underneath Dingleberry

We took a short break at the top of the Pine tree Trail, Marta said she was not 100%. It was also a very hot and humid (by NM standards) day and I was sweating profusely. We ambled north along the Pine tree trail for a short ways before coming to the gully which leads up between Dingleberry and Wildcat. The first 1/4m or so up this gully was tough and nasty bush-whacking. Jon coined the term "narberries" to describe the thorny plants we had to get through during this part of the hike. It was reminiscent of my adventure on the Lost Carabiner route last year.

Jon and Marta nearing the top of our approach gully

Fortunately, the gully became steeper and more passable the further up we got. Near the base of Dingleberry's cliffs, we bore right up a beautiful slab, to get to a right leaning tree-filled ramp which leads up to the Wildcat-Dingleberry Saddle. The tree-filled ramp was pretty descent traveling, but near the top the brush got pretty thick again so we opted to scramble on rock to climbers right, and quickly gained the summit ridge of Wildcat.

Jon on the summit ridge of Wildcat

We did not stay on Wildcat for long, stopping only for some food and water. I left a ~2l water cache near the summit for future use. It was hard to tell what the best way up Razorback would be from our viewpoint on Wildcat, but there was an easy scramble to reach the saddle, so we decided to go check it out. The scramble down is on slightly to the NW, and while descending we found the easy SE Ramp route up to Razorbacks summit.

Jon Tylka at the top of the SE ramp

Razorback did not have an existing summit register that I could find, so I left a brand new one. Jon found a rappel station for the north side, and set up a double-rope rappel while Marta and I relaxed a bit. The Spire's summit is incredibly close, and we had good opportunity to scout out routes up its southern wall. there was a huge ledge about half-way up that if we could get to would surely get us up to the top, but it was hard to gauge the lower pitch to get to this ledge. While waiting for my turn to rappel, I also scoped out the beautiful razor-sharp West ridge which gives Razorback its name. I was very tempted to hand-traverse out across it, it looks so inviting. I will definitely need to come back to climb this route some day.

Marta getting ready to rappel off of Razorback

We used two ropes for the rappel from the summit, my 60m and Marta's 50m 8mm rope. The 50m rope just barely reached a small ledge where Jon found a single bolt/quick-link. Fortunately, this was not one of the old rusty 1/4" bolts, but a newer looking 3/8" expansion bolt with a beefy metolius hanger. From this bolt it was another 20m rappel (just using Marta's 50m rope) to the saddle.

The namesake knife edge on the West Ridge

While the west gully between Wildcat and Razorback appeared very difficult to go up or down, the west gully between the Spire and Razorback looked walkable. We definitely had the option of hiking around the west side of the Spire and going up the Normal Route, but Jon was psyched to try a crack system on the South Face. this would give us a direct (and hopefully shorter) means of summiting the Spire when we go for our big day. We started the climb adjacent to a tree a hundred feet or so west from the saddle. Jon took the first lead and made it look easy, dropping into a hand-traverse at the identified crux-traverse. He stayed there a while to place pro, then mantled up and disappeared from sight, quickly reaching the large ledge. Marta struggled with the traverse on this pitch, trying to balance through it without dropping into a hand-traverse position.

Marta starting out on P1 of the South Face route

At the large ledge, I swapped gear with Jon to lead the second pitch. It was less steep than the first, and involved a couple blocky sections between ledges. I chose a direct line at the back of the ledge, starting up a weird lay-back crack. What made it weird was that there was only 6-8" of rock to lay back against, and the threat of barn-dooring was real (this happened to Marta). this turned out to be the crux move, but was only a a few moves long so I did not end up having a problem with it. Above this the climbing was easier, but the rock was a little crumbly and there was also a large detached block that concerned be quite a bit. I warned Jon and Marta not to touch it much and finished up to the top.

Myself just before the crux layback

On the summit of The Spire

At the top, Jon posed for some "Deep Survival" photos. "deep Survival" is a book being passed around the OMTRS community about people surviving extreme conditions. the cover has a photo of a climber out on a rdige-top, with the rope making a gentle arc through space to him. It looks something like this:

Jon posing for a "Deep Survival" shot

According to the summit register I left here back in January, no one has been up here since then. We scrawled our names, then started the down-climb. I guided Jon and Marta down the way Dan and I had descended before. this involves some down-climbing of 4th class rock to reach an old rappel station about a rope-length from the summit. We did a single 30m rappel, angling west, and then down-climbed/scrambled the rest of the way down to the Spike, and then the saddle below. Some of the down-climbing along this route may be at the limits of 4th class scrambling, and Marta voiced her concerns more than once, but we made it down in one piece. It was little past 4pm and our next goal was Low Horn #5 & 6. Except I wasn't feeling it. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was a lack of energy coming from not eating enough. But I was feeling a little shaky, slightly nauseous, and not too eager to take on another unknown climb. I called Jon and Marta over to a shady spot so we could talk over our options. Jon was gung-ho eager to go, and offered me some gelatinous electrolyte. Marta was more neutral, saying she was good to keep going or head down. I was the one wanting to head down. I felt bad about being the weak link of the group, but I really didn't want to push myself too far and make myself miserable later on. We were at a good spot to descend between the Spire and Low Horn #6, and would get back to the car at a reasonable time. to me, it just made sense to "quit while I was ahead", but another side of me chided myself for being weak, and giving up to easily. How can I entertain ideas of linking every peak if I can't even push myself on a single day hike?

despite me feeling wimpy, both Jon and Marta were very gracious about calling it a day, and we headed down the rock-slide/gully back to Pine tree Trail. Of course, they did try to kill me once on the way down, by trundling enormous boulders at me, but that's another deal. By the time we got back to the car, i was feeling better, but glad we were down and headed home. despite not stringing together all the Low Horns, we still had a great day, discovering a new route up the South face of The Spire, and connecting over from Wildcat.

Three Rabbits: Peak Link-up in the Organs

2011-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

After last week-ends blitz I was eager to try another portion of the Organ Mountain ridge. This time I found some climbers to come with, two fellow OMTRS members (Marta Reece and Jon Tylka) both interested in this "Bag all the Organ peaks in a day" craziness. Our goal today was the section between Big Windy and Baylor Pass. We would start and finish at Aguirre Springs. Primarily, this section entails the three Rabbit Ears Peaks, but it also includes some long sections of ridge-walking (or thrashing) and 3 lesser peaks; the CWM (pronounced coom), Last Peak and Nordspitz.

Since we were starting from Aguirre Springs, our start time was constrained by the time the ranger opens the gate. We arrived just at 8am, just in time to watch the sleepy volunteer host unlock the gate. The first part of our hike was pretty mellow, a mile or so up the "northern" fork of the Pine Tree Trail. We left the Pine Tree trail at the same location Marta and I diverged last time, when we were going after the Low Horns. The red balloon is still there. This was Jon's first real hike in the Organs (he had only been on the Baylor pass trail before) and also his first big hike on his newly recovered broken leg. Boy was he in for a day! The gully up to Big Windy saddle is not too brushy by Organ Mountain standards, and Marta and I were quite used to it and cruised on up. Jon, did his best to follow, and already was making comments about how this was much tougher than he expected. We gained the saddle and took a little break, leaving a 1/2 gallon cache of water.

SRE as viewed from Big Windy Saddle

The traverse from the Big Windy Saddle over to the top of Rabbit Ears canyon ended up being our toughest bushwhack of the day. Not only was the terrain we were traversing pretty steep and rocky, but there was no good path to avoid lots of brush, mainly mahogany, spanish daggers and the like. At the top of Rabbit Ears canyon is a small saddle where we took a quick rest, then plodded throuhg more thick brush to reach the gully between South Rabbit Ear (SRE) and Middle Rabbit Ear (MRE). Once in the gully we were on familiar ground and smooth sailing up to the MRE/SRE saddle.

We dropped packs at the saddle, and scrambled up SRE very quickly. Instead of the Normal route, I led Jon and Marta up another easy looking route more to climbers right. This ended up being a series of nice corner systems and beautiful rock, with nothing harder than 4th class. We signed the Summit Register, but somehow I had forgotten to bring a copy of the last transcription I did, so I wasn't able to leave it. Guess I'll have to climb up here again soon. We descended the Normal Route and immediately started gearing up for the MRE.

Jon scrambling up SRE

The MRE was our toughest peak of the day, and took the biggest hchunk of time. Jon was super keen on leading, and I was happy to hand the rack over to him. In tretrospect this might not have been the best idea. Jon is a solid climber but new to trad. Also the rack I brought was very thin, only nuts and my set of tricams, no spring loaded camming devices at all. I was interested in seeing if I could climb the route in my approach shoes (5.10 Exum guides, with nice sticky rubber) and doing it on top-rope seemed to make sense. If I could climb the route in these shoes, than I probably wouldn't need to bring climbing shoes when/(if) we do the entire ridge, saving considerable weight. Jon had his climbing shoes, and after quickly racking up was on his way up the first pitch.

Jon leading up the first pitch on MRE

He dispatched the first pitch quickly, and sailed the large crack section under the chains. Due to my thin rack, he wasn't able to place any protection for this 25 foot crack, but said he felt perfectly comfortable on it. I climbed up second, and didn't have any problem dispatching the pitch in my approach shoes. I trailed Marta's thin 8mm rope behind me, and while Jon belayed her up on that rope, I traversed over to the P3 belay with the lead rope.

P3 was the crux for us. I didn't really remember how difficult it had been when I had climbed it before, but when Jon got to the off-width crux "lip" he was struggling and cursing. One of the biggest challenges seemed to be climbing this pitch with a pack on. The crux section is easier if you can "scum" your back on the right hand wall, but with a pack on this was impossible. Jon eventually made it up, but he said it was some of the scariest climbing he had ever done. Fortunately, there is a nice pink tricam pcket just below the crux, otherwise we would have needed a big cam to make this pitch safe.

Butt shot of MArta at the crux 3rd pitch

Marta went up second this time and also struggled at the crux. Eventually it was my turn. I opted to try it in my approach shoes still, but as soon as I hit the crux I was struggling too. Fortunately for me, I remembered a trick i had read about offwidth climbing: I backed down to a stance, then took off my pack and clipped it to my harness with a long runner. This let me climb up through the crux (using the chimey-like back-scum). It was still difficult, but I managed to get myself, then the pack up. Feeling very hot and thirsty from this excursion, I slowly finished the rest of the pitch.

While we had completed all the 5th class climbing, we still had a steep 3rd class scramble up to the summit. It seemed we all took a while getting up this, but eventually we were at the summit, taking water and food and admiring the view. The wind was picming up slightly but overall not bad. I looked at the time though and it was already 2pm! We were going to have to start making serious time if we were to get all the way to Baylor pass.

Summit shot on MRE

Feeling the pressure, I started down the north slope off the summit to start finding our rappel route. instead of using the normal rappel route, I wanted to find a new rappel route down the North face, which would put us right at the foot of one of the NRE routes. The north side of the MRE has a huge pulpit like rock formation called the Churchkey, and I was hopuing we could rappel down it's west corner. I was able to down-climb almost all the way to the top of the Churchkey, in fact I think I could have done it, but some of the down-climbing was more difficult than I liked, and I was sure Marta wouldn't be comfortable on it, so we set our first rappel at the top of a corner system about 20m above the churchkey ledge.

First rappel off of MRE North side

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me say that the Churchkey is amazing. None of us could resist scrambling up its 30deg perfect slab to a nice little crow's nest perch. It's one of the nicer little exposed ledges of any that I've been on.

Shot from on top of the Church Key

The west corner of the Churchkey is pretty vegetated, and I was partially hoping we would be able to down-climb much of it. This wasn't really the case, we only got 15m down before it became too steep to down-climb, at a large chimney section. We set another rappel, and 30m put us on a nice big ledge beneath the chimney, but above the off-width/squeeze that had shut me down when I had attempted this route with my father almost a year ago. Here we found a decent piton to rappel down, and another 30m rappel just barely landed us at the bottom, where we were able to scramble the rest of the way to the MRE/NRE saddle. So far so good, all the rappels we could do with a single 60m rope. This is another key piece of information I was hoping to learn today; if we can do all the peaks with a single rope we save a lot of weight.

The wind was really starting to pick up while we rapped down, but once we got close to the NRE we were sheltered from it. Our planned route up the NRE was the Davis Route. I had climbed the upper portion of this with Zach a while back, but have never climbed the lower portion. However, it is supposed to be 5.4 or easier, and it certainly didn't look harder than that. For this route, I decided we'd simul-climb. I had to give jon and Marta a quick lesson on simul-climbing, some basic dos and don'ts. I took the lead, marta tied in 30m behind and Jon took up the caboose. We made slow and steady progress up the entire route. It was as easy as I had hoped, and I felt that I could have gone much quicker up the route, but simul0-climbing doesn't let you go at your own pace. Inevitably, one person has to slow down at a steep section, while another is waiting around on an easy ledge. But overall, we dispatched the route very quickly, and were soon on the summit of the NRE.

Again, we took a little break, but it was already 5:30 and we didn't have much daylight left. We left 2 small water bottles on the summit as another water cache, then headed over to the North side to find another new rappel. There is a steep gully on the north side which we were able to down-climb quite a ways, but eventually needed to set up a rappel on. After one rappel we down-climbed some more, but it became clear that this gully led down the east side of the NRE, and not to the CWM/NRE saddle. At a logical spot, we traversed out of the gully to the west and found a perfect ledge right above the CWM/NRE saddle. The only problem was it was more than 30m down. in fact none of us were even sure it was less than 60m down. The wind was really howling around this face of the mountain, so we couldn't really drop the ropes and see if they would hit. Jon attmepted to tie a rock to the end of Marta's 50m rope and lower it down, but the rock came loose. Eventually I decided we'd just go for it. We were limited by marta's rope to a 50m rappel. I took the rack with me just in case, and started down. I had to lead the rope as I went, the wind had blown it all over the face and it wasn't obvious that I'd reach the saddle until I was almost there. With relief, I landed. It is a near perfect 50m rappel, straight down a steep cliff. Looking back up, there were cracks all over this face and I bet some fun hard climbing could be found here. But we had to turn our attention elsewhere.

Looking out over the CWM towards Baylor Peak

While Jon and Marta were rappelling down, I scrambled up to tag the CWM's summit. I think I described this as 4th class scrambling before, but it could jsut as easily be "low 5th" . You ahve to climb up a smooth slab face before gaining the "pitched roof" summit slab. I felt good climbing up and down it, but I'm not sure it would meet everyone's comfort level. Neither Marta or Jon seemed that interested in tagging the CWM, the sun was getting low and we were all thinking about how we would get down. We scrambled down the west gully between the CWM and NRE, and had to do one more 30m rappel before we were down in the scrubby bushes surrounding the peak.

It was 7pm, and we had some decisions to make. It was clear to me that we wouldn't be going after Last Peak or Nordspitz. None of us had a desire to be scrambling and bushwhacking in unkown terrain by headlamp. The only problem was we didn't have a clear route down. We could very easily have descended Rabbit Ears canyon, a route I know well, but this would leave us on the wrong side of the mountians from where we parked, and we'd proabably need to get picked up by someone. The option of scrambling around Last Peak and Nordspitz on the west and then hiking down the ridge to Baylor pass seemed even less inviting. None of us knew this terrain, and it was still a very long ways to Baylor pass, going this way would surely mean hiking out by headlamp. our last option was to try to descend directly to the east down a gully, but again none of us knew the terrain over there.Some of the gully's on the east are horrendous (my experience on Lost Carabiner route attests to that) and I was hesitant to try this.

Marta suggested a 4th alternative that I was about to go agree to. We would descend Rabbit Ear Canyon for a ways, but then climb up to a ridge-line where she was familiar with the terrain,. The ridgeline would then lead us to Baylor pass. This option would be very long and grueling, but offered some hope. Plus, if we got most of the way down Rabbit Ears canyon and decided we weren't up for it, we could simply keep going down and get picked up (i already had called my wife and she said she was willing to come rescue us). All of us thought this sounded reasonable and Marta and Jon started heading down. I was right behind them but something told me to at least scramble over to the saddle between the CWM and Last peak and check it out. From our stopping point we couldn't actually see into this gully. I quickly scrambled round the corner and liked what I saw. The gully was brushy, but not bad at all, and not very steep either. I called Jon and Marta over.

Losing Daylight, Saddle between CWM and Last Peak

After looking at the east side gully, they also agreed that it looked better and soon we were off, racing dusk. Going down was quick and treacherous. These mountian gullys have thick vegetation in spots, loose boulders in other, and slippery ball-bearing gravel. Still we made good time. Most of the thick-looking brush turned out to be wild-grape (not the prickly briars I ahd feared). Marta did bang her knee in a hole, and Jon took a few big slip/falls, but we made it down to the Baylor pass trail just as it was dark. By headlamp we marched the 1 mile back to the car.

Brushy gully east of CWM/Last Peak

Even though we didn't make it all the way to Baylor pass, we learned some valuable information: MRE is definitely the hardest peak of this section and will need some extra attention.

It can be climbed in approach shoes though, but we should probably bring a big cam to preotect it better.
Rappels down the north sides of MRE and NRE work great (and already are equipped thanks to us). We took 3 30m rappels to get off MRE, 1 30m and 1 50m rappel to get off of NRE and 1 30m rappel to get down the CWM. Looks like having two ropes may be needed.
We left water caches on NRE and Big Windy.
the Davis route is as easy as it was supposed to be, and a good way to summit NRE.

I still need some more information on this section though, specifically the route from CWM over Last Peakand Nordspitz, as well as the terrain down to Baylor Pass. It would also be good to find a better route between Big Windy and the SRE. It would be appealing to go from Big Windy up to the Rabbit Ears Massif (and looks less brushy), and then down to SRE. This might involve more climbing, but could be less brushy, and would add an extra peak into the mix. Looks like there's plenty left to explore later.

Pictures coming soon. Also more summit registers coming soon. i replaced the register on top of the NRE, and have the old one to transcribe.

Organ Mountain Summit Blitz

2011-05-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved to las Cruces, the idea of linking all the Organ peak summits in a day has intrigued me. Since then, I've had the chance to summit individually many of the peaks and have gained a pretty decent familiarization with this rugged and beautiful range. But until recently I haven't given a whole lot of serious thought to the endeavor. It seems impossible, and it may yet be. But a new member of the rescue team, and a passionate climber is keen to give it a try and I've been sizing it up again.

Despite having climbed most of the peaks, there are still regions of the ridge line that I am unfamiliar with. Therefore the first order of business is to scout out these areas. Also it is clear to me that any attempt will need to travel fast and light, a near impossibility with the desert heat. Water caches are a must, so these scouting hikes should also serve to cache water in strategic locations throughout the ridge.

With those ideas in mind, I struck out for a solo trip to link up Organ Needle to the Wedge, with a possibility of going even further with time permitting. I left Las Cruces a little after 4am and after a quick gas stop, was leaving my car on Modoc road at 450 am. The quiet cool morning is perfect for hiking this easy stretch. I got my first surprise at the BLM gate, where someone was camped out. I startled him awake and he yelled "HEY!", making me jump as I hadn't really noticed him. "I'm just hiking, no worries" was my reply and hike on I went.

Feeling Good at Juniper Saddle

As I neared the top of Modoc road, I was able to put my headlamp away, the morning twilight was enough light. I flew by the regular landmarks on the trail up to the needle; Yellow rocks 6:06am, Juniper Saddle 6:37am, Dark Canyon Pine Tree 7:07, Organ Needle summit 7:26am. The cool morning and fresh legs made the going smooth. even so, I was happy to unload a gallon of water on the top of the Needle as a cache for future use.

I took a short break on the summit, and rifled through the summit register. There were several full notebooks filling up the container and I decided to take them down with me for archiving. It will be quite a project to log all these books, but I usually enjoy reading all the different accounts of who travels these mountains.

Organ Needle Full Logbooks, coming along for the ride

The summit was also my first chance to survey the extent of the recent fires. Large portions of hillsides were charred, but there were also untouched slopes. The fire had been very selective, constrained by geographical and meteorological forces no doubt. I tried snapping some pictures but with the morning sun glaring right at me I wasn't able to capture it very well.

I descended the NW ridge of the needle, a route I had climbed a few years back. The down climbing was a bit exposed but solid. I left a poot sling to make the single 30m rappel down to the saddle. Once in the sadle between LST and the Needle, I climbe dup a short rocky headwall rather than traverse into the main gully. This followed the way I had descended from LST previously during the Lost Carabiner Route fiasco. It involves some low fifth and fourth calss moves, but is a quicker cleaner way to get over to LST.

Scramble traverse into LST gully

I was on top of LST by 8:33am, still making good time. The next part was the section I was least familiar with. I scrambled around the summit blocks for a while trying to find an easy way around, but ultimately decided on a short rappel to get down off the summit blocks to the north. I rappelled down a off-width crack which ended in an overhanging cave-like area. While transitioning to the overhang, my rope slipped into the crack and I grated a bunch pf skin off my left knuckles. Painful, but not serious. Also, looking back it did not seem that this would be easily reversible. One of the things I was keeping in mind is whether to try the organ ridge North-South or South-North. certain sections are easier one way or another, for instance the Low Horns work better North to South. Travelling from the Needle to the Wedge seems to work better South to north, especially because of this section. If we were to attempt a North to South, we'd still need to route-find a way to get to the top of LST.

My painful rappel spot off of LST

The rest of the way between LST and Square Top was pretty straightforward, and actually pretty nice. I was able to stay up on the ridge for most of the way. At one point I had to descend on the west side into a gully byy a large pine, and there was a bit of brush to negotiate but nothing serious. The final down-climbing to the Square Top headwall was exposed but comfortable climbing. Actually summitting Square Top requires climbing an exposed fifth class pitch and I wasn't about to attempt this on my own, but it probably would only take 30-60 minutes to accomplish. I didn't stay long by Square Top, and headed down the familiar terrain of the regular ascent route. This involves some down-climbing on the west side. The rappel anchors John Bregar and I had previously used were still in decent shape so I utilized them to rappel the short "4th" class section and then down-climbed the rest of the way down the Square Top gully.

At the bottom of the gully was more new terrain for me, I would have to traverse out of the gully to the north and find a point to cross over onto the east side of the ridge to reach the Wedge's standard route. The initial bush whacking to get out of the Square Top gully was the worst of the day, consisting mostly of dense and dead brush oak scrub. After only a short ways, i opted to ascend back up to the ridge-top following a faint climbers trail. This placed me on a nice perch between Square Top and the Wedge.

Looking North with the Wedge behind me

In between me and the Wedge was an un-named peaklet that I would need to negotiate. Going around it to the west didn't seem like an option, and it looked like I would have to descend a steep gully on the east side and meet up with the gully that runs to the Wedge lower down. but on closer look, there appeared to be a brushy ramp which led directly from this little saddle around the peaklet to the east. I scrambled down the ridge-line to this little saddle and on closer examination this little ramp looked perfect. It let me maintain elevation on the ridge, and skirt around the rock obstacle. Once I turned the corner at the end of this ramp, I was in an oak/maple forest typical of the shady east side gullies. This one had been hit by the fire, and had a powder soft layer of ash blanketing the ground. the trees themselves looked like they survived, but the fire had torched all the leaf litter and small shrubs.

Burnt Forest

Hiking down this short section of forest was kind of surreal. The ash was very much like fine powdery snow. The smell of fire hung in the air. Only a week or two ago this area was burning, and now it was still and calm. Once we get some rains I have no doubt that the plants will come back with a vengeance.

By the time I joined up with the Wedge's regular route it was getting hot, and I was slowing down. I finally summited the Wedge by 11:28am. Good time, but not fast enough to do the entire Organ Mountain ridge. My legs were beginning to ache, and my camelback was already empty. I only had one more 32 ounce water bottle left and considered heading back to the car. To go on would surely mean I would run out of water while still high in the mountains. While I was having these thoughts, I holed up under a boulder, the only decent shady spot on the summit and tried to eat some food.

My shady nook on top of the Wedge

Somehow ambition got the better sense of me. I decided to keep going towards Dingleberry. I had previously covered the terrain from the Wedge to the saddle between Third Peak and Lost Peak, but there was still some unknown terrain to be scouted out. I rappelled off the Wedge and scrambled down beneath Lost Peak. Lost Peak is another summit that from the south requires a rope and partner to get up (at least, i wasn't going to solo it) and since I knew this already, I decided to try to bypass Lost Peak. I did this by descending the steep gully on the east. This down-climb turned out to be steeper than I was hoping, involving 4th class scrambling. Still it put me almost right where I wanted to be, in the saddle on the south of Third Peak. the last time I had been here the group I was with decided to head down without trying this little peak, so today I decided I'd give it a shot. It turned out to be a very nice albeit exposed scramble, probably only high 4th class. The summit is a small sharp knife-edge, with a decent little belay spot to put my pack down. the time was 12:37pm. There was what appeared to be a small summit cairn about 30 feet out on the knife-edge, so I scrambled over to see if there would be any signs of a summit register. Sure enough, a small yellow-metal Kodak film canister was stashed in the cairn. In it were 3 neatly folded sheets of note paper containing the first ascent parties' log and the next 4 ascents as well. The last record was dated 1972. I love finding these kinds of logs. A little bit of Organ Mountain history, getting to a place that maybe no one has touched in 40 years. It's a great feeling.

Third Peak's little summit cairn and knife-ridge

It looked like a double-roped rappel off of Third Peak's north side might work, but I didn't have that kind of rope with me, so I down-climbed my ascent route. ASctually, the elevation of the saddle between Third Peak and Lost Peak is a little bit higher than where I wanted to join up with the regular acent route of Dingleberry so this worked out pretty well (and would work in the opposite direction as well). Lost Peak also looks to be easily scrambled from the north side which is good to know if we end up trying a North to South trip of the ridge.

My route to the summit of Dingleberry was unremarkable. I had to bushwhack a bit to get over to the ascent gully, but it wasn't very bad. The main thing that was getting at me was exhaustion and dehydration. I was nursing my last water, but the heat of the day was sapping me quick. I took advantage of every shady spot to rest and try to recuperate, but I was still slowing down. I finally reached the summit of Dingleberry at 1:21pm. The summit log I replaced a year or so ago is in good shape, and there has even been some traffic up here.

Dingleberry, the 5th summit of the day for me!

My memory was telling me that the Wildcat gully would be a better descent route, and since I was going to be going down Wildcat gully, I might as well tag Wilddcat too, since it is not far to go. I was able to down-climb most of the descent off Dingleberry to the north (passing by one rappel station that Bob Cort and I had previously used), but the final 20ft boulder drop stopped me. I set up this short rappel, and only after getting down did I see that there might be a way to bypass this drop without needing a rappel. Again, this would work well for a North to South excursion.

Once down in the Wildcat gully I decided to shuck my pack and go light up to the top of Wildcat. I still was nursing my water but I knew it was down to the last few sips. I was exhausted, but I slogged my way up to the top of Wildcat. the time was 2:30pm. I brought a copy of the old summit log to leave, so future parties will have a chance to read the history of this little peak. Then I turned around and started my descent.

Despite travelling on familiar terrain, the exhaustion and dehydration made the descent very trying. I sucked my last few drops of water down while still high in Wildcat gully, and the whole rest of the way I was fixated on nothing but water. I sang songs to myself to try to keep my mind occupied. I cursed myself for leaving an entire gallon up on the Needle. By 4pm I was at the top of Wholt's Welt. By 4:28pm I was back on Modoc road. One foot after another I just kept moving on. The lower I got, the hotter it was and I began to feel some of the signs I'd felt before.Nausea, cotton-mouth, tingling limbs. I held a glimmer of hope that the guy camped at the BLM gate would still be there and I could beg some water from him, but no such luck. I finally made it back the car at 5pm.

Shady spot in Wildcat gully where I tried to regain my composure

When I finally got home, I was useless for a few hours. I slowly re-hydrated, washed all the salt off my face and took a well deserved rest. The 6 summit loop had clocked in at 9.47 miles with around 5300 ft of total elevation gain, and was about a 12-hr trip car-to-car. So is the entire ridge doable? Maybe, maybe not. This portion represents about a third of the ridge-line, and I had to skip two of the peaks. Also my I'm beginning to doubt my physical condition for taking on the whole ridge. This "little" portion nearly did me in. Still I can see how it would be possible, and am already thinking about the next "scouting" trip.

Cooke's Peak Hike with OMTRS members

2011-04-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

I led an OMTRS "area familiarization" training hike to Cooke's Peak. the forecast on the day of the hike was an ominous 60 mph wind advisory, but we decided to go anyways. We met at Truckstop America at 6am, Chris Pennise and Kurt Anderson were the only two members foolish enough to join me today. We started hiking around 8am and were following the route description described in Greg Magee's Day Hikes and Nature Walks in the Las Cruces, El Paso Area. A few times in the approach gully it was hard to find the trail, but most of it was pretty distinct and easy going. By the time we reached the ridge top, winds were starting to pick up but it wasn't bad at all. The 2nd class section was short, and we spotted a peregrine Falcon nest nearby. They squawked at us a bit when we scrambled down to a nice observation spot to peer down into their nest. I didn't see any young or eggs, but one of the adults displayed brooding behavior, so they are probably on their way. It started getting stormy while we were on the summit, but nothing close to 60 mph winds, not even 20mph. The descent was pretty uneventful, except for one "short-cut" that I led them on to help me play with my new GPS features. We were back at the car by 3:00, and would have made it back to Las Cruces in good time if we hadn't detoured to some old Fort Ruins nearby. The wind was finally really picking up, and soon even the nearby Cooke's peak was obscured in dust. Good thing we had an early start, making for a perfect day of hiking.

Article in Sun News

2011-04-01T11:35:00.001-07:00

Kind of silly, but I was interviewed by a local reporter about names of peaks in the Organs: http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17749820

ORP - Orgy

2011-03-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Marta Reece with NRE in the background

After last week-ends botched attempt to rope-solo the route Orgy on ORP, I returned this week-end with a climbing partner, Marta Reece. We made a fairly early start, I picked her up a 6:30. It was actually fairly cold and breezy on our hike in but we made good time and were racking up at the base of the route at 9am. As we were racking up both of us were shivering, it was definitely much cooler than last week-end. I quickly led up the first pitch, staying more to the right than before, on 5th class rock (instead of the easier ground to the left). this pitch climbs past a tree and ends up on top of the first shoulder. The top of the first pitch I was in the sun and began to warm up. I brought Marta up quickly so she could warm up as well.

Looking up at the 3rd pitch.

The second pitch I had rope-soloed before, but even with a proper belay, I felt a little off. It involves some fist-offwidth like cracks, which are not difficult but felt awkward to me. I'll be the first to admit that I am not in good climbing shape anymore. I retrieved the gear I had bailed off of last week-end and set up an anchor below the steeper wall that had intimidated me before when I was solo. This made for a short second pitch, but we were in the sun and quite comfortable.

Looking down from the 3rd pitch

According to the topo I had brought the 3rd pitch was the crux, if you could call 5.6 a crux. It looked almost wide enough to involve chimney climbing and there were a couple dead brushy growths. I hacked away the growths without much of a problem, and found the climbing above to be excellent. Good moves and protection up through the steep wall, but very comfortable feeling. The steep wall was only 60 ft or so high and above was some easy scrambling to reach the top of a large shoulder on the E buttress of ORP. I chose a belay spot near the top, but in a pretty direct line from where Marta was belaying me.

We consulted the topo before continuing. from the shoulder the buttress had another steep headwall, but it looked harder than the 5.4 suggested by the topo, and also fairly dirty. A comment on the one of the topos mentioned going around a corner and then up a 5.4 dihedral, and the only thing that seemed like it matched this description was to scramble over some blocky terrain down into the gully on the left of the buttress. After I had done this there was a dihedral-like corner on the right hand side of the gully which would top out near the small saddle beneath ORP. Despite placing little gear and having, I ran out of rope about 1/2 way up the corner, and had to stop and belay Marta over. She wasn't too happy about the traverse/scramble intothe gully, I had not protected it well for a second, and she faced a serious fall if she had slipped, but once in the gully she felt better.

Marta scrambling off the shoulder and into the gully on our 4th pitch

Our final pitch up the corner had one interesting section/move, which was a big reach to a good hold for me, and more technical for Marta. I guess you could say it was a 5.4 move, but at this point I don't trust my abilities to rate climbs much. At the top of the corner I passed some old rappel slings, and then I scrambled up 3rd class terrain until I reached the end of the rope, only a short distance from the summit. We didn't dawdle long on the summit, it was pretty windy. I put a copy of the transcribed summit register in the new jar, and we scrambled back down for our descent. It was 12:30.

Glorious summit

For the descent we decided to rappel down the gully on the south side of the buttress, which would put us right at our gear. From the rappel slings at the top of the 5.4 pitch, a 30m rappel landed us in the gulley, where it was broad and brushy. We hiked to the bottom of this section and the top of the large chock stone that had stopped me on my first scramble attempt back in January. the rock above this chock was very loose and we tumbled down a few pieces while searching for something to rappel off of. Moving the rock opened up a hole behind the chock which I thought we might be able to chimney down, but Marta didn't like the looks of it. The walls were pretty far apart for easy chimneying. One bad effect of the hole was that wind funneled up it and kept blowing loose dirt in our faces and eyes. Marta found us a climb of living shrubs that she thought we could rappel off of, and when I went up to get a closer look, I found an old 2-piton rappel anchor hidden in lichen just off to the side.

suspicious looking piton rappel anchor

The top piton was not very deep in the crack, and did not lend confidence but the bottom one looked decent. I was ready to use the pitons, but Marta felt more comfortable using the climb of shrubs, so we used them. Rappelling down the chock was only 20 ft to another brushy area, and I was hoping we could continue down past another chock/steep section, but it was clear that the rope would not reach to the bottom of the next section, so we pulled it down and set up for a final rappel. Again, we were shifting through loose rock to try to find something to anchor off of, and then spotted some old slings off the north side of the gully. the only problem was that to get to the slings involved a very exposed 5ft move over a steep slab, where a fall would be deathly serious. Unfortunately we had already pulled our rope from the above rappel anchor, but I made it over to the slings by protecting the exposed move with a wired-stopper, then setting up a quick anchor to belay Marta over.

The final rappel was on piton-like stake driven straight down behind a crack. It looked pretty solid, and the sling around it would also be held by the rock. This last rappel put us almost at the very bottom, where we could scramble back down to our packs. It had taken nearly 2 hours to descend.

Final rappel. the first pitch of the climb is on the right hand side past the tree, but could just as easily start from here.

Overall the route was pretty good but not my favorite. The first 3 pitches were on very nice rock, and there is good potential for difficult variations on other crack systems. However, scrambling down into the gully to finish up the 5.4 corner detracts from the climb. It would be better to continue more directly along the buttress, tackling the final head-wall. The descent could also be improved by adding some descent rappel anchors. Another project for another day.

ORP summit register

2011-03-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

The ORP summit register that I retrieved last weekend was a good one. Similar to the one found on wild-cat, it was a small metal film canister (rusted out a bit), with bits of folded paper in it. The whole thing had been placed in a larger orange pill container, which would help preserve it, but it looks like this pill container is relatively new. I left a new jar and notebook, and plan on bringing up a copy of the transcription when I next climb up there (tomorrow). The register did not have many entries, but it did have entries dating back to the 60's and the early Organ Mountain climbers. Very cool.

South Rabbit Ear summit register

2011-03-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

I replaced the summit register on the South Rabbit Ear on 3/18/11. the existing register did not date back very far, and a cursory glance did not show much climbing beta in it. Still, it was only some loose scraps of paper in a degrading plastic pill bottle, so I left what I hoped would be a more long-lasting glass container and notepad.

A trio of summits in the Organs

2011-03-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

Once again I find myself solo in the Organs, with a pack full of gear. I know I could have tried harder to find a partner for a climb, but I also feel a need to be out on my own. Well, not entirely alone, Sasha came with me this time. After dropping Levin off at daycare, we made it to the Topp Hut Mine around 9:30am. It took another hour to reach the base of the climb I had my sights on, a route up ORP called Orgy. I got Sasha situated with a bowl of water, and then geared up for some solo rope climbing. I had my Wren soloist, and a small rack, but I had in my head that this climb would be so "easy" and comfortable that I wouldn't need much prop, and maybe wouldn't even need to rope-solo. But just in case I got all geared up, attaching the soloist to a make-shift chest harness flaking out the rope in my pack.

Summit of SRE, with old register next to my pack

The first pitch was pretty easy and comfortable, I had climbed it before, and I was hoping the next two would be similar. However, as I started up the 2nd pitch some of the moves and positions left me a little uncomfortable. Instead of giant positive hand and foot-holds, there were some wide cracks, which although fairly secure, never leave me as comfrtable. I negotiated one of these before deciding to anchor and rope up on a nice big ledge. With the rope attached I tackled the next crack section and started to feel a little more confident. At the top of a short crack I made a balancy move left to get into a corner, and placed some more gear, then gained another large ledge. Aboce this ledge was a steeper section, probably the "crux" of the route. I was feeling a some significant rope-drag (the soloist tends to make it more pronounced) and was going to remedy this by pulling up the tail end and stacking it on the ledge I was at. As I started pulling up though, the rope became stuck. Porbbaly this was because of the safety knot I had tied in the end, getting stuck in one of the cracks below. Part of using a soloist properly is tying safety knots in the tail end of the rope, so that if the device doesn't catch properly and starts sliding through, the knot would catch you (instead of running off the rope!). With my knot stuck, I had no choice but to set an anchor and ,make this a short pitch, but then something inside of me said "what the hell are you doing, why don't you just rappel down and do something less risky". Maybe I was feeling nervous about the soloist system, or the fact I was on my own with no good means to get help, or maybe I just am not as confident/risk-taking as I once was. Whatever the cause, I decided to simply rappel back down and give up on a rope-solo climb.

My damaged rope. When did this happen!?

I was feeling kind of down with myself as I made this decision and rappelled to my anchor. It's the same feeling I get whenever I bail off of something that I feel I should have been able to do. I reached my anchor and cleaned it, and that is when I noticed that my rope was damaged. A section near where I had tied into had serious sheath damage, I could see the core though and it looked ok, although it didn't feel too good. A more portentious sign I couldn't have asked for, I really should not be risking myself all alone out in the Organs like this. Luckily, I had already finished the rap, and could down-climb the rest of the way.

Looking up the SE gully of ORP

Sasha was glad to see me when I got down, and I relaxed a bit before deciding what to do next. The day was still early, it was only 12:00, so I decided to try to climb up ORP via the next gully to the south. I had recently received an email from Tom Lepinski saying this route was a good scramble, and that the summit register had some good history in it, so I was excited to get up there. I left Sasha at the base of the ORP butress still, not wanting to get her into a bad position on the scramble. I bush-whacked south and uphill until I came to a broad gully which ascended the southeastern flank of ORP, or maybe you could say the northeastern flank of the Rabbit Ears Massif. The gully was a pretty straightforward hike, not too brushy because it looks like falling rocks destroy vegetation in the gully on a somewhat regular basis. It was nice and cool and afforded nice views of the Rabbit Ears. It topped outing a little saddle between ORP and an un-named tower to the south. I scrambled down to the spot where Tom had left a rappel anchor. I could see why he would, there was a steep rocky section about 10' high to get down, and the down-climb did not look simple. I avoided his rappel though by climbing a little bit down to the west. This was very exposed, with a nice long drop down into ORP's SW gully, but was not any harder than 4th class. Once down this one difficult section, the climb up ORP's S ridge was easy and fun. Not very exposed 3rd class scrambling over slabby rocks. I located the summit register and replaced it with a new one, then re-built the protective cairn around it. After a quick call to my wife, I started back down, already setting my sights on Rabbit Ears Massif.

Instead of the 4th class and exposed scramble I had down-climbed, I climbed directly up to tom's rappel anchor. Climbing up was fun, and not as exposed or dangerous. It was a steep 10 ft, but with generous holds. If it wasn't for the awkward top-out around a boulder, the down-climb would be fun as well. Hiking up to the top of Rabbit Ears Massif was gorgeous. The ridge from ORP all the way up has a nice open pine forest, a rare treat in the Organs. The duff carpet was peaceful and shady, but at any point I could and did step over to the top of the ridge and look out over steep cliffs descending to the west. I scrambled on top of the un-named tower, and then made my way to the summit post of the Rabbit ears Massif. This was only my second time on this summit, but reading through the register I realized that I had never signed the first time. The register must have been covered in a drift of snow that first time I was up here. I had brought a new note-book and jar for this summit, but decided not to leave it. The existing register note-book was in good shape with about half its pages left. It dated back about 6-7 years, so it's probably safe to say it will last another 6-7 more before needing to be replaced. Plus, ti didn't have the same kind of attraction to me as the registers on the more technical summits. there were no entries about which routes people had climbed, really not much climbing history at all.

I drank all but the last gulp of water from my bottle before heading down "standard" way to get back into Rabbit Ears Canyon. Once at the top of the canyon though, I figured I was so close to the summit of SRE, that I might as well bag it as well. In contrast to the nice hiking through pine trees on the Massif, getting over to the saddle between SRE and MRE was a terrible bushwhack through dense mountain mahogany, spanish daggers and cholla. Plus it was in the full sun, and there wasn't much of a breeze. from the saddle I scrambled up the normal route and was feeling exhausted when I slumped onto the summit. I took the final unsatisfying gulp from my water, grabbed the old register, left a new one and immediately started heading down. I was tired enough, but now I wanted more water, and I couldn't get any until back at the car.

How is that I find myself dehydrated again in the Organs? I thought I learned my lesson after the Lost Carabiner route, but here I was again. I had only brought 2 quarts of water, and Sasah had consumed half of that (her bowl was still partially full when I got back to her, but she finished that on the descent). My mistake this time was being convinced that there would be water in the canyon, which Sasha could drink. Last year in March, I had camped in rabbit Ears Canyon next to beautiful green-tea pools, and bubbling streams. I knew this year was dryer, but I think I still counted on there being some water in the canyon this early in the spring. I would have been dead-wrong if it weren't for a tiny scuzzy pool in one of the bath-tub like depressions in the canyon.

With thirst driving me, I got back to Sasha at 3:20. My 3-summit circuit had taken a little over 3 hours. Another hour and we were back at the car, re-hydrating up and speeding off to Las Cruces to pick up my son from day-care.

Self-portrait looking south

La Cueva: OMTRS companion rescue and a few climbs with NASA co-op John

2011-01-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

One of the skills I was most interested in learning from folks on the rescue team is slef-rescue and companion rescue. The full-on, 10:1 safety factor rescue stuff is important to know, nad working in large teams to raise and lower a litter off of high-angled terrain are all well and good, but I want to know what to do in "climbing situations". Somethine has happenned to you or your partner on a climb. How do you get yourselves safely down? One of the OMTRS team leaders had solicited for ideas for our next "on-rock" training and thought this was a good topic. Espicially in light of our recent mission in the Floridas, where the techniques we used were more in-line with companion rescue techniques.

Because of a concurrent Winter Skills training in northern NM, I had thought that not many people would show up to this training, but was surprised when there were over a dozen folks, many of them new. We were split into to groups, one more advanced group led by Bob Cort would work on companion rescue techniques, while Bruce would lead the newer people in basic equipment use, rappelling and climbing. This worked out very well for our group, 5 of us were enough people to have redundant safety lines while we experimented with new techniques, but also small enough where we could each try out the techniques.

The first skill we worked on was lowering yourself down to an injured partner (if you were belaying a second up at the top of a pitch), and then using a counter-balance rappel to lower yourself and partner down.

Bob Cort demonstrated this first, using an auto-blocking belay device. The advantage of this device is that he already has his hands free and the weight of his second on the anchor to start with.
Next he placed a prussic on the loaded rope and attached it to the anchor with a load-releasing device. In this case, he used his purcell prussic system, a didn't have to tie a fancy rescue knot on the spot (although a purcell prussic is a fancy rescue knot, most of the rescue guys have these already made and ready to use).
Prussic inplace it was simple to feed some slack into the belay device and transfer the weight of the 2nd onto the prussic.
This accomplished, you can then clear the belay device and rig it for rappel.
Once rigged for rappel, the load can be transferred onto the belay device (lengthening the load release). The weight of the 2nd is now counterbalanced by your weight.
Rappel down to the 2nd. If you're careful, you can prevent the 2nd from slipping down.
Once at your 2nd, you can clip directly to them, and then continue to rappel. The rope slips thorough the anchor and lowers the 2nd with you.

It's easy to see how you could then re-build an anchor, tie bot of off, and then continue down, using the same kind of counterbalance rappel, or using a tandem rappel. All five of us got to try this technique, with minor variations. For instance, if you are belaying your 2nd up through a directional on the master-point of the anchor, then you are already set for a counterbalance rappel.

The second skill we worked on was carrying a subject piggy-back, using a simple sling made from 15ft of webbing. It worked pretty well, and we all took turns carrying someone on our backs and rappelling/lowering with someone on our backs.

Both of these skills were good to practice, and seem much more applicable to a pair of climbers operating on their own, than many of the other trainings that OMTRS runs. I do worry though that I lack a certain required judgement. Essentially this boils down to me making decisions that I know are not the safest, but that I deem appropriate for the situation at hand. For example, when practicing one of the techniques above, I opened up a locking carabiner that connected me to the anchor. To most this is something tht would be obvious to avoid, and if I had an extra locking carabiner and sling on me, I wouldn't have bothered. But with what I had on my harness, it simply made sense to me to perform this "risky" operation, in order to achieve a certain desired goal. I guess that's what my apprehension boils down to, the people I see excelling at this rescue business (and for that matter, safety culture at work) do not compromise an operation by taking a risk in order to achieve a certain goal. It is drilled into our heads that this is the source of countless avoidable accidents, and yet I continue to assess certain risks as acceptable.

After the training was done, John and I jumped on a few climbs.John is a new NASA intern and is gung-ho to climb. He led up Piton Power and Hive Mind, making the latter look easy. I always struggled on Hive Mind, and today was no exception. I struggled again, even on top-rope, and after a few minutes of frustration, grabbed the crux bolt to pull through, and cursed myself. I'm woindering if my climbing skills are at a low-point. I've only jumped on a few difficult climbs in the last year, and mostly they freak me out, even on top rope. Mostly, I've been peak-bagging, and scrambling on 4th and low-5th terrain when i do go out. It saddens me a bit, because I know I won't be getting out any more this next year, and regaining my climbing ability will take just that.

The Spire: NW Face Direct route, sort of...

2011-01-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

The Spire, one of the distinct Organ mountain peaks, has long been on my list of things to climb. I figured I'd get to it eventually, but I guess my desire to go up it was known well enough, some OMTRS guys were climbing at Caballo and when one of them mentioned he wanted to tackle the Spire, my name came up as a potential partner. Dan Carter emailed me early in January about tackling the Spire, and we tentatively agreed to make a bid for it Jan 22nd. I had climbed with Dan before, although I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. I think we climbed together at Percha Creek along with Ben Naddler, and I've run into him a few times since, at the Farmer's Market, or at OMTRS events. He's a civil engineer with the BLM, which had one special advantage for us, he had a key to the locked gate at Aguirre Springs. This meant we could get an extra early start. As things would go though, we only showed up at the gate 15 minutes before it would normally be opneed, but I still felt privileged.

We had opted to approach from the east side. Dan had tried the approach from the West a few times, and encountered the worst bush-whacking the Organ's have to offer. Ingraham describes the approach for The Spire from the west, but I've recently learned not always to trust Ingraham's approaches. Marta Reece showed me a couple east side approaches (for The Wedge, and the Low Horns) which were fast, comfortable and mostly brush free. She had mentioned that the big rock-slide gully on the east side goes all the way up to the saddle between Low Horn #6 and The Spire, and was an easily obtainable, so this is the approach we opted for.

We cruised the approach, and the ascent up the rock slide was a wonderful hike. Much of the gully is washed clean and smooth, with exposed granite. There were little ice-blobs along the way, reminding us that we were in "deep winter", and we reached the saddle in about 1.5 hours. Next time, we could probably even bring the dogs, nothing we hiked up would have been too difficult for a trail-dog to handle. Once at the saddle we gawked at the impressive and steep south face of Low Horn #6. There are some really hard looking lines that might go free, but not by me. Turning our attention to The Spire, we reconnoitered a bit to look for the best place to start. The wind was howling pretty well from the west, so we opted for a start a little further to the east that would hopefully be out of the wind. Dan picked a lichen-covered crack system to be our first pitch. The crack would gain easier climbing above which seemed to match up with descriptions for Ingraham's NW Face Direct route.

Dan is a solid climber, and carefully made his way up the crack. At a point near the top, he committed to some harder moves and I started getting nervous for him. Still, he kept cool the whole time, and delicately reversed the moves, and then found an easier way to the right. If the face hadn't been so lichen covered, he may have gone for the harder top-out, but I can understand not wanting to trust feet on lichen covered nubbins. Following up his lead, I was impressed by his climbing. The warmth was quickly sucked from my fingers by the ice-cold rock, and the delicate exit moves at the top felt hard with stiff fingers. Just after I had cleared the crux (~5.8 or 5.9?) I grabbed a hold which promptly broke off and almost sent me flying off with it. No worries on top-rope, but I made sure to thank Dan for leading that pitch.

For the next pitch, I followed a path of least resistance trenidnng left. I kept eyeing some decent slab/crack seams on the face to the right of me. Maybe if my fingers weren't so cold, or I wasn't such a timid climber I would have struck out on these and found a clean/beautiful line. nope, I stuck to the easy ground, and quickly ran out the rope over low 5th class and 4th class climbing. About half a ropes length, I had gained a shoulder which looked out on the NE side of the face. From here I trended back right along brushy crack systems and ledges and finally found an awesome belay ledge. It was big enough for two people to sleep on, and protected on its outer edge with shrubs and bushes. I enjoyed the protection from the wind as Dan came up.

Dan took the third pitch which finally had some nice clean rock. A shallow right-trending corner system led up to a big ledge below a steep 12ft wall. A nice crack on the left side of the ledge offered a way up to another ledge above where a pair of rusty old 1/4" bolts were found. All the time I was following up this pitch, I was peering off to the big slab on my left, wondering if there was a direct line up it. At the belay, it was obvious there was a line heading out left onto this smooth and airy face. But I had no confidence about what kid of protection I'd find, and if I could keep myself composed on thin, icy cold slabs. I resigned myself to scrambling up the easy gully directly above the belay, about 150ft of 4rth class scrambling up to the exposed summit ridge. The only protection I placed was near the top, and when I realized that I could give Dan a top-rope to try the alluring face directly, I back-cleaned that piece and set up an anchor for him to try the nice looking slab. After a few tries, we were able to flip the rope over a bulge and onto the slab. Dan quickly gained a stance where he found an old angle piton, roughly matching up the description of the final pitch from Ingraham's NW Face Direct route. rather than traverse around to his left, Dan was enticed into climbing straight up from the piton. He asked if my anchor was solid (of course!) before committing to the thin slabby moves. After about 20 ft, he gained a horizontal crack and easier climbing up to the top. It looked like a great pitch, and he offered to lower me down to try it, but it was already starting to get later in the afternoon, and we had to figure out to get down still, so I passed on the opportunity.

We hunted around for a summit log, but didn't find anything. There weren't signs of climbers really at all, the summit was a 50 ft long ridge, consisting of blocky chunks of granite maybe 5 ft wide, and fattening out near the ends. The exposure to the south was superb, the wall just droped away out of sight, and the shaded and lichen covered North face of Razorback loomed in front of us, close enough to spit at (well, not really, but it seemed close). I found a nice spot to leave a new summit register, then we scrambled down the 4th class gully to the rappel anchors. Instead of doing a long rappel straight down, we opted to do a short rappel and scramble down the 4th class Normal Route. It was exposed scrambling (high up on the wall), but a nice series of brushy ledges, and weaknesses allowed for 4th class scrambling all the way down to the Spike. By this time, the wind had died down and we could bask in the sun on the west side of the Spike, so we relaxed here for a little bit and scoped out the routes. The Spike has a killer crack splitting its south side, overhanging finger to thin-hands down low, it was well beyond what I am capable of. Still it is a beautiful looking short athletic climb. By scrambling around the west side of the Spike, I was able to get onto the north side of the small tower where another crack system ascended. This one was not as steep, and looked more like something I could handle. There was even an old fixed nut (slung with rope) down low in the crack.

Instead of continuing to scramble down the Normal route (west side of the Spike), we tried scrambling down the east side, more directly to our packs. We ended up needing one rappel to get down to the bottom of the Spike. It was about 430pm by the time we were packed and ready to hike out. the hike out was a little over an hour, and it was just starting to get dark as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed back home.

Lesser Spire and attempt on ORP, a quick afternoon scramble

2011-01-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

Due to my wife's teaching schedule at NMSU, we are putting our son into daycare on Fridays now. every other Friday I'm usually off from work, and I can either stay home with Levin for some quality father-son time, or spend some time to myself for some quality "me" time. Today I opted for the latter, although only half-heartedly. With Levin in daycare, I am the one who usually picks him up, so I have not been doing any over-time at work. This hasn't yet been much of a problem, but I've started to fall behind, or rather bite off more than I can chew, so my new found "free Friday" is a perfect time to go into the office. I got to work at 7 this morning and worked on reports in the peaceful quiet of an empty office building. But by 11 am I had enough, and headed out to Rabbit Ears Canyon for some hiking/scrambling.

I brought a rope and harness with me and set my sights on Lesser Spire's Normal Route, which some OMTRS guys had climbe dlast week-end. They mentioned the peak was lacking a Summit Log, so I thought I'd see if I could scramble up it and place one. I also had to keep close track of the time, because I needed to pick up Levin by 4:30. Hiking by myself, in the cool winter sun, I made really good time:

11:30 Left car at low on Topp Hut road.
11:50 At the mine
12:05 At the base of Southern Comfort Wall
12:40 At the north saddle next to Lesser Spire
13:10 Summit of Lesser Spire

The Normal Route was a good scramble, plenty steep and some pretty good exposure. I didn't quite remember the description the Bob Cort had posted, and I ended up going to the right side of the roof on the first pitch.

Bob's picture from last weekend, showing the lichen roof

There was one cruxy section to this pitch, an 8ft head-wall above a small ledge with an old rusty piton.

Rusty piton on 1st pitch variation

There were excellent holds to pull over the steep wall, but I could see how some people wouldn't want to tackle it without a rope, the exposure and consequence of a slip was serious. Above this section was a large brushy ledge where I cleaned up a bunhc of old tattered webbing. Most of it had already been cut, and I'm guessing that last week's party had cut this off, but not taken it down with them. I stuffed it in my pack, and also cleaned off some of the nicer looking slings and bail-biners from their rappel point. Maybe this is a bad habit of mine, but usually when I'm doing routes in the Organs, I never miss an opportunity to take bail gear with me. Most of the time I end up having to leave it somewhere else, or even back in it's original spot, but I do end up gaining a few extra slings and biners. I guess it all evens out, because I've had to leave gobs of webbing and rings/biners on many of the routes out here, but I still feel a twinge of guilt for cleaning off someone's rappel anchor.

From the brushy ledge I was confronted with the final headwall. Bob's team had tackled this head on, but I didn't like the looks of this for a solo scramble. I checked around the corner to the right and there wasn't an easier path that way. But off to the left was promising. The brushy ledge continued over to an exposed perch and met up with grassy ramp. A single 4th class move was all it took to get up onto the ramp, and while the exposure here was greater than anything previously climbed, it was pretty straight-forward to dispatch. Once on the ramp, scrambling to the summit was easy.

I relaxed on the summit only for a short while. I was actually a little cold, the wind was blowing pretty steadily and the climb had been entirely in the shade. I took out my jar/summit register to leave up there and then realized that I had forgotten to bring a writing utensil. Pretty dumb, I thought about leaving the register anyways, but decided not too, what's the point in leaving a register without a pen/pencil? What are the chances that someone else coming up here would have those with them? And I still had some time left, maybe, just maybe, I could scramble myself up to the summit of ORP and if there is already a register there (I seemed to think there was) I could replace that one. Maybe not my brightest idea, but I decided to go for it. I down-climbed Lesser' Spires east side to the rappel slings that I remembered from when Charlie Cundiff and I had climbed this tower a few years back. The rappel consisted of webbing lopped over a flake, and one piece had blown completely off the flake and was just lying on the ledge. I kept this piece, and backed-up the other one with one of my other booty slings, and made the 100ft rappel off of the Lesser Spire. I down climbed to the saddle between ORP and Lesser spire than set off down the brushy slope towards Rabbit Ears Canyon. The brush on this slope is pretty thick, but not thorny. I wouldn't have enhoyed whacking up it, but I was down in no time, and looking up at my chosen scramble on ORP. The time was 13:45.

ORP has a beautiful eastern buttress which is bounded on the left side by a deep gully. I had this vague recollection of John Bregar saying that either this gully or one a bit further up Rabbit Ears Canyon, was a fun scramble. I started up this gully and was quickly faced with a large overhanging chock boulder. I surmounted this by climbing out onto the buttress, probably on the starting section of a 5.6 route called "Orgy". I stayed on the buttress up to the level of a second large overhanging boulder in the gully. This required some fifth class scrambling on perfect granite with some nice cracks, but I was starting to feel the exposure, so I got myself into the gully and underneath the boulder to see if there was a less exposed way to scramble up. Alas, there didn't seem to be an easy way.

The Chock which turned me back

My summit bid thwarted and time running out, I down-climbed back down the gully/buttress. I took alittle extra time looking up at the east buttress of ORP.

Looking up at the 2nd pitch of "Orgy"

The time was 14:20, ample time for me tog et back to the car by 16:00. In fact, I was down much faster even, reaching the car by 15:10, and picking up Levin early. In less than 4 hours I had summited Lesser Spire and made it 1/4-1/3 of the way up ORP. None too shabby.

The Wedge Summit Register Part 2

2011-01-17T20:24:00.000-08:00

I finally finished transcribing what I could from the Wedge's summit register. It provides pretty good history between 1989 to present, but many of the pages were in bad shape. it's too bad I don't have the history before 1989. I was able to read about the first 3 ascent parties from the laminated articles included with the summit register. Maybe NMSU archives can shed light on this? I will try to remember to birng the laminated pages back up to the summit on my next trip, along with this transcription.

The Wedge Summit Register: Part 1

2011-01-08T21:50:00.001-08:00

I climbed the Wedge back in November and replaced the Summit Register. I am just getting around to transcribing it now. One of the neat things about this register was a largish PVC tube containing several laminated newspaper articles which relate some of the history of the first ascents on the Wedge. I've posted them here so that folks can check them out. The transcribed log is coming soon...

Low Horn #2 Summit Register

2011-01-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

Back in November I replaced the Summit Register on Low Horn #2, but did not find one currently up there. Another local climber, James Stockton, had retrieved it a few weeks earlier and gave it to me so I could post it. The log consisted of one sheet of "paper" that was in decent shape, and another two terribly brittle sheets which I immediately destroyed in removing frmo the glass vial which housed them. I can't really decipher what these papers had, but there are some dates and names on them which I can share here. One of the dates goes back to 1956 and I'd guess that this brittle sheet of paper recorded the first ascent party as well as the next few decades ascents. Of the 4 Low Horns I climbed back in November, this one (#2) was the most challenging to summit, and it is pretty reasonable to say that it doesn't see many ascents. The names I can make out are familiar from the annals of the Southwestern Mountaineers club; Hahn, McCalla, Boyer, Erhardt, Amato. Even the stationary that the newer sheet of the register is on is pretty cool, some kind of official club stationary conveying membership proviledges to Dan Erhard. A glimpse at the initialization rituals of times-past.

Photos of Summit Register

OMTRS: Florida Mountain Rescue Mission

2010-12-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

This was an intense mission, so much so that I wrote a short novel on my experience. So here it is:

Overall route track John and I took

Route track when we were close to subjects

Me climbing up to subjects

Caballo Lake: Happy Dirt Day!

2010-12-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

Covered in dirt, but happy to claim a route as my own!

The thing I most wanted to do for my birthday this year was go climbing, and at our last OMTRS team meeting when Bob Almond dangled the lure of putting up a new route at Caballo during our, I was hooked. Marta Reece joined us and we packed up all manner of first ascent equipment; bolts and drill of course, but also crow-bar and chisel, brushes and work gloves. After all, putting up a new route isn't just about climbing some un-climbed line, it's also about cleaning it of loose and dangerous rock, landscaping any inconveniently growing shrubs and dangling from precarious perches to slowly hand drill bolts. Sounds like good times!

I took the Honda CR-V instead of the Tracker this time, which was pretty comfortable for the three of us plus two dogs. However, I wasn't as willing to bounce it up the rocky road, so we had to hike about 1/4" mile up the road, before veering off on the trail to the Grey Wall. We started off with a couple sport routes that are new additions to the wall since I was last here. I led up Two Face, which was as good as I heard. A clean and solid 5.8, abundantly bolted. There was a crux bulge section down low but the holds were good. The upper section had beautiful stemming in a water worn groove.

Bob jumped on the next climb over to the right next, what I later learned was The Bat, another Lance Hadfield route. I wasn't watching him that carefully as I was scouting out a new line on the lower angled wall to the left of Two Face, but he cruised up it. On coming down he said it was hard, but I decided to pull the rope through and try leading it anyways. Again it had very ample bolts, but was much steeper than the previous climb, and some of the sequences began to require some good technique. There were a coup[le of good rest ledges though so every time I was getting pumped I could reach one of the eldges and rest up a bit. the final crux cam at a steep and hand-hold-less section, around the 10th or so bolt. I took several hangs here trying to work out a sequence, and finally had something that sort of worked. it was very balancy though and I didn't feel good on it at all, and eventually just ended up grabbing the next draw and pulling myself past. My confidence so shattered we turned our attention to the new line I wanted to try.

The line I had chosen was a protectable looking crack on the lower-angled wall to the left of the route, Two Face. I racked up generously, including a bolt-kit and hook in my arsenal, from below it was clear that the crack system petered out about 75 ft up, and while the angle wasn't steep, there was a potentially blank section below the logical finish to the first pitch, a wide ledge with a large acacia bush on it. Worrying about the upper section almost became a mot point though, I had to struggle at the very start to get around a large bush which blocked the start of the crack. I finally turned the bush on its left side (without decent pro) and established myself in the easier crack above. Protection as pretty good, although always a little odd to place. The limestone crack system isn't like what I'm used to. the cracks flare open in wied ways, and often get wider as you go deeper in, making walking cams a hazard. Even though I felt like I had to fiddle with gear, I felt that there were adequate and strong placements. Small shrubs and hedge-hog cactus were easily cleaned out of the crack system, revealing good holds and fun climbing. A broad ledge about half way up had a ton off loose rock on it so I spent some time cleaning it off. I also spent a long time on this ledge digging the dirt out of hueco that was hidden behind a hedgehog cactus. All of the dirt seemed to blow right on my sweaty face, and the hueco seemed impossibly deep. Once excavated though, it became a good large-cam placement, and protected the "blank-looking" slab above.

I anchored myself on the broad ledge and began the business of drilling a rappel anchor. Bob and Marta took off to explore cliffs to the north as I tap-tapped away. Bob recommended 5" bolts for the limestone, and it took me over an hour to get two bolts installed. On rappel, I cleaned out more of the plants from the route, including the large brush at the start, which I had decided was the crux. Using my rock-hammer, i bashed at it until most of the branches fell away, revealing a large hueco and root system. I dug out a lot of dirt from that hueco, it seemed to be about the size of a 5-gallon bucket, and the plant's roots were stubborn.

On the ground looking up, the line looked completely different, fairly clean, and direct (contrasting my own dirty appearance). And a shiny and inviting rappel anchor glinted about 100ft up. This is my Dirt Day route! I hesitate to grade it, the crux was definitely the start, but with the bush gone this might be easier. I would guess it's only 5.7, but after my schooling on the neighboring sport climb, I'm not sure my grading abilities are on target. I guess people will just have to climb it so I can get a second opinion. Unfortunately, by the time I had finished, the sun was going down and we had to hike out, neither Bob nor Marta climbed my new route.

Before cleaning: The line follows the shade border

After cleaning, now go climb it!

Low Horns #1-#4

2010-11-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

Marta Reece and I had a wonderful, but windy day traversing the Low Horns. Neither of us had done them before, although Marta has been up to some of the saddles between them. A group of OMTRS climbers had made the traverse (getting as far as #2) a few weeks back and it was still fresh in my mind as something I really wanted to try. Instead of approaching from the west as the previous group had done (and Ingraham describes), we started from Aguirre Springs, hiking up the Pine Tree trail's northern side for about a mile before striking off towards a shallow canyon which leads up to Low horn #1. The going was not bad at all, Marta had scouted it out earlier and we only had a couple short sections of bushwhacking through apache plume before we were on scree/rock underneath the north-eastern walls of the Low Horns. Skirting underneath this wall was pretty easy going, if not steep. Near the top, there was a bit of 3-4 th class scrambling options but getting to the summit was pretty straightforward. So far so good, we were on top of Low Horn #1 at 10am, only 2hrs after leaving the car. The only problem we were having was wind/cold, the recent warm weather led us to expect a calmer day and Marta was visbily shivering while we were on the summit. I donned my wind-breaker and was ok, but Marta had neglected to bring a wind-breaker, so I gave her my extra fleece layer and hat to keep her warm.

There was a funny pyramid-shaped wooden sculpture at the summit of Low horn #1, but no register or rappel gear (aside from a suspect and rusty piton). I recalled that Bob Cort had retrieved their rappel gear from a few weeks back, so we left our own sling and rapped down to the saddle between 1&2.

#2 looked a bit harder than it's northern sister, a couple of wide/dirty cracks went directly up the north face. These are what the previous party had climbed, but I thought there might be an easier climb on the NW sid eof the face, so I racked up and led that way. Turns out the NW side wasn't easier, and had a crux section to bypass, a steep angling 4" crack. I portected this with a small nut (my only piece of pro for the pitch), and carefully led through what felt like a 5.7 move. Maybe it wasn't this hard, I was in my approach shoes (5.10 Exums),but I was worried a little bit about Marta, she seemed hesitant to take on technical climbing. I set up a top-rope belay so that I could coach her through the crux, but she cruised it without much help from me at all. We left another new summit register at the top and then continued north to #3. The time was 12:00.

We were fortunate to have the previous parties rappel gear to use, and made the short rappel down to the saddle between 2&3. While Marta was rapping, I scrambled down the west side of this saddle and retrieved some more of Bob Cort's webbing/rap-ring, gear that would come in handy for us later. #3 was only a short pitch, but instead of taking a direct line up to the top, we opted for what appeared to be an easier route via scrambling left on mossy steps and gaining the peaks east ridge. I remained roped up for this, but the climbing stayed below 5th class. It was however very loose and quite dirty to gain the east ridge. Once on the ridge though, the rock was better, and formed a perfect 3ft wide ramp up to the summit. Marta came up without a problem, and then a belayed her down to a rappel point down a ledge to the SE. A couple old pitons/slings were here, but we scrambled even lower and left our own sling. My 60m rope was not quite long enough to gain the saddle, but there were a series of ledges at different heights which one could scramble down from. As it was, we ended up only 2 m above the saddle, and simply down-climbed to it. Marta had a hard time with the rappel due to the high wind; the wind put tension on my thick rope and acted like a fireman's belay, and iot took her a few minutes to move down from the anchor, forcing the rope through her ATC a foot at a time. The time was 1:00.

Low Horn #4 looked easier than the previous two, and we decided to tackle it un-roped. Again we stayed to the east, and turned onto the east side just below the summit. Nothing was harder than 4th class, but the moves turning around the corner had excellent exposure, and I stayed close to Marta to help her if needed. She appreciated my coaching but refused any help of rope, so I guess she felt fairly comfortable, despite the exposure. the summit of #4 was larger than the previous 3 and we took some time to eat and relax in the sun. the wind was still moving pretty well, but we found a relatively sheltered spot. While we were relaxing we were scoping out Low Horn #5, which seemed much more massive than anything we had climbed yet, From our vantage point, we could see a section of smooth slabby boulders which might be difficult to scramble over (or protect). On top of these an old rappel station was visible, further evidence that this section would pose some technical difficulties. It was 1:30 and we were beginning to think about a descent, especially if the next peak was going to be extra difficult.

the south side of #4 wasn't steep enough to warrant a rappel right away, but still had some challenges. I ended up belaying Marta down a 15 ft hand/fist crack, and then down-climbing it myself. This put us on a little shoulder 60ft above the saddle where we found an ancient looking rappel anchor, a twisted hemp rope! Lichen was covering it, and the knots looked like they had mostly disintegrated, but it was certainly the rappel anchor. We used our own webbing for the rappel, but I was almost out of webbing, having only 24" left. Down at the saddle, we decided not to press on, and descend down the gulyl between #4&5. A short 30ft rapel was needed to get past an overhanging chimney, but fortunately, we found a perfect spot for my 24" of webbing and Marta busied herself making the rappel anchor. While she was setting up the rappel, I scrambled up the North ridge of #5 to see how bad the slabby-looking section really was. Turns out, it wasn't bad at all. I was able to extend myself on the slabby bulge and was only 2-4" shy from a good hand-hold/crack. A little hop was all it took and I was up at the rappel anchor, and easy sailing to the top of #5. I didn't continue on though, time was getting late and we were committed to going down, so I took the rappel anchor carabiners (2) and rope (old and sun-faded) and down-climbed back to Marta.

By the time we rapped past the little chimney it was almost 3:00. The descent down the gully between #4&5 was pretty decent. Not as nice as the ascent up #1, but not too much bushwhacking and hardly any thorny plants. We were back at the car by 5:00. Overall, a very nice outing. It would have been extremely pleasant had it not been for the wind, but this added difficulty made the traverse more interesting. I can see how adding on the remaining two horns would take 2-3 more hours, but it is definitely worth trying. I left new summit registers at each of the peaks we hit, and found no evidence of any old registers on them (James Stockton had already removed the one they found on #2, and gave it to me last week). I was very impressed with Marta's abilities, she certainly is getting some legendary status on the rescue team. I thought someone had told me she was 72 years old, and during the descent I mentioned this to her. She quickly corrected me in her brusk style, "I'm only 59". Only 59 and as fast a hiker/scrambler as anyone on the team, remarkable. We could all aspire to be as tough as her.

The Wedge and Lost Peak: Peak Bagging

2010-11-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

Due to the happy alignment of a holiday from work, but my son's day-care being open, I had all of veterans day to myself. I learned that a few OMTRS climbers would be attempting the Wedge's Normal Route, and they let me tag along.

We left Cruces at 7:30, kind of a late start for these short days, but Marta was going to guide us on a "secret" trail that start's near the Aguirre Springs camp-ground, and since the gate doesn't open until 8am, we couldn't start any earlier. the "secret trail" probably isn't much of a secret to area climbers that frequented the Organs 10 or so years ago. But to Bob Cort, James Stockton and myself, it was brand new. Instead of hiking along the Pine Tree Trail, Marta showed us a faint path into "Ghost Fire canyon", a canyon which neatly bisects the Pine Tree Trail loop, cutting the distance nearly in half. It never would have occurred to me to try to take this short-cut, since I would assume that off-trail bush-whacking would be difficult in this area. But Ghost Fire canyon was easy going, not too steep and easy to follow. Somewhere along the canyon was a neatly made fire-ring atop a boulder. Kind of an odd place for a fire ring, and there wasn't any evidence of recent fire, thus we learned of the canyon's namesake. The canyon intercepts the Pine tree trail at a huge boulder near the half-way marker.

from the half-way marker, the going gets a bit tougher, but was still not as bad as I expected. My previous experiences trying to get to the Lost Carabiner route had me thinking that approaching from the east was foolish. And if we hadn't had Marta as a guide, indeed it could have been. We wanted to get into a drainage tumbling down from underneath the Wedge, but instead of starting up this drainage where it intersects the Pine tree trail, we hiked up the ridge-line just south of the drainage. This avoids a terrible thorny bushwhack in the lower portion of the drainage. About half-way to the base of the cliffs, at a beautiful stand of flaming red maples, we dropped into the drainage and struggled through a short section of thorny underbrush before emerging into easier terrain, namely steep scrambling on rocks and through maple forests. The drainage we were in continues up to a the ridge-top between Lost Peak and third Peak, so before we got too high up it, Marta showed us a spot where we could traverse south into the next drainage system, which climbs directly up to a saddle on the south side of the Wedge. We were almost entirely hiking up through steep mapled forest, a week or so past prime foliage. Yellow leaves blanketed the ground, kept us from seeing our footing, and provided soft cushioning for any miss-steps.

Once we got closer to the ridge-top, I recognized the route from the time Scott Jones and I had descended this way after climbing Shillelagh. A steep gully climbs up the east side of the wedge, topping out on a shoulder near the summit. This section gets pretty steep, and the scrambling gets more interesting. One section, which Ingraham's description calls a 3rd class jam-crack, would probably be a 5th class climbing move if it were higher off the ground. Marta needed some assistance from a rope to get past this move, which involved an awkward off-width/chicken wing transition. Once at the shoulder, the last bit of climbing to the summit was pretty straightforward, but also the most exposed. The climbing was 4th class, but for almost 100 ft up an exposed face. Marta opted to put on her climbing shoes, and even James seemed a little nervous, but all 3 of us managed to get up it without too much worry. I say "three", because Bob Cort had diverged from the Normal route a little lower down. He took a left leaning ramp up onto the South ridge of the Wedge. We were speculating whether he'd need a "rescue" from us, but he met us on the top happy as a clam. The route he took involved some exposed climbing, probably more exposed than what we had done. I can picture the huge drop off to the west over the immense west face of the Wedge, and I can imagine what Bob had had to pass over. Something for next time. Our summit time was 12pm, not bad at all.

We didn't spend too much time at the summit, just enough to eat some lunch and look around. We left a new summit register, and took the old ones down (hopefully I'll be posting them up soon on this blog). Then we rapped off the summit on the east side, and scrambled north to the saddle between the Wedge and Lost Peak.

We were all pretty eager to summit Lost Peak and the route up the South face looked pretty straight-forward. Marta was a little uncertain about it though, not having much experience on 5th class rock. I was offered the lead (thanks guys, just what I wanted!), and meandered up the route with out too much fuss. The climbing was easy, but there seemed to be hidden cactus in all the cracks and ledges, which kept things interesting. The summit was pretyt small, and a bit windy, I had a hard time communicating with the rest of the group below, which made me a bit nervous because I was going to belay up all three climbers on the two ropes I had led on. James had given me his BD guide, so I rigged it up to auto-lock and waited until climbing started. I thought that they would put Marta in the middle of a rope and send her up first, but instead they put Marta on her own rope, and Bob tied into the middle of one rope and started up first. Marta cam up behind him and James took up the rear. Marta was doing great, and at one point I had to warn her to slow down because she was right at Bob's feet. Even on top-rope, if Bob took a fall, the rope would stretch/settle and he could knock Marta off, hurting her and possibly putting that much more strain on the anchor system. Simply avoided, Marta hung back while bob neared the top, and that is when our near-miss disaster occurred. Right as Bob was cresting the top, a loose rock about the size of a large dog cam loose. Amid our screams of "ROCK" both Marta and James hunkered down. The rock missed Marta by not more than a few feet, leaving a rock-scar right next to where she had been climbing. James was in a better spot and was missed entirely, but Marta was a little shaken and had been hit by shards/smaller rocks. Thankfully no-one was hurt, but we all became sober-serious real fast.

While we were recuperating on the summit, Bob Cort had scoped out the descent off the north side and we were already eying Third Peak as our next possible goal. However, by the time we had the rappel set and were all down on the saddle between Third and Lost, it was 3pm, and we decided we'd better start heading down unless we wanted to do some serious head-lamp hiking. the "4th" class route up Third peak was right in front of us though, tempting us to try it. It looked pretty reasonable, only a half-rope length to the top, but fairly exposed to the east. We would have probably had to rope-up for it, which would have taken too long, so down we started. The gully/canyon between Third and Lost Peak was similar to our approach hike, steep and mapled. Near the bottom of Third Peaks cliff face, there was a steep section to negotiate, which we did by passing our packs down, and climbing underneath a huge boulder/chimney. this spot was one of the most beautiful spots of the hike, a sheltered boulder/chimney with a flat landing zone, guarded by a towering lone fir tree, surrounded by yellowed maples. Perfect! I almost forgot I was in the arid/hostile Organ mountains.

We made it back to the Pine tree trail at 5pm and opted to take the trail down rather than the "secret short-cut". With light fading, it made sense to take an easy trail, even if it meant an extra mile or so. Bob set a furious pace down the trail and we were back at the parking lot in about 30 minutes, almost without incident (or head-lamps). Just as we were about to congratulate ourselves on getting down without anybody getting hurt, Bob twisted his ankle a mere 100 yards from the trail-head. I guess if there was a place to get hurt, he picked it pretty well. He was able to hobble out on his own power, and luckily, is not seriously injured.

Bob Cort posted pictures, see his link.

Halloween SAR mission

2010-10-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since OMTRS has had a good mission. We got a call the night before Halloween, and it was supposed to be "just outside Silver City". This is pretty far, but reasonable, so I opted to join in. Turns out the mission was closer to the Cat-Walk trail, an hour past Silver City. Oh well. Another piece of mis-information from the middle-of-the-night call was that we were searching for 3 gay hikers. Our sleep-deprived brains didn't realize until 2 hours into the drive out that this was actually "3 day hikers". At least we had lots of laughs about it.

We arrived at the trail-head to Mineral creek around 8:30 am. The hikers had spent a chilly night somewhere out on this trail. They were attempting a thrrough hike, hiking a few miles up MIneral creek, and then taking the log canyon trail out of the canyon to the south. this would have put them on a rd a mile or so east of the town of Mogollon, where they were staying at an inn. When they hadn't come in from their hike, we were called out. Due to another SAR mission the same day, not many teams had responded; OMTRS brought 7 people, and 2 other people from Grant county had also arrived. The initial plan was to send a team up the Mineral Canyon trail, and another team in from the other end (log canyon trail). I was to be on the team starting at Log canyon, so we hopped back in the car to speed off to Mogollon, about a 40 minute drive on circuitous roads. Not 5 minutes after leaving, we got a call on the radio that one of the hikers had made it out and was at the Mogollon Inn. We were to interview him and report back.

The hiker who had made it out was Bud, an 80 year old hard-man. His daughter and son-in-law were still out. The group had made slow progress and the hike up the steep log canyon trail had really taken something out of them. His son-in-law (who also has a prosthetic leg) was immobilized by leg cramps near the top of the canyon's rim. It was about 4 in the afternoon. Bud left them at a spot near the top of the canyon rim to go get help. The trail back to Mogollon wasn't that far, but somehow he got off trail. When it got dark, he hunkered down for the night with his dog, and in the early morning, bush-whacked his way south until he reached the road. He told us his companions did not have warm weather clothing nor matches to make a fire, and were not in good enough shape to descend back down the log canyon trail. Based on this information, the entire SAR team opted to move the incident base to the trailhead to log canyon. I was put on a hasty team with Bob Cort and Marta, and we were to quickly locate the subjects and bring them warm clothes, hot food and drink. A second team was on stand-by and was prepared to help with extraction. Due to their close proximity the the trail, we were guessing that they were in pretty bad shape and would need assistance getting out. We also learned that two locals had already headed down the trail to try to locate the subjects.

Bob, Marta and I found our first "clue" only a short ways up the log canyon trail. A note had been written with rocks on the ground in a clearing. It stated "Went To Car". It was very close to the log canyon trail-head, and din't make that much sense to have come from our subjects. Why would they turn around here and go all the way back down into the canyon to their car when they were so close to getting out? We tried to determine if the sign was fresh, but could not tell. It is possible the sign could have been left earlier by some other hikers and be completely un-related to our search. We let the Incident Commander puzzle this out and kept going. At the rim of the canyon, we found a second clue, a ginger-chew candy in its wrapper. It did not look old, and was probably dropped by someone in the last day or so. It also roughly corresponded to the location where Bud said he had left them the day before. However, there was no sign of the subjects. We continued on, descending down the to the canyon floor.

Near the base of the canyon, we ran into the two locals. They were heading back up the log canyon trail, and had not seen any signs of the subjects. Our team was directed to search for clues along mineral canyon. We searched a short ways east up the canyon and found no evidence of recent passage. Going west down the canyon, we found a couple foot-prints, but it appeared to us that they were heading up canyon. These could have been from the day before when the group had hiked up. While the Incident Commander was digesting this information, we became less certain that the foot-prints were heading up. They were not very clear, and were only a single set. We were thinking that we would be told to continue down the canyon back to the subjects car and verify they were not somewhere in the canyon, but the Incident Commander told us to head back up the log canyon trail. We learned later that perhaps our communication from the canyon had been misunderstood. This is understandable as radio communication deep in the canyon was a little spotty. Apperently, the incident commander thought we had ruled out the possibility that the subjects had come back down canyon. This agreed with Bud's assessment as well. The search was then re-assigned to a series of gullies and ridges between the log-canyon trail on the town of Mogollon.

This Google-Earth map shows the rough route our search team took. As teams searched but did not find any clues in the terrain near Mogollon we began to worry we would not find the subjects at all. A helicopter was flown in and made fly-bys up mineral creek and over all the nearby ridges, but did not find anything. We were finally called back to the incident base around 4pm. They were just starting to make calls for more search teams when a phone call came in that the subjects had been located in an RV park. Somehow, they had managed to hike all the way out Mineral creek, and down the road without being detected by us (and they didn't have the keys to their car at the trail-head). relieved the search was concluded.

I learned some good things on this search. This was the first search I had been on where we had found legitimate clues. Our team became proficient at recording the GPS coordinates of each clue and then radioing them in when we could get a good link. We covered a pretty good amount of terrain (~5 miles according to google earth) but not too quickly that we couldn't look for clues. The poor radio communication from us to the base turned out to be one problem that may have falsely led us to not search the rest of mineral creek canyon. We were relaying messages through other teams, but this can tend to create mis-information. Our other clues has also led to some false information; the locals in Mogollom were questioned about the rock message, and suggested that the message had been there for a while. We learned later that the subjects had indeed made this message as a not for Bud/searchers. Despite being so close to the log canyon trail-head, they had no clue how close they were and opted to turn around and go back down familiar territory rather than risk an unknown. With hind-sight, it is apparent we should have left someone at the mineral creek trail-head to "contain" the search area.

Overall, a very nice day hike through beautiful canyons and with a happy ending.

Little Squaretop: The Lost Carabiner Route?

2010-09-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

Scott Jones following the chossy and deceptively difficult 4th pitch.

This is a placeholder until I can do complete justice to this climb. Scott Jones, Bob Almond and myself had a crazy long day to climb the "fabled" Lost Carabiner Route on the east face of Little Squaretop (LST). Despite my good intentions of setting a "high" base-camp to reduce the approach to the route, we still had a horrendous 3-hour bushwhack to reach the base of the route. We also summitted late (4:30 pm) and Scott and I had both run out of water already. The descent took over 5 hours and half of it was through the same terrible bushwhacking as the beginning of the day, only on the return it was dark and we only had one head-lamp for the three of us. We collapsed into camp at 10pm. I was retching and severly dehydrated. Scott had muscle spasms that kept him from being able to walk. Bob, the only one to carry enough water for himself, took care of use for a few hours while we decided that our original plan of hiking out that night was not feasible. Labor-day morning we high-tailed it out of there.

Would I do it again? Yes! Maybe bring more water and try a different approach, but hey, I love a good adventure.

A cool moss covered piton at the top of the 1st pitch. While I'm not sure we were on Ingraham's Lost Carabiner Route, we found several "lost carabiners" along the route we took.

East face of Little Square Top. We roughly followed the distinct line directly up the middle of the big white face.

Scott Jones, who crazily did not wear his shirt during bushwhacking

Bob Almond, who wore his shirt during bushwhacking

NRE: West Face Corner Route

2010-06-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

I set out with a bunch of OMTRS climbers to the North rabbit Ear (NRE). The exact route we were planning on wasn't set when we started hiking up, but once we got close to the base of the cliffs we settled on a plan. Zach and I were to try a line up the West Face. the rest of the group were going to cruise up Boyer's Chute.

The line Zach and I chose was a large corner system on the far right side of the west face. It didn't look overly steep or difficult from the ground and we were hopuing we could meet up with the rest of the team on the summit. We separated from the rest of the team in the Rabbit Ear Canyon and headed up the gully between NRE and MRE. Right at the point where we were about to pass the south arete of the West Face, we took to the rock. We scrambled up a left trending ramp system which opened up onto a huge ledge on the west face. This is probably where the Ingraham "West Face" route starts. From this ledge, we could look down on the other team at the start of Boyer's chute. We racked up on the spacious ledge, then scrambled up the right trending ramp until we were at the base of the corner system. Here we set an anchor and I started up the first pitch.

There were two bulges in the corner system I had to overcome to reach a big roof. The first one wasn't too hard, but the second one was hard for me, like a V0 problem. The crack provided good jams, but the feet were awkward and the bulge made it so you could not easily see you foot placements. I was breathing heavy at the top of the 2nd bulge and rested up on the nice ledge. An old piton and rappel slings were here. The undercling out the roof looked intimidating. There was a line of holds on the face that could be used to bypass the roof, but I couldn't reach them without doing a crazy dyno, something I wasn't keen on. So instead I tested out the intial moves to the roof, placed high gear and down climbed to the rest-stance. With gear already placed high, I was good to commit to the undercling. It was strenous, but straightforward. To do it right, I had to get my feet up high and smear in the face, putting a lot of weight on my arms. Fortunately it was only 12ft long. At the end I took a breather, than placed a piece back in the undercling behind me to help protect Zach, before setting up my belay anchor. This pitch wasn't too long, but I was tired and at a perfect belay spot to watch Zach. Besides, trying to press on would give me terrible rope-drag.

I had a great spot to watch Zach and took several pictures of him through the crux. He peeled off in the undercling, and jerked me off my feet, slamming my head into the rock near the roof before the anchor held me. I had stupidly given myself a long tether to be more comfortable on the ledge and had not anticipated the direction of pull from a fall. I was stunned but managed to hold onto Zach. He was fine, but I looked battered and was bleeding in a few spots. Thankfully I had my helmet on, if not I could have been seriously hurt. Zach fired the undercling on his second go and by then I was ready to tackle the steep corner/crack above us.

The first 40 ft of the second pitch were perfect, nice jams and stems, good protection, beautiful rock. At the top of a steep 5.9 section of crack there was a low-angled slab beneath a roof/headwall. I rested up and checked my options. To my right there was a steep crack that broke through the roof, but it looked hard and I was already tired. Directly in front of me was a shallow corner system that went right up to the roof and I climbe dup this to see if I could then undercling/traverse left to escape the roof. A fixed wire was at the top of this corner, but the traverse left did not look good. The rood did not provide any undercling holds. I clipped a long runner to the fixed wire and down climbed to the rest stance. A faint seam/slab lead off left from the rest stance and it looked like a few balancy moves would gain a nice ledge system and an easy exit. I committed to this slab, and quickly found it very sketchy. Almost nothing to hold onto, and very thin feet, my pro further than I'd care off to my right, I sucked it in and stuck it out, breathing hard and sweating loke mad. Somehow I managed to get past the few crux moves. it felt like 5.11 slab, but I'm pretty out-of-shape, so it probably wasn;'t that bad. Either way, I was super-psyched to ahve on-sighted this and quickly srambled up to a ledge and belayed Zach up.

After un-clipping from the fixed wire, Zach down-climbed and looked at the slabby moves I had led, and then decided he couldn't do it. He pendulum-ed off to the left to try to find another way, but ended up having to prussic up.

After these two difficult pitches, I was looking for easier climbing above. We were on a nice ledge beneath a big headwall, and I picked my way up weaknesses in the headwall, zagging left, then right, until eventually I trended right far enough to get around the head wall and onto the shoulder which joins with the Davis route. This may not be the most aesthetic pitch, but it worked for us. The upper portion of the Davis route was a steep brushy gully. Steep enough to have some 5th class climbing, but not hard enough to need a belay. We simul-climbed up the gully, weaving around trees and boulders. At one point I spotted a piton and headed towards it only to be thwarted by a steep headwall and too much rope-drag to commit to the move. Instead I traversed around the difficulty and continued to the top of the ridge. At the top, we were in time to spot the other OMTRS team on the final headwall of Boyer's Chute. Zach and I coiled up the rope and scrambled over the last knife-edge like ridge to join them on the summit.

Thunder-claps threatened our relaxing stay on the summit and the whole group descended down the South Face. We had enough ropes to set up the rappels simultaneously which made the descent pretty quick. The hike out seemed to take fore-ever, we were all pretty beat, but we had a great day, and were all in high spirits.

La Cueva: Purple Poot Revisited

2010-06-04T21:38:00.000-07:00

I made a short trip to La Cueva after work today, something I'd like to start doing more regularly. I got to la Cueva around 4pm, but had to park all the way up at the visitor's center due to some road construction being done at the La Cueva picnic loop. Checking in with the "ranger", I learned that with the construction going on, the park/gate is closed at 5pm. Fortunately for me, he offered to leave the outward gate open as long as I closed it on my way out, so I headed out to climb.

The trail from the visitor center takes you right to the Hermit's Cave, which is pretty close to where I wanted to go anyways. I had invited some other climbers to join me, but no one was around so I took all my rope-soloing gear with me. I found some nice shade on the easy slabs under the route I had dubbed "Purple Poot Slab". This is a low-angled, broad lichen covered slab, with several route possibilities leading to the summit ridge. I had climbed it once before on January 13th, 2006 with Liz, and found a single old 1/4" bolt to rappel off of. It had a small purple poot sling on it at the time. Right now, the whole slab was well shaded, and it felt perfect for climbing. Despite the valley getting into the low 100's, and not much breeze being present, the well shaded wall was pleasant climbing temps, a little warm but not hot or oppressive (unlike last weekends sunny melter on Rabbit Ear Slabs). When climbing Las Cruces in the summer, shade is key.

On my own, I decided to explore the left-hand side of the slab, a dirty corner. I rigged up the soloist and started up to the corner. Before even reaching the corner I had some misgivings, I couldn't place any pro until stepping up on some loose foot-holds, and it looked even chossier the higher up I could get. After fiddling around a little bit, I opted for traversing a little to the right and up the heavily featured and easy looking face. this time my judgement was spot-on. the face was very easy (5.4ish) and had slightly better rock. I was able to place a few tri-cams in pockets along the way although I would hardly call it well protectable. There was a logical anchor point before the summit on a broad ledge roughly level with the top of the left-hand corner system. I decided to anchor here, clean the route I had climbed and attempt to top-rope the dirty corner back up. I had nearly rappelled down when Bob Cort showed up around the corner.

I had invited Bob along and was hoping he would show up. It's not that I don't like rope-soloing, but it certainly leaves something to be desired. Bob was interested in leading directly up the middle of the slab, so I left my rope on the left-side and flaked out Bob's rope over to the right, at a thin seam/crack in the middle of the slab. Looking back on my journals now, I think that the start the Bob did was not the one that I had climbed before. I had started at the far-right corner. The start where Bob led up had a "crux" 5.6 move at the start about 10ft up but without any prop. Actually Bob was able to place a wire at this spot, but it was a very marginal placement. After the start though, the climbing was pretty straightforward. Bob led pretty much up the middle of the slab. After the big ledge 2/3 of the way up, he opted for climbing the face instead of staying in the right corner as I had done. He ended up a little bit beyond the purple poot and belayed from the hidden alcove above.

I seconded up and also cleaned my solo-anchor on the way. I brought up my rope as well so that we could descend in s double-rope rappel. When I got to the belay, we both explored the summit a little bit. The summit is a great ridge to explore, you can scramble pretty far off to the west, and there are ways to get up to the other summit blocks as well. despite scrambling around and searching, I didn't find any fixed gear for rappels.

From the alcove belay, a short crack/face climbed up to a summit point and we decided we'd check it out to see if there was a better rappel station from up there. I started out leading up a steep finger crack, but after realizing that it involved a tricky move, (probably wouldn't have been that hard, but I'm still a nervous kleader on steeps) I opted for the more straight-forward route up to the top. It looked like it would be possible to down-climb east and perhaps reach the anchors at the top of Banana Splits, but this seemed a little out-of-the-way and it was starting to get late. We rappelled off a horn of rock back down to the alcove, and then did a double-rope rappel to the ground off of the single 1/4" bolt with the purple poot. The route can no longer be called the "Purple Poot" though because I cut the poot off, and tied on a new piece of bright orange webbing for our rappel.

Rabbit Ears Canyon Climbing with Andrus the Lithuanian

2010-05-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

There is a foreign exchange student in my wife's lab named Andrus. Liz has mentioned a few times that he was eager to get out and climb in the Organs, and we finally connected today on his birthday. Originally, I had suggested Sugarloaf as our destination, something very memorable and one of the areas best. But with the heat-wave coming through, my lack of much real climbing this year, and Andrus' telling me he has never done trad climbing, I opted to take us into Rabbit Ear Canyon to chase shade on whatever walls we could.

We left Las Cruces at 7:15 and were in the Canyon a few hours later. The Rabbit Ears slabs were completely shaded so I selected a route that I had done with Scott Jones a few years back to be our first climb. I think I had called this route 5.7, and in hind-sight that is probably pretty accurate, but I wasn't feeling strong or confident on the first pitch. There is a nice variation finish to the first pitch, which doesn't skirt around the large block under the tree, but goes directly up it. It looks pretty doable, and protectable, but I opted for the easier, rotten way around to the left, which Scott had done before as well. Andrus also climbed it this way. The 2nd pitch was pretty much how I remembered it, with a crux move past a bolt out on the left and then easier climbing up to a nice ledge underneath a headwall. We only had a single rope with us, and attempted to descend in two rappels, but the rope was about 5 meters short of the first belay ledge and we had to swing off to a side, build a small anchor and scramble down to the 1st belay ledge. To make things even more fun, when we pulled the rope from the 2nd pitch belay, it got stuck in a flake 10 m above our make-shift anchor, and I had to climb up and un-stick it before we could head down. At least I was giving Andrus a feeling of trad adventure!

The slabs were just coming into the sun as we finished this route, so we packed up and bushwhacked around the corner to the east to try to find a shady climb on the west face of Citadel. A short 5.8 corner was just barely still in the shade so we jumped on it. This route was called Iron Worker, and while the climbing was pretty fun, was very short, had poor protection placements and was a little chossy. I usually had decent stances to fiddle some gear in by stemming the corner, but the gear placements were never that good; wire stoppers that didn't contact the rock well, cams that barely work but have the lobes at awkward angles. And the climbing moves between the "rest" stances involved pulling up steep sections, making me worried my out-of-shape arms would get pumped. Fortunately, they didn't. However overall impression of the climb was not great. We didn't find any fixed rappel gear at the top, although the route tops out on the ledge which connects to Finger Zinger and the West Ridge routes. We could have tried descending one of these routes, but I opted for leaving an old sling and rappel ring above Iron Worker for a simpler rappel.

By now it was past noon and there wasn't a bit of shade in the lower Rabbit Ear canyon. Despite no shade, it didn't feel too hot yet and there was a light intermittent breeze, so we scrambled up and over to the Shortline area. This small wall had two beautiful crack climbs and was our best climbing of the day. We started off on the right-hand crack, "Shortline". The start was a clean and easy hand crack. The crack steepens at a spot where it splits. The upper split had two great hand-jam moves, and then 2-3 perfect finger jams before the crack disappeared at the crux. A bomber nut placement protects the crux 5.9 moves, which are delicate slabby moves past the crack. The slab eases up after the first crux moves, but there wasn't any protection, so I had to keep focused up the final 20 ft to the bolt anchors. This is a fantastic short route, with nice climbing, solid protection and a good spicy slab up top.

The second crack was similar although the climbing easier and the crack a little less pretty (plants in more places). It was still a good climb though. The 3-bolts on the anchor were all old 1/4"ers with thin SMC hangers. they were adequate for top-roping, but could use replacing. I top-roped the thin face between the two cracks, probably a low 5.10, possibly harder if you can avoid using some of the crack features you pass by.

After these 3 climbs it was really getting hot, and we were about ready to call it a day, but before leaving, Andrus wanted to try out trad leading on an easy pitch on the Rabbit Ears Slabs. It was mostly a scramble, but he basically has the idea and his placements were decent. However, it was really starting to get hot now, with climbing shoe rubber burning through, and our water supplies depleted, we quickly cleaned Andus' little climb and hiked out. It took us an hour before we were on the road and could stop at a gas station for some cold refreshments. We were sun-burnt and Sasha was wiped.

Two days of climbing with my dad in the Organs

2010-05-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

My dad came to visit for a week. I was expecting a leisurely visit with some climbing high-lights. This changed a bit when the first day he was here, the conversation turned to painting our house, something my wife has been wanting to do for a year. My dad seized on the idea, "I'll help you paint! You'll need this, this and this..." The next thing I know we are spending our time together painting the house bright yellow. After 4 days of painting, I had enough. There was still some trim-work to be finished, but if we were going to have any father-son climbing adventures, it needed to happen right then.

Dad low down in the Chute

Despite my Dad feeling sick with bowel troubles, we took two days to climb in the Rabbit Ears. Our first day turned out to be frigidly cold and windy. By the time we had hiked up through Rabbit Ears canyon, we were being buffeted around by the wind like rag-dolls. Not wanting to admit defeat, we opted to climb up Boyer's Chute. This turned out to be an excellent choice, as the chute was very well shielded from the wind. It is also simply a fun scramble. My dad soloed the first "crux" 5th class section by going on the right side of the chock-stone. I attempted to bypass this by climbing a bit further to the right, and what looked to be an easy ramp. This is what John Bregar had climbed before and said was kind of sketchy. After climbing it I agree, while none of the climbing was difficult, the rock was a bit crumbly and it involved some awkward balancy steps.

Dad at the first "crux" Dad climbing up the crux chimney

Dad let me lead the crux chimney, not feeling up to snuff himself. We then simul-climbed the rest of the way to the top. I was pleasantly surprised to see 5 or so new entries in the Summit register that I recently had replaced. A couple parties had climbed Boyer's Chute and someone had done one of the West Face routes, but wasn't sure which one.

Dad near the top of the chute

We descended back down the chute, and I replaced the bolt rappel station at the top of the chimney pitch. Dad timed me, it took 20 minutes for me to drill and install a bolt. I wasn't able to cleanly remove either of the existing bolts. I was able to shear them off though, so they are unusable and not so conspicuous. Overall, thoe choice to climb Boyer's chute was a good one, it was probably the only route well protected from the howling winds and allowed us a great day out despite the weather.

The next day we had much nicer weather, calm and warm and headed back up Rabbit Ears Canyon to attempt our original goal: The Church Key route on Middle Rabbit Ear. This route is described in Ingraham's guide as being "5.7"" and with a possible pendulum move on the first pitch. The first challenge was just making sense of the route description. The route starts at the saddle between NRE and MRE, by scrambling upa mossy 3rd class slope.

Dad on the 3rd class

From here the description says to head directly up a chimney, or take steeper rock on the left until climbing becomes "impossible" and then pendulum into the corner.

I tried the direct approach first, climbing directly up the corner crack pictured below. This was surprisingly steep, and I ended up below the wide section of crack and scratched my head. I was hoping it would be a squeeze chimney, but it looked too small for me to squeeze into. I hadn't brought my off-width cams, and I'm not even sure if they would fit, but after scopung it out up close a few minutes, I though "No way this is they way they went" and I bailed off a chock stone to try to find the alternative 1st pitch.

The "steep rock" to the left was up this blocky arete. The climbing was pretty easy up to the last step, at which point it became nearly blank. This matched the Ingraham description where the climbing became "impossible". It actualyl looked pretty doable, slabby but not impossible, The only problem was that there didn't appear to be any protection if I continued up the arete. The alternative was to place a pendulum peice here and move back into the corner. However, it was clear that this would land me at precisely the same spot under the wide off-chimney that I had decided not to attempt. After some deliberation, I decdide to bail again, this tiome simply down climbing.

By the time I had bailed off both the first pitch attempts it was getting close to 2pm, and we decided we'd pack it in for the day. While dissappointed that we hadn't climbed the route it was still a nice day out with my dad. The whole way down I was thinking about how I should have tried harder to squeeze into the off-chimney, or if I had only brought a bolt kit I could have mustered the courage to attempt the arete. This will have to be added to my list of "next times".

Dad scrambling down on the descent. The large chimney shown above him is bypassed by going around the left and up to the NRE/MRE saddle. The mossy 3rd class scramble puts you on tom of this chimney/shoulder where the climb "actually" starts.

Squaretop Summit register

2010-04-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Below is what I was able to retrieve of the Squaretop summit register last week-end. I was glad to find one, but it is apparent that the original register has already been removed, lost or destroyed by weather. There were some remnants of a glass bottle, indicating what might have been the original register container. The existing register only had 4 ascents recorded dating from 1996 through 2001. Not a lot of traffic for this little square. I'll still copy the entries out and place the history back up with the new register, but its sad that I cannot find the complete history.

Square Top: South East Arete

2010-04-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

John Bregar, whom I had climbed with last November on Boyer's Chute had mentioned that he would be up for coming down to Las Cruces again this spring to attempt Squaretop with me. Squatetop has been a goal of mine for a while, ever since I attempted in in January 2006 and was thwarted by the snow-covered slabs at the entrance to the Squaretop gully. While this winter has been particularly snowy for the Organs, the route appeared to be pretty dry and John contacted me saying he could come down this week-end to make an attempt. He picked me up at 7am and we were off. Below is a blow-by-blow of the trip. for a shorter version, see the description on Mountain Project.

We made short work of the approach, using the familiar trail up to the tooth and then traversing south through some brushy terrain to reach the base of the Squaretop gully. This gully is protected by a 250 ft slabby section, that is steep enough to merit attention. There are weaknesses on either side, I opted for the left side which was more direct. John took the right hand side which looked more gentle. As it turned out, the right hand side got pretty steep near the top, steep enough where we almost considered having a rope. I helped John unlock a small series of ledges and holds on the right-hand side which while not difficult, were exposed enough over a clean 100 ft slabby drop to merit caution.

Entrance Slabs

Above this slab the gully became pretty choked with Apache plume, scrub oak and yucca. We pushed our way up slowly. Sometimes we'd cling to the left hand side and find some respite on the rock, only to be thwarted a few dozen feet higher by dense shrub. then we'd move to the other side. I checekd ingraham's guide which recommends to follow "deer trails" in this gully. Maybe the organ mountain deer population was higher in his day, but deer trails we found not. We grunted and shoved our way up, looking for the top where we were supposed to find "three gullies". Turns out, this was pretty accurate. We passed one gully on the right early, and wondered for a minute if this was to count as one of the 3 gullies, but once we got higher up it became immediately apparent; the main gully stayed brushy and trended left. In the middle was a clean rocky gully, and to the right was a pine-tree studded gully. We took a pause at the base of the middle gully to put on our harnesses as the top of this gully appeared steep.

Looking up the middle gully. John gearing up at the base of the gully.

Since we were all geared up, we opted to simul-climb the gully in case the going got steep, with me in lead. The gully had immaculate rock, perfect for scrambling up, and with hardly any loose or chossy stuff. The slabby wall to the right was gorgeous and would be worth making a trip back to put some lines up, despite it not being too tall. As I scrambled up it began to get steep, enough so where I had to pause and think about where to put my hands and feet. About 120m up, I reached a nice ledge, to the left was a way to gain the ridge-top by crawling underneath a huge boulder, to the right was a steep headwall continuation of the gully we were climbing. I was pretty sure we were to continue up the headwall, but I wanted to check out the ridge to the left, so I belayed John up to this ledge. Scrambling over to the ridge involved crawling underneath a giant boulder, with barely shoulder room to crawl through. As I was attempting to worm into this spot, a giant boulder i was stemming off of wiggled loose. It didn't fall, but it was loose enough and in a weird enough position where I decided to abandon crawling underneath the boulder.

Turning our attention to the gully's headwall, it looked steep, Enough so where I had John belay me from the ledge and even placed a few pieces of protection. There weren't any hard moves, but a slip would send us tumbling down for hundreds of feet so we played it safe. I belayed John up to a grassy brushy area underneath the main Squaretop cog and with a nice view of the S-1 spur. the spur was supposedly only 4th class to its top, but looked more like 5th to us. Only the week-end before I was debating

John checking out the S-1 Spur

The S-1 spur was dwarfed by the over-hanging summit cog of Squaretop. There were some cracks up this face that might me climbable, but not by me. We followed the brushy ledge around the summit cog and climbed up and easy 3rd class open book, passing under a giant boulder to reach the saddle.

John climbing out from underneath the boulder-saddle

We ate lunch at the saddle and admired the view; the Tigerfang was right below us begging to be climbed, the North/East sides of LST/LSTM also showed themselves to us. I was contemplating a traverse over to these peaks. It must be doable, but I could not see the whole route. There were too many jagged spurs between us and those peaks. However, it would be a nice goal to come back and climb Sqauretop, and then continue over to the LSTM area and down the regular Organ Needle trail. Or why stop there? we could continue up the Needle's NW ridge and bag all 4 summits. Maybe next time.

Looking down on Tigerfang from the ST saddle

Checking out the final pitch up Squaretop, we both agreed that we'd want to be roped. It alos appeared to be harder than 4th class, although there is certainly room for debate on this. My theory is that back in the 50s, rock pitches like this were climbed with ropes and protection, but if the overall angle was not too steep, they were still deemed 4th class. By "modern" standards, this pitch seems to fit a low 5th class rating, being as steep as other 5.3 and 5.5s in the Organs. And steepness aside the starting move did not look trivial; it looked like we'd have to stem into a corner underneath a small overhang, and then hand-traverse out right until we could mantle up onto easier territory. the traversing over though exposed one to a big 40ft drop over the east-side gully. Not exactly something that we were willing to try un-roped.

the crux move started in the shadowed corner and traversed on the crack out right until you could step up. Due to hidden edges and holds, it's easier than it looks.

In the crux-corner, we found an old piton for protection. Cams/wires also fit, but I still clipped the piton as a back-up.

I led up the last pitch which was indeed easier than it looked, despite being exposed. Above the crux move, there were good crack systems and a gentle angle making it a cruise to the top (time ~130 pm). We didn't stay on the top long, taking a few pictures and replacing the summit register. The old register was in a pill-container and was only two pieces of paper, with 4 recorded ascents going back to 1996. There was also some broken glass from an old jar. no doubt the previous register was already swapped out years ago, or perhaps was destroyed when the glass container broke.

<< summit register and broken glass

We found poot slings at the top for a rappel, but they were probably as old as the last recorded ascent in 2001, and looked pretty beaten up, so we swapped them out for some new webbing. Our single 60m rope got us down to the saddle without a problem. We then down-climbed the 3rd class open-book and walked down to the top of the 4th class gully. The rappel anchor we found at the top of this gully was an old piton and a giant tangle of mangy webbing. At first I thought that the piton was the only anchor point, but buried in the nest of webbing was an old wired hex. By cutting away all the old webbing, we were able to create a two-point anchor using the hex.

Cool old-style hex. I was tempted to keep it as a souvenir

The rest of the descent was pretty straightforward. We rapped another rope-length down the rock-gully and then down-climbed the rest of the gully. Bush-whacking down went quickly and we rapped the entrance slabs off of a gnarly juniper snag. I used up all 25ft of brand new 5/8" webbing that I had just ordered from REI. I should have order a bunch more, we had to replace the webbing on every rap-station we used. I also should have brought more water, my single 3-L camel back was empty before we reached the car at 530pm and I was feeling dehydrated and beat. Lesson learned right? despite feeling totally exhausted and dehydrated, Liz dragged me out to a barbaque at our friend Matt's house where he fed me Oryx burger and made me feel all good again. Thanks Liz.

One of the most interesting aspects to this route was how to grade it. Ingraham describes the last pitch as high 4th, and all the earlier stuff only 3rd class or easier. This felt sand-bagged to me, but is starting to feel kind of consistent to some of the other old 3rd and 4th class routes described by Ingraham. I'm, beginning to think that the definitions used for 4/5th class back in the 60s were a little different from what is now used. And that grades such as 5.3 didn't even really exist. I'm guessing that anything below 5.5 was simply called 4th class in those days, and there is some logic to this. This kind of grade does not demand much technical skill, and many modern day climbers walk right up these climbs. But there is also a point where roping up on this grade makes sense, where the fall potential is serious and real. I bet even back in Ingraham's day they roped up for the same pitches that John and I roped up for. John and I both found this interesting to discuss as we climbed this route.

Solo up the North Rabbit Ear

2010-04-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

After spending two days taking care of a sick wife and baby, I earned a day of hiking out in the Organs. Sasha and I struck out up rabbit Ear Canyon with the goal of scrambling up the North Rabbit Ear (NRE). The Davis route, first climbed by a couple who used to live just a block away from where we live now, was the NRE's first route, and reportedly the easiest. I figured if it is easier than Boyer's Chute, than I wouldn't have much of a problem scrambling up and down it. I did bring a smattering of gear though just in case; some webbing, carabiners and my trusty 30m rope. I even brought a bolt-kit with the intention of replacing the bad bolt anchors on Boyer's Chute... if I had the time.

Sasha and I left the car on the Topp Hut road at 950am and made remarkable time on the approach. I was already past the Citadel after an hour and by 1200 I was at the saddle between the NRE and MRE. Rabbit Ear canyon is still flowing with green-tea pools, about as much as it was a month ago. It's still in prime camping conditions and will probably be this way for another month. I tied Sasha up below the saddle and started up what I thought was the Davis route. Stupidly, I hadn't brought the INgraham guide description with me, so i was relying on my memory. I remembered rappelling the South side of the NRE directly to the saddle and a few bolted rappel stations along this route, so this is where I started. However, I should have taken a hint at the first 25 ft, which was closer to 5.6 than 5.3. The rock here was smooth and clean with a disconnected crack system. the climbing was pretty straightforward but required a balancing move to get from the first crack over to the left onto the next crack. I guess this would be considered the crux.

Start of S Face Direct

After this first smooth section I noted some rappel slings that were just low enough where I could reach the ground with my short 30m rope, always a good thing to know. While down-climbing the start section was feasible, rappelling would be much nicer. The angle eased up considerably after this and I could almost walk up to a spacious belay/rappel ledge. I later learned that Ingraham calls this the "Scooped Out Place". From here I had some decisions to make. There were a couple of nice looking lines leading off the scooped out place. One went directly up from the belay anchor on slabby beautiful granite. Another ascended a series of shallow corners to the right of the rappel anchors. Both of these though did not look 5.3 easy to me, and I wasn't about to try them without proper gear and belay. I was almost ready to descend, but made one last effort by traversing around a corner (~5.5 but secure feeling) to the right. By continuing to the right I was able to find an easier path up block terrain. the climbing stayed in the 5.4 range but was not exposed and always had good holds easily in view. About a rope-length's worth of climbing and I gained a brushy gully that would take me to the summit.

Looking up from the top of the first "crux" 25 ft. Just visible in the middle are two yucca stalks which mark the upper rappel anchors. the scooped out place is below those. I ascended via the blocky terrain on the right-hand side of the photo.

Looking at the new and empty summit register, only one group of climbers had summited since November when John Bregar and I replaced the register. I marked my name and attempted to put a print-out copy of the old register back into the glass jar. Unfortunately, I didn't plan this part very well. The print-out register was 16 pages long, and try as I might, I couldn't cram it in the small glass jar and still have room for the empty note-pad and writing utensils. Eventually I figured something out and got it all stuffed in there, but it's not really well done. I am making a mental note to bring a bigger summit register jar on my next ascent. My summit time was about 1pm.

For a descent, I retraced my ascent route. If I had brought a full length rope, I could have utilized the nice rappel anchors (both anchors have good hardware, except for the beaten up old slings), but instead I carefully down-climbed down to the scooped out place, and then down to the last rappel slings above the initial head-wall. My 30m rope was 5 ft short from reaching the ground, which was good enough for me. I scrambled down to where I had left Sasha and that's when I figured out where the real Davis route started, about 100ft down from the saddle on the west side, a blocky corner system right above Sasha's rest. I could even make out some old poot slings at the top of the first pitch. Next time!

Sasha getting her ears blown while standing next to the green-tea pools

Sasha and I made excellent time back to the car, getting down by 310pm. Overall, we were car-to-car in a little over 5 hours. Not bad for a day out!

The CWM: the 4rth or 5th class debate

2010-02-27T19:51:00.000-08:00

A perfect day for Organ mountain climbing. Overcast and calm, cool temps but not cold. I wish it could be this good all year. I struck out to climb the CWM (Welsh spelling, pronounced COOM) with a co-worker and fellow engineer Chris Benic. He's been interested in hiking in the Organs for a while now, and this week-end just seemed to work for us. He hasn't climbed or hiked for a while, so we chose something in Rabbit Ears canyon because it is an area I'm very familiar with. Still, I've never summited the CWM so we would have our fair share of new ground to cover. I brought my trusty 30m 8mm rope, and a handful of slings, biners and nuts, in case we got into a situation which would require a tricky descent. Sasha came along too, and Chris brought his yellow lab, Buddy. we had a slow approach, but conditions in the canyon were excellent. There was more water than I've ever seen running down the canyon. Large green pools provided ample opportunity for the dogs to splash around. We ended up leaving the dogs tethered at one of the nicer pools at the start of the gully which leads up to the saddle between NRE and the CWM.

We didn't encounter snow until almost at the top of the ridge. The final 100m or so was up a steep snow gully. It was consolidated enough, and steep enough where an ice-axe would have been prudent. Unfortunately I hadn't brought any. I forged ahead kicking steps, but Chris quickly reached the limits of his comfort zone. I offered to tie him into a rope and belay him up, but even this didn't ease his mind. He opted to wait at the bottom of the gully as I pressed forward to the summit.

At the top of the steep snow was a short 20m chimney section. It seemed about as difficult as the chimney in Boyers chute, although Ingraham describes this route as medium 4rth and Boyer's as 5.4. I really couldn't see much difference. At the top of the chimney is a short section of face climbing before the saddle between NRE and the CWM is gained. The north face of the NRE is beautiful, covered in a stubbly grey lichen, and slashed by numerous crack systems. There could be a lot of potential for routes here. Turning to the CWM, a short headwall of slabby climbing gained the summit slab. Again, I'd call this bit of climbing 5th class, but it probably was chalked up as medium 4th. The summit slab was like walking on a pitched roof. It was not too steep that I couldn't walk around fairly comfortably, but it was steep enough where a fall would be difficult if not impossible to stop. It is a beautiful summit, and worth a repeat trip.

I was able to down-climb most of the ascent route, but set up a short rappel for the chimney section. In drier conditions, I probably would tackle down-climbing this as well, but since I had a short rope it wasn't a problem to rappel.

So now that I've got another of Ingraham's "4th class" routes under my belt, I think I'm getting a better picture of his grading scheme. Its my guess that many if not all of his medium-hard 4th class descriptions would go by low fifth in today's standards. These kind of routes can be readily scrambled by a climber of skill and competency at higher grades. It also appears that many of these routes were roped up, which agrees with my interpretation of a 5th class route as something most people would rope up for. As for Boyer's, I think it may ahve received a more modern grade in the writing of Ingraham's guide after the fact. Many of the NRE routes have actual YSD grades, as opposed to the more obscure routes which merely say low/mid/high 3rd/4rth/5th. Now all I've got to do is climb a handful more of these old trade routes to verify this hypothesis.

Dingleberry

2010-01-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

We've been getting a fair amount of snow, at least it appears that way up in the Organs. Since I just recently retrieved my ice climbing gear from NH, I was eager to get high in the Organs to find a target for my dull Axes. Bob Cort was game for an ascent of Dingleberry, and if time allowed, we would try to hit Wildcat's summit as well.

Since we were expecting a fair amount of snow and even ice, we opted to put on our hard-plastic mountaineering boots straight from the start. This turned out to be a major pain for most of the day. Scrambling over dry granite slabs and boulders in hard-

plastic boots was trying. When we finally got to snow and ice int he gully, it wasn't enough to merit crampons. Yes, the boots kept us dry, but a decent all-season hiking boot would have served us better. The ice-axes however, did come in handy. The gully leading up to the Organ ridge had some icy and steep sections where a tool came in quite handy for providing a good solid hold to advance. I even found a spot of ice to practice my swing, which is miles away from being able to tackle WI 5 type ice anymore. Good thing I live in the desert SW.

We reached the ridge-top and peered over onto the other side. The east side has a steep tree-filled gully and an imposing SE face. The Ingraham description mentioned climbing a number of pitches of the SE face, but it definitely didn't look like 3rd class. instead we took a gully on the west side of the ridge (but very close to the saddle). this may actually be the SE side of the peak, but we didn't check it versus a compass. The gully ends at a steep blocky and brushy climb for about 100 ft before the summit was reached.

The summit was superb. throughout the climb, clouds had been moving in and around us, but as we summitted, we were above the clouds. There's always something uplifting about being on top of clouds. We snacked on lunch and I dug around for the summit register, and then we were socked in by clouds. To my dismay, I did not find a summit register, although there very well could be one buried under some snow. I left a new register anyways.

We opted to descend on the North side down a gully I had seen from the Wildcat summit. This gully was socked in with snow, and gave us a real taste of winter conditions. We kitted ourselves out in our full alpine gear and plunged down the snow until we encountered a steep drop that looked difficult to down-climb in its winter conditions. Fortunately, we had some 30m ropes with us and two short rappels got us down to the upper Wildcat Gully, which we descended back to the car. this last part made my day. The winter conditions made me feel like I was back in Smuggler's notch, caught in a blizzard, trying to get back down before conditions got even worse. Plus the juxtoposition of coming up from a hot arid desert and encountering winter/alpine conditions was immensely satisfying. If only it could stay cold a bit longer and grow some real ice for us to climb next week-end!

Wildcat Summit Register

2009-12-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-26T14:56:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Caballo Lake: Grey Wall

2009-10-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

After a nearly 5 month hiatus from climbing, I was finally able to tear myself away from our new baby, Levin, and hit the crags. A group of Las Crucan's were heading up to Caballo lake and I tagged along.

Despite not climbing for a while, I felt pretty comfortable getting back onto the rock. Comfortable is an understatement, I felt like I was coming home. My shoes hurt a little more than usual, my heart raced a little faster, but being on the rock again was like meeting an old friend. Bob Almond and I teamed up to climb the buttress of the Grey Wall (the only bolted climb to the right of the two routes we did previously on this wall). I led the first pitch, a bolted 5.9 (or so). Beyond the first pitch anchors, we saw another bolt about 20 ft up the corner, and it tempted us to try the second pitch. Fortunately we had the presence of mind to bring a long a rack and bolt kit, because that one bolt was the last. Bob led the second pitch in style, finding adequate protection and good climbing all the way up. We made a belay at a ledge 40 ft from the top and I carried up our heavy bolting gear. We debated placing an anchor right where we were, but Bob decided to push on to the top. He placed one bolt on lead (from a ledge-stance) and topped out by a Cholla.

We bolted a rappel anchor at the top, but unfortunately, a single (60 m) rope rappel did not reach the anchors at the top of the first pitch, so we ended up stopping at Bob's lone bolt, and rappelling off of it. By the time we were back on the ground, it was evening and the rest of the climbers were ready to go. Bolting by hand takes up a lot of time. We'll need to return some time and put in a proper rappel anchor at the cliff's mid-point.

Before taking off for the day, Scott Jones and I did a lap up the first pitch again (picture below).

OMTRS: Rescue at Dripping Springs

2009-04-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

By request, here is the write-up of the rescue mission on April 19th (also at the Hobsonian).

Liz: Aaron goes climbing in the morning, then saves the day again in the afternoon/evening! Stay tuned for a full mission update on "Rescuing Ron" when Aaron recovers from his post- climbing/rescuing/going-to-work-the-next-day-super-early stupor...

Full mission report huh? I'm not feeling terribly prolific right now but here's a brief: A solo hiker/scrambler named Ron was on a slabby rock wall and fell 30-40 ft and lended on a ledge. He was hurt pretty bad, but managed to call 911. By the time our team showed up, a pair of medics had already reached Ron. This fact led our team leader to believe that the mission would be a pretty quick extraction. We were able to get a visual of Ron using binoculars from the Dripping Springs parking area and we headed towards him straight away.

Once we got to the slab, we quickly realized that the extraction was going to be more difficult than our team leader had first thought. While Ron could be reached via easy scrambling, it was over a hundred feet of exposed slab, and not all of our team-members were comfortable doing the climb, especially carrying rescue equipment. We ended up setting a "hand-line" to help people reach the ledge. Ron would definitely need a medium-high angle rescue lower, which requires a beefy anchor. Unfortunately, anchors were scarce where he was. The anchor we had for the "hand-line" was a sketchy dead juniper which had already toppled. Eventually, we found a few anchors, one 100 ft higher than Ron (around the spot where he must have fallen from?) and the other in a good crack system about 100ft to the left. From this second anchor, it was about a 300 ft lower down the slab. Luckily, the team has 100m ropes. We didn't bring them on the hasty team, but called for one of the secondary teams to bring them up.

Using the two anchors, two 100m ropes and three other ropes, we were able to rig Ron up for lowering. I was in charge of the anchor installed in the crack system mainly because I had brought my climbing rack with me. If a regular climbing anchor is "bomb-proof" the anchor I built for Ron was "Nova-proof". A total of 8 people were attached to the ropes while lowering from my anchor and I'm proud to say that the wire-stoppers weren't even that welded in place!

Getting Ron off the slab was the biggest chore, and one our team specializes in. After that slab, there was another 100ft rappel before the litter-wheel could be attached. For the final carry-out, there were a dozen or so fresh volunteers from the Mesilla Valley Search and Rescue team that added to our ranks and we got Ron out to the ambulance by 9:30. The original call-out was at 2:30.

I haven't received any updates about how Ron is doing. I hope he's been able to forget the whole experience, he was miserable for that 7 hour extraction. He had several broken bones, and a sever laceration on his head all the way down to the bone. Jostling him down a mountain did not do much to ease his pain.

Hueco Tanks: Annual OMTRS trip

2009-04-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

The last time I went to Hueco, it coincided with a "training" trip for the OMTRS. I wasn't on the team at the time, but I climbed with them and it was soon thereafter that I joined up. Last year only a hand-full of OMTRS volunteers made the trip down to Hueco to climb, this year we descended in force. We had 15 filled reservations and another car-load of people trying to get in as "walk-ons". Unfortunately, when the walk-ons were told they would have to wait up to an hour before knowing whether they could get in, they bailed and went to the Franklins. The rest of us went over to the Cakewalk buttress for a full-days worth of climbing.

Much like my previous experiences with large OMTRS climbing trips, it starts off pretty chaotically. A couple climbing teams immediately pair off and start climbing, others are waiting around wondering which wall to set ropes on, and as usual there are those who don't really have a clue what they should be doing or where they should go, and are waiting to be told. All be told, this trip worked out better than the previous trip to the East Slabs of Sugarloaf. Grady set up a top-rope on Alice in Bananaland, John Gallegos and Cort set-off on Cakewalk, Almond started up Cakewalk Direct and I went over to the Lunch Rock area to set some beginner top-ropes. I led up Hueco Walk, a 60 ft low-angle route with plenty of decent huecos and some marginal gear. After setting up a top-rope, I jumped on Malice in Bucketland. This route looked intimidating, with the first bolt being four moves up good huecos but with terrible fall potential because you start off from a boulder 30ft off the deck already. Leading it didn't feel that bad though, and when there was a long 25 ft between bolt #2 and bolt #3, it still didn't feel bad. It's part of the charm of routes at Hueco Tanks, even the sport routes get your attention, but if you climb with confidence, than they turn out to be adequately protected.

While I was coming off of Malice, Grady had set up a rope on All the Nasties. Ashliegh was next up on this route and ended up having an epic struggle, battling her way up 80 ft over 30 minutes until she took an awkward fall and swung around the wall, scraping some skin in the process. Thanks Ashleigh, for showing us that even on top-rope, you can get banged up. Meanwhile I wen tback over to the Lunch Rock Wall and set up another top-rope. Checking the guidebook, both top-ropes are on the route "Hueco Walk" but there was certainly room enough on the wall for a couple lines. I had Jeff Campbell belay me and then clean the route. Jeff is pretty new to climbing, and has been taking small steps to gaining proficiency at the various skills involved. Today he achieved two mile-stones, completing a climb without falls and cleaning a route.

Now that ample top-ropes were set-up and everyone who wanted was getting rope-time, Bob Almond and I scrambled over to the Flake Roof to test our mettle against the classic roof problem. We Ro-sham-bo'ed for the first lead and Bob won, so I watched him and tried to learn as much beta as I could. The starting dihedral gave him some pause, and he used a combination of wide stemming stances, and lay-backs to gain the top of the dihedral. ONce there, he made an insecure traverse left under the roof on sloping holds until he reached the last clipping stance under the roof. Shaking off the pump as best he could, he launched into the horizontal moves under the roof. It looked like there was a good left hand jug, but then the next hold was not as secure and Bob came tumbling down. Three more tries and Bob had gained the lip of the roof, but couldn't fight the pump and came off again.

My own attempts were much the same. Luckily, Bob left the draws in for me, so I was able to clip each bolt from low stances and dispatch the starting dihedral without too much difficulty. The roof moves shut me down. The one positive though was that unlike previous routes that I was leading frightened, I was pretty calm while tackling this roof. The fall is really clean so I just put it out of my mind and concentrated on figuring out the moves almost as if it were a boulder problem. Even though I couldn't figure out the sequence, I am pleased to have stayed calm on lead. After I gave up, Bob gave it another try before calling uncle and heading down for some lunch.

Bob Almond on Malice and Isabella and Grady finishing up Divine Wind

After lunch I pulled Almond's rope off of Cakewalk Direct and tried my hand at leading it. The crux is the shared start with Banana Patch. At the top of the first seam, a delicate move up to grab a nice hueco allows you to traverse left to the first bolt, and from there on the route is pretty straightforward. The tricky start though seemed to shut-down everyone who tried it, and Bob ended up climbing it three times to retrieve gear.

The day was winding down and people were starting to take down routes when I got the briliiant idea to try to top-rope the chimney left of Alice in Bucketland. With Kurt's help, I managed to flip the top-rope into the chimney, but the ropes twisted below the knot (we needed two ropes tied together for a top-rope) making it impossible to belay. Thus thwarted, we spent 15 minutes trying to un-twist the rope/pulling down the top-rope and only succedded in pulling the rope 20ft before the ropes twisted again and became stuck. To un-twist them, I had to climb 20 ft up the chimney to grab the free end. Once un-stuck Kurt pulled it down, but horror of horrors, the falling rope got stuck around chocks 45 ft up the chimney. By this point we were getting pretty fed up with the chimney. Bob Almond was on Malice, and offerrred to try to swing around to retrieve our rope, but it was too far for him to get to. After 15 minutes of pointless rope flipping, I finally declared I would lead up the chimney, free the stuck rope and then rappel off with the two ropes. I was itching to try the chimney in the first place, but it was obvious that there wouldn't be much protection. Also, if I did find some protection, than I would have to clena it on rappel and then the rappel ropes would be in the chimney again and we could end up in the same boat. So I told myself, "Do not place Pro" and squeezed into the chimney. At least for the first 40 ft, I could grab/sling the stuck rope.

I'm probably being too generous by calling this chimney comfortable, but for a 5.9 climb without any protection, I never once felt like I was in danger of taking a bad fall. For much of the climb I was tightly wedged in the squeeze chimney, slithering my way up. For a few stances, I came out to the edge and used a good hueco or two, but for the most part, I let the chimney swallow me up and regurgitate me up its length. I freed our stuck rope, tied it on and kept on going to the top. I placed and left a piece once the chimney opened up considerably (around the intersection with Banana patch) and then placed one more peice 10 ft from the anchors to protect a final move exiting the chimney.

The route done, I felt great, and set up the rappel. I was careful to keep the ropes un-twisted as I lowered. After removing my two pieces, I quickly swung myself out of the chimney and got the rope out on the face so it couldn't get stuck in the chimney again. I made it down and was fairly confident that we'd be packed up and done in a few minutes, and thus was quite pisse doff when we couldn't pull the ropes. We heaved and heaved, but they wouldn't budge. Somehow, the ropes had gotten twisted up again near the knot. Luckily Bob Almond was cleaning Cakewalk Direct next to us, and directed us which way to un-twist the rope. Eventually we got the ropes moving and pulled the rope down to land across the desert floor.

Pena Blanca Rescue Mission Double Header

2009-04-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

Liz is great. Even though there are several half-finished projects around the house that need my attention, she still is perfectly ok with me taking the morning off to go climbing with Bob. Since we only had half a day, we went to Pena Blanca for a quick burn. We warmed up on the Romantic Spy boulder and then walked over to the Garden Spire to jump on the pair of sport routes on the back-side. I led up the 5.10 route Hole in the Wall and got a pretty good pump doing so. The line of bolts is to the left of a crack system, and at the second bolt I was looking at ways to not use the crack system. However, the crack won out, and I grunted my way up the awkward moves using this crack to the good rest stance 15 ft below the anchor. I was pretty flamed from the start, and took a good rest before dispatching the final face-moves to the top.

Bob led the route and made it look easy.

We then set a top-rope on a line just left of the Hole in the Wall route. This line starts off with crumbly holds for 25 ft to gain a finger-crack. The start spit us off a number of times, first from holds breaking off, and then from lack of holds. Eventually, we found a sequence that worked, which climbed a little to the right (almost to the start of Hole in the Wall). Once you reach a good hueco 5 ft below the crack, good holds get you to a decent finger jam, and then its smooth sailing up to the rest-ledge. The final headwall is steep and has tiny holds. We both looked at it and felt around for ways to penetrate it, but ended up using the left-leaning crack to the right.

It was almost noon, but since we were right there, we set a top-rope on the 5.12 route "Fortune Cookie". I couldn't get to the first bolt. I just kept falling off. There were holds, but I always lost my balance. Bob styled it but fell trying to get past the 5th bolt.

Tired enough, we called it a day. Only two hours later was when the call came for a rescue mission at Dripping Springs. The house projects were simply not destined to be. The rescue mission was a pretty serious one, a hiker was scrambling on some slabs near dripping springs and fallen, breaking several bones. It turned out to be a medium angle rescue, with a 300 ft rappel to get the subject off of the slab. The trickest part was finding an anchor, as there were no good anchoring features anywhere near the subject. For those who have access to it, I posted a fuller description at the Hobsonian. It's invite only, but if you really are interested in the details, post something here and I'll send you the full story.

Caballo Lake: Bat Cave

2009-03-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

Bob and I went back to the Caballo lake armed with a hilti and bolts. This time we went to the actual Bat cave. Amazingly enough, the tracker made it all the way up to the Green truck. It was iffy at times, and I needed a running start for one gravelly slope, but it made it.

Someone's been hard at work there: we found lots of equipment for terracing the belay areas, gasoline cans, a generator, broken helmets, and a dozen or so sick lines climbing the overhanging cave. We jumped on two of the routes at the caves periphery, both pretty dirty. The one on the cav's far right was 5.9ish and not too steep. Then Bob jumped on one on the left side of the cave, steeper and harder. He hang-dogged up it, but said it probably would clock in in the 5.11 range. However, there is still loads of loose rock on the route, holds breaking off and chuncks of rock waiting to fall on your belayer. Not exactly confidence inspiring while you're on lead. To make things even sketchier, one of the higher-up anchors near the lip of the roof had a chain haning from it with a bolt attached to it! A bolt pulled out of the rock! Who's setting this stuff up!

Our curiosity sated, we were about to head down to the cars to get bolting gear for Gotham Wall, but then Bob noticed a line of bolts on a wall about 300 ft south from us. This wall was more like the Gotham wall, except taller. The line of bolts looked freshly drilled, with rock dust still bordering the bolts. It turns out there were two lines of bolts. the left-hand one had an anchor at about 80 ft. I led up to this anchor (about 8 bolts), and then Bob finished the route up past 5 more bolts. The 60 m rope was 3 ft off the ground for the rappel, just barely good enough for us to use.

We then tried the right-hand line. This one turned out to be more difficult, with a thin crux using some gastons and tiny crimps to pass two bolts. Bob led this one too, and I got to tool around at the crux on top-rope.

Caballo Lake: Gotham Wall

2009-03-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

To the bat cave! That was Bob Almond's call to arms in an email last week. A climbing gym up in Albuquerque sent out a newsletter with pictures of a new sport-climbing area at Caballo lake, only an hour drive from Cruces. The lure of un-bolted limestone, a short drive and a catchy name added up to Bob roping a bunch of us OMTRSers into checking it out.

The bat cave
The driving directions were fairly accurate and I'll place them here for those interested in checking it out:

I-25 south to Exit 59 Arrey Derry/ Caballo Percha State Parks
Turn right (southwest) at exit for 2.7 mi.
Left on W. Wagoneer Rd. for 1.1 mi.
Left on Sugar Sand Rd. for 0.7 mi.
Veer right onto dirt for 0.2 mi.
Left at Tee, drive under highway in single lane tunnel for 2.6 miles to dam
Continue for 3.7 mi and turn right onto a 4WD road
Continue for 0.4 mi. and veer left
Continue for 0.6 mi. and veer right
Turn left at Green Truck and drive to end for Bat Cave
Continue straight for 0.25 mi at Green Truck for Gotham City

What kind of directions have you turn "left at the green truck" when you are miles out in the desert? But there it was, an ancient looking ford pick-up that looks like someone has been living out of it for a while now. And to our surprise, the registration tags were current.

We decided not to check out the Bat Cave itself, which reportedly has a bunch of 5.14 projects. Instead we wandered off to find the Gotham wall where 5 5.10-5.12 routes were supposed to be already established. The email Bob had wasn't very specific about finding the wall, and there were limestone walls all over the place. We'd scramble up scree and around prickly pear to reach one, and it would turn out to be chossy, or short and definitely not developed. After 3-4 of these walls, we were starting to work our way pretty far up the canyon. We encountered a few odd signs: first a bunch of empty explosive boxes under a juniper. Then little "Caution" signs complete with skull and crossbones were found at little junctions in the trail. At one rock, someone had spray-painted "STOP" and put up one of the caution signs. But hey, we're on BLM land right, so we scouted ahead. Bob and Grady went the furthest along this trail (the rest of us had retreated back towards the cars to check out some cliffs we hadn't thoroughly inspected) and found what appears to be a prospectors stash. Hammers, shovels, wire-rope, all sorts of mining tools. Someone has been very busy up here, and recently too.

Bob Almond styling the overhang
Prospecting aside, we finally located the bolted lines on a cliff band that started pretty close to the parking spot, but extended around a bend to the south. We stopped at a pair of lines, a steep and thin looking line on the left and a more moderate line on the right. Both were amply bolted and both had variation starts to increase the difficulty. Bob and Matt started to gear up for the easier line, so I decided to try my luck on the steeper line. Right from the start I was flummoxed. I moved up off a good left-hand side-pull and could reach a decent pinch with my right hand, but then kind of froze there, unable to budge. It took me 3-4 false starts before I found a sequence that I liked, and then my arms were already starting to burn. I took a short rest, and then scrabbled my way up past the first crux and up to the third bolt (actually the fourth, but the first bolt can easily be skipped). At the third bolt I took another pause, which turned into a hang. Here, the holds moved left a bit to a good hand-ledge, but the next move looked big to get to a left-hand side-pull/pinch. I stuck this move after a brief rest but it was getting to the next bolt which really got me. The moves didn't look hard, but the holds were all tiny crimps and I got scared. Why get scared, I was above good bolts with a clean fall. But scared I was. One reason for this fear was that I had already committed to a move that I couldn't reverse. I couldn't wimp out and reach my last bolt for an easy take. I either had to fall (probably only 6-10ft) or pull through and reach the next bolt. I cursed under my breath a lot but held together long enough to slither up to the next bolt. I shamelessly grabbed the draw as soon as I could clip the bolt, but even that was hard to do. My arms were so flamed that hanging onto the draw felt impossible. I managed to clip my rope in and shouted "take" with relief. Sitting here, it's hard to put myself in the same frame of mind. Why did I show so much fear? Why couldn't I just relax, enjoy the climb and simply fall when my best efforts ran out? It makes me think that I need to work at these tough sport climbs, work on becoming comfortable not just with falling, but with pushing my climbing abilities without a guttural fear. Easy to say, but hard to execute. The rest of the climb was more straightforward, but still had challenges. Two bolts higher was a short overhang. Above that was three more bolts of thin crimps. I took more hangs, but managed to top out, arms like wet noodles, and pride between my legs.

Grady Viramontes top-roping the "easier" route
I watched as the rest of the crew climbed this route, Bob and Matt both pink-pointed it while Grady opted for top-roping. Matt just moved to Las Cruces and was invited out by Bob who has a mutual acquaintance. He's tall and thin and his worn climbing gear makes everything I own look like brand new. He claimed to be close to falling at the place where I was most distressed, but his flash looked all smooth from the ground.

I jumped on the easier route to the right, leading up through Matt's draws. This route lacked the strenuous moves of its neighbor, but still required good focus and technique up some small crimpers. It starts in a corner underneath a roof, and traversed out left past 4-5 bolts, turning the roof on the left side. Above is slab/face climbing on beautifully textured limestone. A hard white base is ribbonned with razor sharp blackened rock, providing thousands of micro foot-holds and razor crimpers. I finished up the route and took another turn on the firt line, this time on top-rope. I figured that with a top-rope, I wouldn't have fear and could concentrate on simply climbing. This didn't make the climb easier though and I fell at each of the crux moves. ONce again, I'm left with a resolve to train and get stronger. So easy to say yet so hard to do.

Bob Almond starting up the shady overlook
Meanwhile, Bob had moved south along the cliff about 100m and found a steep line of bolts in the shade and with a gorgeous view of the lake. We were all getting pretty sun-burnt and it was nice to sit in the shade and watch Bob artfully send this challenging route. It is by far steeper than the previous climbs, and the gap between the 4rth and 5th bolts is enough to give most people pause. Watching Bob work up it was like watching a drama un-fold. He seemed to casually float through the first three bolts, but at the fourth, he paused. A good flake could be reached to the right, but he wouldn't trust it (it did seem a little suspect). Instead he strained to get good body position on a small hand-rail, even gaining an awkward arm-press in order to clip the fourth bolt. Once clipped, he danced over right using the suspect flake and gaining a shallow stance to rest. The space to the next bolt was daunting and it appeared that the rest-stance wasn't so rest-ful after all, Bob kept fidgeting and shaking out his arms. Eventually he committed to the finger-crack moves and the long potential fall. We watched on edge as he grappled with the crack, hoping he wouldn't slip, and we all breathed a cololective sigh when he clipped into the last bolt.

I took a turn on this route on top-rope and was almost immediately shut-down at the first two bolts. The moves involved using bad side-pulls. open-handed holds, and funky body positioning. I took several falls but eventually executeds the moves. The upper section was more straight-forward but I was fighting the terrible burn in my arms, and marvelling at Bob's endurance as he led the route. Bravo Bob!

Over dinner at Sparky's smokehouse in Hatch, we hatched plans to return. Bob with his Hilti and bolts, already has a few lines in his sights. Me, I just want to tussle with the rock again. And maybe this time, come out on top.

La Cueva: Climbing with the OMTRS

2009-03-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

I climbed with the OMTRS today. We set up about 5 ropes on the Sunny Side of La Cueva. I immediately jumped on the chance to lead Hive Mind, which has shut me down twice before. To be fair, the first time I took a hang on the route was because I got stung at the crux. The second time I was rope-soloing and not really comfortable taking a lead fall. But today, I had an attentive belayer, Will, and finally climbed the route cleanly. It still felt hard, with the holds all sloping away at the crux and the feet being very crumbly.

Will had a hell of a time on top-rope. He managed to un-clip my draws at the crux, but then fell and swung away from the climb. After what felt like 30 minutes of trying to get back on route, he finally resorted to prussiks to get back on route and finish the route. I patiently belayed him and watched the other climbers. John Gallegos led Piton Power, Bob Almond set a rope on Black Streak and Grady set a rope on Battle of The Bulge. Climbers were doing laps while I was belaying Will, and I watched as Bob Almond led up a crack system to the left of The Bulge which I had been meaning to try. It looked like it protected well enough, and was at a beginner grade (~5.6) but with a more serious top-out crack that Bob didn't tackle, either because he was only wearing approach shoes, or he didn't want to set a top-rope too hard.

Some of the younger/newer OMNTRS members are strong climbers, if a little green. Leading is something they've never done, but they can dance up the 5.10s we set today like it's perfectly natural. I'm happy to see more climbers joining the team, because it means more partners. Pictured above is Natalie dispatching the crux of hive Mind.

Grady mentioned that the first bolt of The Bulge could be replaced as it was rusty looking and I jumped at the opportunity. This turned out to be a big mistake, I spent an hour trying to get that bolt out and only managed to chip away about 1/2" of rock around the bolt, loosen it to a dangerous spinner and expose 3/4" of the shaft. Even repeated bending back-and-forth couldn't shear the bolt off, although maybe it was twisting around rather than actually bending. Eventually, I got tired and fed-up and simply placed a new bolt next to it. I'll have to come back with a crow-bar/cold-chisel to finish the job.

By this point, most of the MOTRS crew were packing up, but Bob was interested in another climb and I tlaked him into checking out the Sun-Rot Dihedral. I remembered working out the moves to the bouldery start, but we both struggled with it on lead, first Bob giving it several tries, then I took a turn couldn't work up the courage to commit on the bad holds into the funny shoulder-scum moves. I was ready to give-up and circumvent the crux, but Bob gave it one more try and sent it. He led up the rest of the route, dubbing it Crumbalicious. I dispatched the crux on top-rope without too much strain, leaving myself to wonder why it was I couldn;'t get it on lead. One thing that made the lead hard was that some of the wires you can place for pro cover over a finger-lock that I use to get myself into the should-scum. I could get my finger into the lock when I was attempting the lead, but if I had fallen the carbiner would have crushed my finger, a thought which scared me off from really going for it. The rest of climb was crumbly, but about how I remembered it. The 1/4" bolt was still there, but after my earlier experience I didn't want to mess with trying to remove it. Instead, we added a second bolt nearby so that the two bolts could be used as a rap-station.

Checkerboard Wall: Humbled by off-width

2009-03-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting go to the Checkerboard wall for a while now to try out the 5.10 off-width there. 5.10 off-width, every time I've jumped on one I get thrashed, but they still hold a romantic appeal to me. They are so clean looking, and easy to pick out from miles away. While driving on baylor canyon road, or hiking the approach up to some cliff, if there is an off-width on the wall it will attract your attention. It usually is a stunning line, through clean rock and from a distance you don't fully realize the scale, that horrible region between fist and chimney.

I'm dragging on, the point is, I convinced Bob Almond to try the route Worth The Effort, the established 5.10 off-width on the checkerboard wall. This one isn't the romantic ideal that others are, more of a short off-width section around a roof. This made me hopeful that I'd actually have a chance at success. To stack odds even more in my favor, Bob brought both his #4 camelots to add to my #5 and #3 (plus my #4 forged friend inherited from my father).

Since I was going to take the offwidth pitch, Bob got to lead the first pitch. This seemed fair until we actually got to the start of the route and looked at it. The crack started about 15ft up the face, and the moves to get there didn't look that easy. They also looked largely un-protectable with bad fall potential into a tree and down a slope. It turns out that this climb is one of those examples of a climb which appears more difficult and scary than it really was. A few slightly hidden face holds and some good sloper foot-holds gained a stance wherein Bob could just barely place some gear in the crack. Thus protected, the balancy 5.9 move into the crack was dispatched with confidence.

Bob at the start of the climb and Bob underneath the roof

Now it was my turn. I had a couple false starts exiting the belay. There werea couple small foot-holds on the right wall, and a decent arm-bar/chicken wing got me to the lip of the roof, but I struggled to get past here. I'd struggle the moves for a bit, panic, and grab my pro. Each time I did this, I'd place one of the other big cams higher, slowly advancing my protection, and giving myself a bit more security to suss out the moves. Unfortunately, I wasn't willing to move beyond my cams much, and they always seemed to be in the way when I needed to shuffle my arm up higher in the crack. Every time I'd make some progress, maybe 12 inches or so, I'd get stuck, or feel insecure and end up grabbing my pro again. Eventually, i turned the lip and got to easier ground, and despite all my "cheating" I was panting and wheezing like I'd just pulled off some herculean effort. Despite the easier climbing, I was pumped and tired and it all felt hard. The crack narrowed to hands and then a few finger-locks beneath an overlap. I awkwardly grabbed for a jug above the overlap, and hung their for a minute or so trying to blindly stuff in a cam above my head. Not happy with the cam, I backed it up with a shallow nut. Neither placement was ideal, but I was running out of strength again, so I committed to the move. Stepping above the overlap and using that last reserve of strength was an endorphin high. I could have fell right then and felt wonderful. Instead a floated up the rest of the easy terrain in a blissful state.

I don't know if Bob struggled with the off-width or not, as I couldn't see him from the belay. He never weighted the rope though, so I'm hoping that he crushed it.

East Slabs with the OMTRS

2009-03-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

When I found out that the OMTRS was doing a "training" to the East Slabs of Sugarloaf, I immediately wanted to camp out at the cave. Bob Almond immediately took me up on a camping trip, and we put out an open invite to the team.

My main concern for camping out was water. The last time I camped at the cave, I went through tons of water. This time a few factors were in my favor, I wasn't bringing Sasha who can drink a half-gallon a day, it wasn't mid-summer, and I already knew that 4 gallon were stashed there. None-the-less, I was resolved not to eat into the water reserves and carried a full 7 liters of water with me for the week-end. This combined with a rack, a rope, sleeping gear, food and all my bolting tools added up to a heavy pack. Maybe I was punishing myself in some kind of competitiveness, as Josie was also going to be camping at the cave. I recalled from the last OMTRS overnight on Organ Needle that she could carry way heavier packs than me, and also brought 2+ gallons of water with her. We'll see who has the heaviest pack this time.

I was relieved when the hike in went quickly, and wasn't all that stressful. Compared to the Organ Needle hike, the trail was less steep and was shorter. We left the Aguirre group parking by 9am and were at the Cave by 1030.

A pair of the faster OMTRS hikers, two students named Joe and Anne, immediately struck off for the climbs. I hung around the cave for a bit to make sure people could find the place. Dropping my pack, I sauntered off down the "trail" and was just in time to yell at three hikers who were heading up the wron way, towards the top of the East Slab rather than where the routes were. Satisfied that the team was on the right track, I went back to the cave to gear up for the climbing. Bob Almond had given his twin ropes to two of the faster hikers whoe were already there, so I decided that I'd take a few climbers up the Great Bowl route. Josie and Bob Cort were both getting ready to climb, and I had climbed with them before and had some idea of their capabilities, so we formed up a team. The bulk of the OMTRS was arriving at the Cave as we were heading out to the route. We also could see that Joe and Anne had stayed too high on the traversing approach to the East Slabs, and were starting up a climb that wasn't on any of the topos we had brought. I felt somewhat to blame for their misdirection, as I had tried to point them out where they needed to go, but apparently I hadn't been very precise. No matter, they had all they needed for a good time.

The Great Bowl route was Bob Cort's first ever multi-pitch. Not to make things any easier for him, I had to explain to him how a two-rope climbing system worked. Both he and josie made the climb look easy. the most trying aspect of the day was dealing with the cold. While gearing up at the Cave, it was warm and we all struck off in our base layers. As we climbed, the sun quickly disappeared behind Sugarloaf and a chilly breeze struck up. By the second pitch we were all shivering. We briefly discussed exiting the route to the right so as to get off quicker, but my thirst to climb Ingraham's Dihedral won out. I gave Bob Cort my shell (which I thankfully decided to carry for emergencies) and Josie pulled on a purple fleece she had tied around her waste and we forged ahead.

Bob Cort and Josie following the third traversing pitch.

Ingraham's Dihedral was every much as good as I had hoped. The pro was very thin, only small wires in shallow placements but stemming provided very secure stances. The crux moves were exiting out the top of the dihedral, not hard moves really, but 15 ft above only tiny wires and 5.8. I arrived at the belay and just as Karl kiser had mentione din one of his posts, the bolts needed replacing. One was a Star Drive-in, a type of bolt that consists of a nail hammered into an aluminum sleeve to expand it into the hole. Every bolting web-site I've read says this type of bolt is no good, but this was the first time I had ever run across one. Bob Cort and Josie had the lucky opportunity to get a lesson in bolting.

It feels a little odd, showing people how to place bolts when I myself have only done it a hadnful of times. It's not a very complicated matter, but the fact that if you do it wrong you could cost someone his life adds gravity to the subject. we pulled out the Star Drive-in first (I backed up the anchor with a cam first). It came out relatively easily and was in a 3/8" hole, so we didn't have to drill long before we installed our first bolt. The other bolt was a 1/4" pound-in, which also cam out easily. I kept thiking back to when I first replaced bolts out here on the East Slabs, how I couldn't get the bolts out at all, and ended up shearing them off and drilling new holes. Things went so much better this time.

Replacing the bolt anchors at the top of Ingraham's Dihedral.

At the top of the route

By the time we finished the climb and got back to the Cave, the rest of the OMTRS team had already left. Aside from Anne and Joe, no one had gone for the multi-pitch routes. Bob Almond found them a 5.8 TR which a bunch of people tried, but I was extremely surprised that their hadn't been more multi-pitch parties. Several people had brought racks and ropse, so there was plenty of gear to send up multiple parties. A mystery to me. Bob Cort hurried off down the trail to catch up with the rest of theam while the rest of us settled in for the night. Bob Almond had a fire going already and cooked up a feast of sausages and roast veggies. Josie was joined by her husband Matt who hiked up in the evening.

Sunrise on our camp

I really like the Cave camp. it's got room enough for 2-5 people, a neat cooking area and a decent stash of water and equipment. I took a full inventory in the morning while the rest were sleeping.
Cave Camp Inventory March 1st, 2009
A 5 gallon bucket suspended in the cave contained the following

MRE (heating packet and silverware only)
Paper plates, ~20
Food bag containing; lemon lime drink powder, old dried raisins, 1lbd macaroni, 1/2 lb oatmeal, 3 teebags, 1 cherry drink powder, 1 freeze-dried coffe pack and salt&pepper packs
Blue plastic cup (16 oz)
2 spoons, 1 fork and home-made chopsticks
large roll of paper towels
1/2 roll of Toilet paper
1 c brown sugar
4 match books and a lighter
1 can of gatorade powder (very hardened)
5 moist towlettes
1 chicken flavor packet crystals
1 candle stub
~5 sip-lock bags

Other items in the camp include

4+ gallons og water (we added about two more when we left)
1/4 gallon of camping fuel
1 pan
1 small pot
1 small mug
2 plastic tarps (I hiked one of these out which was in terrible shape and threw it away)
1 canvas tarp (also hiked out and tossed)
1 beat up foam sleeping pad (hiked out and tossed)
1 small high-density foam pad
2 metal gratings for cooking

Some critter had tore into the pads/tarps pretty well, but most other items were in decent shape. the critter was also fond of Cholla, and there were cholla spines littered through-out the cave. We did our best clear them out, but you ended up getting them stuck to you, or your stuff. Bob Almond wound up getting a small leak in his thermarest. I added a notebook and paper to the stash to be used as a camp logbook. We'll see if anyone uses it...

Bob Almond, Matt and Josie (top of third pitch)

I let Bob pick the route and he decided on La Mancha with a link-up to Misty for the 5.9 headwall.

Bob on the first pitch (first two pics), Josie styling the crux pitch.

The first pitch gave the most difficulties. Bob was leading up but couldn't see where the anchors were, and was leary about striking out onto the unprotectable slab without knowing where they were. Fortunately we were able to spot them from the ground by scrambling up the slope to the south. Turns out the anchors on this route also need replacing. Unforunately, the two 1/4" pound-ins couldn't be backed up and with four of us hanging from the anchor, we weren't about to unclip from one so as to replace the other. instead, we decided we'd simply add another bolt to the anchor. Bob Almond got started on bolting and handed me the second pitch lead. A clever plan on Bob's part as the second pitch turned out to be completely unprotectable and 140ft to the next anchor. "Groundfall potential" are two words I kept out of my mind as I carefully stepped up the textured slab.

We added a bolt to the 2nd pitch anchor while Bob led up and over to join up with Misty. The first time I climbed the 5.9 corner variation of Misty, I was on rope-solo Top-rope (I had led the easier corner at 5.7) and I ascended by clever stemming. That's how Bob Almond, josie and Matt all tackled the crux pitch. By the time I got to it though, it was calling out to me to do finger locks. In fact, it was almost the perfect size crack for my fingeres. I could just barely get two joints in, for nice tight finger locks. It felt great, but I have to caution myself: it was only 15 ft of steep finger-locks and my fingers were crying out in pain. Plus I hadn't had to place or remove gear while hanging from locks. So before I run out to do 100 ft of steep finger-locks, remember that.

We finished the climb and were back to camp while the sun was still up. We were out to the car right after the sun went down. What an excellent week-end.

Replacing Bolts at La Cueva

2009-02-22T20:54:00.000-08:00

I replaced a few of the old bolts that we used on my last trip to La Cueva. I replaced both the bolts at the top of "Swainson", and I replaced the Bolt at the top of "Nothing to Prove". I used redhead Concrete expansion bolts and Metolius hangers. These aren't the botls you get from climbing gear suppliers, but a more run-of-the-mill hardware store style. Still, they are rated to 1500 lbs. It felt good to be out after being imprisoned at WSTF by the MEASAT program, even if I was only out by myself for a few hours to drill some bolts.

La Cueva: West End short-lines

2009-01-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

The OMTRS had a training out at La Cueva today which consisted of setting anchors and rappelling/ascending a fixed line. We set up lines on the "Training Wall", a short rotten cliff formation off to the NW of the west end of the main La Cueva rocks. I brought my climbing gear with me and set up a top-rope on Swainson while the rest of the team was getting situated. After people had had enough of placing gear, they took a try on the top-rope. It's been almost three years since I first climbed this Top-rope. This time, I backed up the old 1/4" bolts with a pair of tri-cams. My maxim is "When climbing with the OMTRS, be extra safe". Even with this creed, climbing around the OMTRS still makes me feel inadequate safety-wise. I think this is partly because people sometimes put a lot of trust in my gear and anchors because I have a reputation as a climber. Regardless, several people tried Swainson and no one could figure out the moves. I didn't remember the route being that tricky, but I was beginning to doubt my memory. Memory also has a funny way of messing with your mind. I alos started thinking that maybe I was in better climbing shape back then, even though when we first got to Cruces, it had been almost a year since I had climbed. I eventually got a turn on Swainson and zipped right up it. I still would call the route a 5.9+. It's good to know that I've maintained some kind of consistency throughout my years here.

At around 2pm, the rescue team was hiking out, leaving Bob Cort and myself behind. Bob's been dropping hints about wanting someone to take him climbing at the last few missions, and I was gung-ho to climb today, so we made a good pair. Together we knocked out 6 more short routes in the area, none of which I had climbed before.

Route : Kestrel
Length: 30 ft
Rating: 5.6
Protection: Ample. Not very good gear for the anchor though. I was able to use the tricams that were already in place for the Top-rope of Swainson which saved me some time. A bolt at the top would be nice.
Description:The first route we tackled was the short crack system just to the left of Swainson. I had nearly soloed up this entire route while other were climbing Swainson, but decided it would be better to wait for a belayer. The crack is pretty short, and has two large pods which make it distinctive. I stuffed my new #5 camelot in the bottom pod. The second pod took a cam at the bottom, and then I finagled a pink tricam into a pocket above the pod. The final moves exiting the last pod are the most exposed (the ones I didn't want to solo) and I managed to get another small cam in a pocket to protect this move. Bob found the start to be the hardest moves. The first pod is right-leaning and awkward to pull into. He cruised the rest of the route and even was able to get out a very firmly placed tri-cam.

Route : Peregrine
Length: 30 ft
Protection: Difficult to build anchor.
Rating: 5.11
Description: After climbing Kestrel, I wanted to set-up a top-rope on a steep crack-seam just a little bit further east. The top of this route is a nice ledge with a small tree, but not much for gear placements. Luckily, my #5 camelot fit at the very back of the ledge and provided the foundation for our top-rope anchor. I supplemented this cam with two tri-cam placements and use dup almost all the extenders I had in order to have our rope be close to the edge. The route is as hard as it looks. It might be leadable, but is more like a high-ball boulder problem. I started it by lay-backing the seam for about 15 ft. The lay-back petered out and I found myself transitioning to some suspect face holds. The seam is a shallow corner at this point and I was able to stem myself up another 10 ft until I could make a reach out right to a sharp finger jam. If I was to lead the climb, it would almost make the most sense to simply boulder up until you get place a wire in this hold. Only the final moves would be protected, and you could take a pretty big fall. The landing is flat though, but it would still take a lot of guts. The sharp finger jam is bomber, but also very painful. I matched my left hand just above it, shuffled feet around, then reached a second sharp finger jam. This one was not quite as good, but still quite painful. From these holds I was able to pull up and top-out. Bob was able to get up the lay-back section but was stymied by the stemming section. We opted to scramble around to clean the anchor and find the next climb rather than tire ourselves out on this one any more.

There were a few possible routes to the left of Peregrine. Just to the left is the slab that we climb to get to the Tyrolean low-point ledge. Next to this is a very loose looking chimney. Around the corner to the left were two left-sloping crack systems which looked like good rock. These were our next two climbs.

Route : Proving Ground
Length: 50-60 ft depnding on finish
Rating:5.7
Protection: Ample. I used my #5 camelot again but I could have just has easily found a spot deeper in the crack that would have worked. I placed 3-4 more pieces up the route, including a suspect red-TCU in a pocket for the variation finish.
Description: To gain the crack system, I first had to climb up a 10 ft low-angle face. This was the 5.7 section, and while not that difficult, I had to make a conscious effort to avoid to rotten looking holds. Bob popped a couple of these off while seconding. Once I gained the crack, I was able to place some gear, and the rock quality seemed to improve somewhat. The wide crack seemed to be more of a hindrance than anything, keeping me off balance as I climbed up the ramp on good positive holds. The crack does supply ample protection though. I topped out, but didn't find any fixed gear for anchors. Instead of simply building an anchor right there though, I down-climbed 10 ft, and then climbed up an exposed face to the right of the crack. This gains a higher summit, and I build a nice anchor with large stoppers and a big cam. I belayed Bob from this hanging belay. To descend, I lowered Bob off, cleaned the anchor, and down-climbed the ridge a little bit to the east where I remembered a piton rappel was found. I backed up the piton and had Bob lower me off. PHOTO: Me at the top of the variation finish. Most of the route is not visible.

Route: Nothing to prove
Length: 50 ft
Rating: 5.5
Protection: Good. I used the #5 camelot again at the crux down-low. Bob noticed that half-way up was a 1/4" bolt stud (no hanger or nut). The top anchor can use the piton and another 1/4" bolt stud.
Description: I pulled th rope down and led up this crack. I remember trying this route solo once, back when the OMTRS did the Tyrolean last year. I didn't get past the first crux, which was a wide section of the crack at an awkward bulge. There are face holds which can be used, but they looked rotten to me and not worth soloing on. Today I had a rope though, and did not hesitate up the crack. I still avoided the rotten looking holds, favoring a chicken wing in the crack instead. I think this may make the route feel a little harder, but Bob showed me that using the holds was quite acceptable (they didn't break at least) and made the moves more straight-forward. After this first crux, the rest of the climb is extremely easy. It left me wondering why someone had even bothered placing the 1/4" bolt at the mid-point. PHOTO: Bob Cort in Blue and myself in Red

It was now 4pm, and I offered to pack it in for the day. Bob rebutted that he still ahd some climb in him, so we walked a short ways east to the next good-looking routes. We passed up the short 5.4s that I've soloed to gain the summit ridge before. These are a good option for descent if you don't want to rappel off the piton on the previous routes.

Route: B-Route
Length: 45 ft
Rating: 5.5
Protection: Sparse. Only two small gear placements before I got to the top of the seam.
Description: This route and the next converge at the same point about 40 ft up. The start is very low-angled, so my first protection was about 20 ft up. The route is a left-leaning crack on the low-angled face. At the top of the crack, a small chute/chimney gains a ledge at the top. Good face holds were present along the hole climb, but there were also lots of rotten holds that I tried to avoid. A built an anchor with two ssmll wires and a 0 TCU. I looked around for some fixed gear but didn't see anything. I belayed Bob from the ground and he cruised the route.

Route: A-Route
Length: 45 ft
Rating: 5.6
Protection: Sufficient. This crack offered more options and with more frequency than its neighbor. It also had more animal scat in it.
Description: This was the left-hand crack of the two cracks that make an "A". It felt slightly steeper, and slightly more challenging, as the left-hand wall made one have to think about one's balance a little more. Again, I did not protect until about half-way up. The rock was similar, ample positive holds, but many of them suspect looking. I tried my best to tip-toe up. PHOTO: Me on "A"-route

Since I hadn't seen any fixed gear, we had a scheme worked out for the descent. I was to lower Bob off, then clean the anchor. Bob would put me on belay and I would down-climb the ridge to the 5.4 down-climb route, staying on the far (south) side of the ridge so that if I fell, I would fall on the opposite side and Bob could catch me. Turns out this was unnecessary, after down-climbing a few moves I discovered two shiny 3/8" bolts with rappel rings on them.

It was then 5pm, and the park was closing. Since I know Bob checks this blog, thanks again for climbing with me today. I've been wanting to jump on those routes for a while. And there's plenty more at La Cueva to try out for the next time. Also thanks for taking all these pictures. All pictures on this blog and the MP.com pages were taken by Bob. It seems that unless I have someone else to be photographer, I don't end up with many graphics to supplement my rambling route descriptions.

Pena Blanca: Romantic Spy Boulder

2008-12-28T21:09:00.000-08:00

Liz took me climbing again, this time we played on a boulder in the Garden area of Pena. There are 5 routes described on the Romantic Spy boulder. I tried 4 of them, and managed to send 3. I spent most of the time working X Spy. This is a short problem that involves finding some beta to get from two holds on either side of a protrusion, to a much higher hold. Right off the bat I could get high feet and would be able to reach the higher hold, but the high feet made the two starting holds very awkward to hold onto, because they are both essentially side pulls. I tried dynos from this position, but they didn't work for me. Eventually, I found a sequence that worked for me which involved a particular foot-work sequence and knee-scum.

Aaron's X Spy Beta:

Grab the two starting holds.
Pull up and get both feet high, basically right at the bottom of the protrusion
Move the right foot over to a hold at the same level but further to the right.
Twist right leg so that the right knee can be pressed into (or near) the right hand. It's almost a knee bar, but more like a knee scum.
Using the knee-scum for some extra balance, reach up with right hand and grab the big hold at the top-right side of the "X".

Voila!

Liz took all sorts of pictures and video of me working this. For fun, I stitched it into a video to put on our Family Blog. *I forgot that the "hobsonian" is invite only. I'm posting the video here*

The other problem that I spent some time working was Spy v Spy. I couldn't figure this one out. As far as I could get was pressing into an awkward face-smear. Somehow, you can make a big move to a good hold at the lip. My favorite two words, "Next time..."

Organ Mtns: Barbs Buttress in the Cold

2008-12-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Liz had to do some school-work today so I took the dog and the climbing gear and hiked up into Rabbit Ears Canyon. I wanted to jump on something slabby on Barb's Buttress, so despite the cold wind coming down the canyon and a light dusting of snow visible on the slab, I made right for it. During the winter, this slab gets very little sun, and the wall was still ice-cold when I reached it. The ledges and positive holds were slightly snow covered, appearing almost liked overly chalked up holds. I picked what looked to be one of the easiest routes on a slab to the left of where Scott and I climbed almost a year ago. Since Sasha isn't such a good belay partner, I took out the old Wren Soloist.

Route Description
Name: Un-known. For now let's call it Cruise Control
Length: ~60m. I only got about 30m up which is the height of the corner route directly to its left. The slab appears to extend for another 30 m, with potential crack systems for protection.
Protection: The bottome had nice cracks to protect in. About 40 ft up is a ledge. An option to the left follows some cracks and joins up with the top of the corner route on the left. I chose the option on the right. This one has 10-15 ft slab/face moves between protection. I ended up rapping off a block at 30m because my hands were frozen solid. An interesting note is that the point where I rapped can be reached by scrambling up the gully behind the wall and popping out around onto the face. I was able to retrieve my rappel gear this way.
Rating: Probably a 5.5 with pg13 protection. The upper section looked a little more lichen covered and it was less obvious that there would be protection up there.

Jumping on this route was remiscent of winter climbing. I'd reach up for the next hold and it would have snow on it. My fingers would freeze as I climbed high enough to get my feet up, then I'd get snow on my climbing shoes and they'd feel slick for the next few moves. This wasn't too bad for the start which had good protection, but when I got higher and the protection became scarcer, I wasn't too happy with this situation. Not one to take crazy risks on my soloist, I found a good rappel spot that happenned to be about half a rope length.

Next time: I'd like to climb the corner route which looks like a low-angled off-width. There was also a route marked by a piton in a steep seam just to the left of the corner which looked promising. The start looked cruxy, but the slabs above are what would worry me, because from a distance they do not look very protectable. An option would be to climb a different crack to the left of this and then rappel the route to see if it is protectable.

Christmas Day Bouldering: Pena Blanca

2008-12-25T20:29:00.000-08:00

Liz and I wanted to go for a hike with the dog, and the hike turned into a bouldering session for me. It's been a while since Liz came bouldering with me and with her as photographer, I actually have a number of decent pictures. We went to the Asian Boulders at Pena Blanca, and I tried some of the steeper lines that I wasn't too bold to try last time without a spotter. I still wasn't too bold on them, but had a good time none-the-less.

Here's me trying a "Annihilator". Lowell rates this V5 with a sit-down start. I didn't try the sit-down start, nor the top-out which looked like small holds over a bad landing. But the middle was fun.

And here's a traverse with Sasha spotting me.

I spent a while on "Asian School Girls", a V7 around the corner. The starting moves were really fun to puzzle out, and involved a diagonal slot which I had to transition from a side-pull to an undercling as I moved up on it. The top of the problem looked like the hard stuff, tiny crimps the rest of the way up.

I flashed the V2 that I did last time I was here. Then after working the other problems, I got back on the V2 for a photo and couldn't send it any more. Bouldering is hard for me like that. When I'm fresh out, I can hit moves relatively easily even without warming up. Once I'm "warm" I can no longer hit the moves. There was nothing terribly pumpy about the V2, it was mostly technical with tricky feet, but I somehow couldn't repeat it.

The Tooth: Tooth Fairy for Hannukah

2008-12-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

After the marathon rescue a few weeks ago, I was a little surprised that Ben Nadler was ready to go climbing with me again. This time, we chose a crag closer to the Organ Needle, so when the rescue call goes out we would be there already. It was a perfect day, cool and sunny, and perfectly warm. The approach up to the Tooth was a breeze, even with three dogs in tow. Ben brought his heeler-mutts Dyna and Mo so Sasha was in good company. We decided on climbing Tooth Fairy, mainly because it offered quality crack climbing and Ben seems to think cracks are the only thing worth climbing. Ben took the first lead, taking the standard start up the 5.8 crack. He cruised the pitch, even with terrible rope drag. I've done this pitch before, and should have danced up it, but the 5.9 corner crack caused me to hesitate. I racked up for the crux second pitch which also happens to be the most beautiful pitch of the climb. I don't remember this pitch being run-out, or all that difficult, but I was sweating it today. Before launching into the crux slab moves to establish myself into the crack seam, I must have stared at the wall for a good 5 minutes, thinking "how did I do this before". Eventually I gave up trying to remember and just climbed it, and the moves all became apparent as I reached them. When I got into the seam though, I found it difficult to place some gear. The start of the crack is a very shallow "two-finger" crack. I foolishly tried to through in some cams, and all the placements sucked. I wasn't on a good stance and was starting to sweat more as I fiddled with gear. I could throw out the excuse of using Ben's rack which was unfamiliar to me, but really I should have seen that a large wire-stopper would have been easy to place and just thrown one in. In stead, my arms started getting juiced and I labored up the crack, finally reaching the hand-jams and a good rest. A year after first climbing the route, where's my nerve, and climbing sauviness?

Fortunately for me, Ben took the last lead. The last pitch fights past a small oak in a crack, and then claws up some grassy cracks to a Sotol yucca. After the Sotol, there is a beautiful finger crack for the final headwall. when I climbed the route previously, I avoided all this by staying to the right on 5.8 grassy cracks. The direct finish is much better, but also stouter. Again I was glad Ben lead the pitch, he made the finger-crack look easy plugging in all sorts of gear. It took a good deal of my effort just to follow cleanly. Tight finger cracks are something I'll have to work on. Ben gave me a tip later which I'll have to try out. Instead of having your body hang off the finger jams, you can apply body tension using your abs to both help your fingers lock into the crack with less effort, and to cause your feet to press against the wall harder, allowing you to feel more stable on smaller foot-holds. Photo: Ben Nadler on the final pitch's finger crack.

We only had one rope to rappel the route, which works, but you have to rely on some sub-par rappel anchors, like 1/4" bolts and angle pitons.