Sugarloaf has a special appeal to Las Cruces climbers, it's uninterrupted North face stands out from all the jagged Organ peaks. Once again I found myself heading back to Sugarloaf to roam the expansive slabs. This time, with a fellow co-worker and OMTRS member, Ross Allen. Ross is at WSTF as part of an internship with NASA. I hadn't met him until an OMTRS event for some reason. Once I realized we'd both have the same off fridays, I invited him climbing. He was gung-ho about doing Sugarloaf, even though he's never climbed trad, and never done multi-pitch. I figure, he's frsh tuna I can exploit to do some new routes. So off we go.
I end up picking the Flea Tree Dihedral because it is shorter (only 6 pitches) and has easier route finding. That pretty much sums up the climbing on this route as compared to the other routes on Sugarloaf. To make things a little more interesting, I only brought five cams and relied on wires and tri-cams for most of the routes protection. This saved a lot of weight, and I rarely missed having the cams. I'd say that for most "moderate" Organ mountains routes, a light rack will suffice.
Route Description
P1: 60m of 4th and easy 5th class scrambling. I ended up belaying in a corner above a tattered poot sling which was cleverly threaded through a hole in a granite shelf. Easier scrambling looks possible more the the west where a broad ledge sports a couple trees.
P2: Another 60m of low fifth class climbing put me 15 ft below a two bolt anchor. Above the anchor is a sloping ledge and then the crux head-wall.
P3: At the far right end of the sloping ledge is a vertical head-wall. Hand cracks and good holds surmount the headwall (5.7) and an additional 60ft of 5.7 climbing gains a spacious alcove for a belay spot. To the left of the initial 5.7 crack is a very clean and appealing finger crack which slices up a smooth and steep slab. I'll ahve to look into this harder variation another day.
P4: Continue up the brush filled corner system with easier climbing. Off to the left, the steep face looks like it could offer a more challenging variation. A full 60 meters put me 25 ft short of the "Flea Tree" on a nice ledge.
P5: A few slabby 5.6 moves are required and then climb past the flea-tree to a final headwall. We climbed the head-wall direct, which felt 5.8 and was fairly exiting on lead as the pro is at the bottom of the headwall (which is 5 ft high). An easier exit to the right exists.
P6: 4th class to the top (only about 30 m). You end up on the summit close to the descent ridge.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
A quickie at Cueva
It's been a long time since I've done any real climbing. So after one of the OMTRS technical training days at La Cueva, I harnessed the enthusiasm of three team members to stick around and climb some routes. For one of the team members, it was his first outdoor climbing experience and he was totally psyched, even though the route was a little crumbly, had awkward position in a chimney, and he had to borrow my climbing shoes which didn't fit all that well. none the less, he was stoked. It turns out all three of the climbers work out on NASA rd and one of them even is in the Propulsion department with me.
We only had time to get in one route, the chimney I dubbed Backscratcher.But it felt good to rope up again, and show people some climbing basics. Hopefully, I can make climbing at Cueva a regular event.
We only had time to get in one route, the chimney I dubbed Backscratcher.But it felt good to rope up again, and show people some climbing basics. Hopefully, I can make climbing at Cueva a regular event.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
East Slabs of Sugarloaf: A climbers Civic Duty
My second trip to these impressive slabs, but this time I brought my rope-soloing gear, and something else: In a response to my posting on www.Mountainproject.com, a climber mentioned that many of the old bolts on this slab needed replacing. I happen to have three bolts that were left to me by Charlie Cundiff, a former Las Cruces hard-man and excellent adventurer. My goal was to climb the route mentioned in the on-line post and replace some of the bolts.
This was my first multi-pitched rope-solo, and one of the great joys I found about this technique is the opportunity to climb each pitch twice. The first pitch I led by meandering in from the left where there was good protection, and then past the first (and only) bolt I meandered to the right where I found a little more protection before zagging back to the left to the anchors. I hung my pack at the anchor, rappelled down and cleaned my gear, but now on top-rope, I didn't hesitate to climb directly up to my pack. >>
The second pitch I also meandered to the right, looking for protection. I probably strayed too far because I ended up at the belay for the next route over. Directly to my left about 30ft was the anchor I was supposed to be heading for, but I hadn't seen any protection that direction. No matter, I set my anchor and traversed over to the "right" anchor before rappelling down. The correct route it turns out is almost un-protecable. There was a single old button-head bolt about 60ft below the anchor, and 80 ft above the lower anchor. And that was it. The second anchor also had old and suspicous looking bolts, one of which had a piece of aluminum angle for a hanger. I rummaged through my ruck-sack, and pulled out the tools I thought I needed to replace a bolt: crow-bar, hammer, a pair of pitons of different widths.
The basic premise is to wedge the pitons under the bolt until it starts coming out. At which point try to pry it out the rest of the way. I spent a good half hour on my first try, hammering those pitons in from every angle and trying in vain to use my little crowbar. I managed to get the bolt out about 1/2", but at that point I was ready to give up. One other tool I'll need to look into is a "funk-ness" device. This is basically a stout metal wire that you attach to your hammer and the bolt, and then swing the hammer out to put force on the bolt. I tried this with some cord I had, but the cord was too elastic to be effective. Eventually I simply whacked the head of the bolt off. This done, I spent another 1/2hr drilling a new hole and installing my new bolt. It is now wonder why climbers do not do this often, it is hot, sweaty and tiresome work, and takes up lots of your climbing day. But on a pitch with only a single bolt for protection, why take chances on an old button-head? 
I finally finished climbing up the pitch to the anchor, where I set to work on the bolt with the aluminum hanger (shown above). This one went faster because the aluminum was soft enough where the hanger yielded around the head of the bolt (note to self, avoid aluminum hangers) and once the hanger was off, I pounded the button-head in until it was flush with the rock and drilled my new bolt.
>>>
As you can see, I didn't replace the old 1/4" stud. I was starting to worry about time, and the anchor now has one good bolt, so it's that much safer.
The third pitch wasn't all that great, but the fourth pitch was beautiful: a pair of splitter cracks surmounting a 10 ft head-wall. I led up the right hand one, ~5.8, set my anchor and enjoyed the left-hand crack on top-rope. The left-hand being the harder of the two, involved a thin finger/finger tips crack in a right facing corner. It only lasted for about two strenuous moves, but they were a nice challenge compared to the rest of the climb, probably weighing in around 5.9.
Overall I made four pitches feel like 8 pitches of climbing (finishing of the last pitch solo, easy slab) and was exhausted. More about the climb at Mountainproject.com . More about my exhaustion at The Hobsonian.
This was my first multi-pitched rope-solo, and one of the great joys I found about this technique is the opportunity to climb each pitch twice. The first pitch I led by meandering in from the left where there was good protection, and then past the first (and only) bolt I meandered to the right where I found a little more protection before zagging back to the left to the anchors. I hung my pack at the anchor, rappelled down and cleaned my gear, but now on top-rope, I didn't hesitate to climb directly up to my pack. >>The second pitch I also meandered to the right, looking for protection. I probably strayed too far because I ended up at the belay for the next route over. Directly to my left about 30ft was the anchor I was supposed to be heading for, but I hadn't seen any protection that direction. No matter, I set my anchor and traversed over to the "right" anchor before rappelling down. The correct route it turns out is almost un-protecable. There was a single old button-head bolt about 60ft below the anchor, and 80 ft above the lower anchor. And that was it. The second anchor also had old and suspicous looking bolts, one of which had a piece of aluminum angle for a hanger. I rummaged through my ruck-sack, and pulled out the tools I thought I needed to replace a bolt: crow-bar, hammer, a pair of pitons of different widths.
The basic premise is to wedge the pitons under the bolt until it starts coming out. At which point try to pry it out the rest of the way. I spent a good half hour on my first try, hammering those pitons in from every angle and trying in vain to use my little crowbar. I managed to get the bolt out about 1/2", but at that point I was ready to give up. One other tool I'll need to look into is a "funk-ness" device. This is basically a stout metal wire that you attach to your hammer and the bolt, and then swing the hammer out to put force on the bolt. I tried this with some cord I had, but the cord was too elastic to be effective. Eventually I simply whacked the head of the bolt off. This done, I spent another 1/2hr drilling a new hole and installing my new bolt. It is now wonder why climbers do not do this often, it is hot, sweaty and tiresome work, and takes up lots of your climbing day. But on a pitch with only a single bolt for protection, why take chances on an old button-head? 
I finally finished climbing up the pitch to the anchor, where I set to work on the bolt with the aluminum hanger (shown above). This one went faster because the aluminum was soft enough where the hanger yielded around the head of the bolt (note to self, avoid aluminum hangers) and once the hanger was off, I pounded the button-head in until it was flush with the rock and drilled my new bolt.>>>
As you can see, I didn't replace the old 1/4" stud. I was starting to worry about time, and the anchor now has one good bolt, so it's that much safer.
The third pitch wasn't all that great, but the fourth pitch was beautiful: a pair of splitter cracks surmounting a 10 ft head-wall. I led up the right hand one, ~5.8, set my anchor and enjoyed the left-hand crack on top-rope. The left-hand being the harder of the two, involved a thin finger/finger tips crack in a right facing corner. It only lasted for about two strenuous moves, but they were a nice challenge compared to the rest of the climb, probably weighing in around 5.9.
Overall I made four pitches feel like 8 pitches of climbing (finishing of the last pitch solo, easy slab) and was exhausted. More about the climb at Mountainproject.com . More about my exhaustion at The Hobsonian.
Friday, May 2, 2008
East Slabs of Sugarloaf
Over a month and no climbing, so what do I go and do on my first climb? I go and solo a long 5.5 in the Organs on a slab I've never been to before. To be fair, I've been to Sugarloaf many times, and am pretty familiar with the approach. But the East Slabs aren't even really in sight during the approach. I felt like exploring today. I took my climbing shoes, harness and a light rack and rope "just in case" and Sasha and I struck out for the slabs.
At a small saddle before the slabs I came across a nice camp where it appears that climbers have stock-piled supplies. It looks like the stuff has been un-touched for a long time, and if I needed the water, I'd use it. The rest of the gear was in pretty sorry shape, but the camp looked cozy and I'm already thinking about who I can convince to spend a week-end up there climbing all the slab routes.
At the base of the slabs, I tied Sasha up and scouted out the routes. I was able to identify the starts of most of them, and the rock was beautiful and inviting. Slabs so mellow you could run up them, lumpy hand-holds through-out. After my quick scouting, I decided I'd jump onto the Normal Route.
The start of the route>>
I had a light rack of nuts and tri-cams, as well as my aid hook and a 30 m rope. This is how I justify doing risky things, telling myself if I get sketched out I can simply put in some pro and get through or bail. I should have brought a bolt-kit too, because there isn't much pro you can place on a slab.
I didn't get sketched out though, in fact I felt good. Calm and steady, I made my way up the route. I took my time, and paused frequently to check the topo I had. The light was strong, my focus was good and I let the accumulated stress of the last few weeks flush out of me.
I don't solo climb often, and I always prefer to climb roped up. I thought about this as I made my way over the delicate slab, how much of a difference a rope can make. ON climbs like this one, even being roped up doesn't help much because there are sections of slab over a hundred feet long without any protection. But still, knowing that if something were to go wrong, you have a safety net is a big psychological effect. And it kept my mind occupied for the first 200 ft or so. At some point though, I stopped thinking about how I was doing something potentially dangerous, and simply let myself wander over the rock, and follow the contours and cracks. Exploring and investigating different possibilities. Looking around myself and seeing blank but welcoming rock.
Hopefully I'll be back at those slabs again, preferably with a partner. For now though, I'll curl up with Liz and sleep soundly and contentedly.
At a small saddle before the slabs I came across a nice camp where it appears that climbers have stock-piled supplies. It looks like the stuff has been un-touched for a long time, and if I needed the water, I'd use it. The rest of the gear was in pretty sorry shape, but the camp looked cozy and I'm already thinking about who I can convince to spend a week-end up there climbing all the slab routes.At the base of the slabs, I tied Sasha up and scouted out the routes. I was able to identify the starts of most of them, and the rock was beautiful and inviting. Slabs so mellow you could run up them, lumpy hand-holds through-out. After my quick scouting, I decided I'd jump onto the Normal Route.
The start of the route>>
I had a light rack of nuts and tri-cams, as well as my aid hook and a 30 m rope. This is how I justify doing risky things, telling myself if I get sketched out I can simply put in some pro and get through or bail. I should have brought a bolt-kit too, because there isn't much pro you can place on a slab.
I didn't get sketched out though, in fact I felt good. Calm and steady, I made my way up the route. I took my time, and paused frequently to check the topo I had. The light was strong, my focus was good and I let the accumulated stress of the last few weeks flush out of me.
I don't solo climb often, and I always prefer to climb roped up. I thought about this as I made my way over the delicate slab, how much of a difference a rope can make. ON climbs like this one, even being roped up doesn't help much because there are sections of slab over a hundred feet long without any protection. But still, knowing that if something were to go wrong, you have a safety net is a big psychological effect. And it kept my mind occupied for the first 200 ft or so. At some point though, I stopped thinking about how I was doing something potentially dangerous, and simply let myself wander over the rock, and follow the contours and cracks. Exploring and investigating different possibilities. Looking around myself and seeing blank but welcoming rock.
Hopefully I'll be back at those slabs again, preferably with a partner. For now though, I'll curl up with Liz and sleep soundly and contentedly.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
OMTRS: Tyrolean traverse
The OMTRS did its annual Tyrolean traverse training at La Cueva last Saturday. There was a lot of equipment involved: large tripods to set up anchor points, pulleys galore, ropes, emergency litters, the whole shebang. This being my first exposure to technical rescue techniques I mostly sat back and watched the experienced members of the team run things. A lot of the rescue techniques are new to me, but the equipment is all pretty familiar and I do not doubt that I'll be able to pick up this skills with a little practice. My only complaint is that everyone was too occupied fiddling with rescue gear to want to go climbing. Next time...
Saturday, March 8, 2008
North rabbit Ear: Awful Buttress
Today felt like mountaineering. Cold winds buffetted us through-out the day, and I was actually forced to climb in a toque and wind-breaker. Scott and I stabbed at the North Rabbit Ear, blundering onto a route called Awful Buttress . For some reason the name failed to ward us off, but the main reason we ended up on this climb was it was the one route with a descrption that I could vaguely follow up the North-West face of the NRE. One thing we forgot to account for was that the descent was off the south-face, and unless we wanted an additional hour of scrambling/bushwhacking, we needed to climb with our packs. Another reason that it felt like mountaineering...
The meat of the climb was dealing with chimneys and off-widths. Having packs on made this more difficult than it should have been, as well as scarier. Below the crux pitch was a delicate face traverse under the lip of a roof, at which point Scott started looking for alternatives. Instead of completing the traverse, he convinced me to abandon the crux pitch and attempt a corner system 100 ft to the right. This also ended up to be a chimney (last pitch of the PeaPod route I think), and for once we got smart, and dropped our packs to make the squeeze chimney climbable. We then angled back left on a rising flake and re-joined the Awful Buttress route just above the crux off-width.
Of historical note, the last entry in the summit register was May, 2004. This doesn't really surprise me as Dennis Jackson omits the Rabbit Ears from his guide, and local beta is hard to come by. A lonely peak on a windy day. I thumbed through the register to an entry in the 70's, Dick Ingraham's second ascent (solo) of the NRE, where he rants about the soon-to-be-built Aguirre springs campground. I sometimes wish that the Organs had better access. Roads that any car could get up, a network of maintained trails. While these would make climbing up here so much easier and more accesible, I also see the beauty that Ingraham saw: rugged inaccessible mountains, that will stay that way as long as roads and trails are absent. A proving ground only for the truly determined and adventurous. A bastion of wildness only a stone's throw away.
The meat of the climb was dealing with chimneys and off-widths. Having packs on made this more difficult than it should have been, as well as scarier. Below the crux pitch was a delicate face traverse under the lip of a roof, at which point Scott started looking for alternatives. Instead of completing the traverse, he convinced me to abandon the crux pitch and attempt a corner system 100 ft to the right. This also ended up to be a chimney (last pitch of the PeaPod route I think), and for once we got smart, and dropped our packs to make the squeeze chimney climbable. We then angled back left on a rising flake and re-joined the Awful Buttress route just above the crux off-width.
Of historical note, the last entry in the summit register was May, 2004. This doesn't really surprise me as Dennis Jackson omits the Rabbit Ears from his guide, and local beta is hard to come by. A lonely peak on a windy day. I thumbed through the register to an entry in the 70's, Dick Ingraham's second ascent (solo) of the NRE, where he rants about the soon-to-be-built Aguirre springs campground. I sometimes wish that the Organs had better access. Roads that any car could get up, a network of maintained trails. While these would make climbing up here so much easier and more accesible, I also see the beauty that Ingraham saw: rugged inaccessible mountains, that will stay that way as long as roads and trails are absent. A proving ground only for the truly determined and adventurous. A bastion of wildness only a stone's throw away.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Dona An Mts, Charlie's route on V-dome
It's been a long week and it was looking like I wouldn't be able to go out climbing. I got called in to work on Saturday and couldn't join the OMTRS at Percha Creek. But since I've been getting up early consectuively for such a longs spell, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get up early this morning and tackle a short route the Charlie Cundiff showed me a year ago in the Dona Anas. The route is located on the dome in front of the Checkerboard wall, and we dubbed it Vedauwoo Dome because of the parallel wide-cracks that we climbed there last year. Last years trip with Charlie was a follow up trip for him, as he had already climbed one of the best looking lines on the formation, and dubbed it "Cultural Learnings of America" after some movie. Liz got up with me early this morning and we dragged the dog out there to try it for ourselves.
Cultural Learnings of America
I didn't remember the approach being too difficult, the usual scrambling up boulders and dodging the prickly plants. KLiz and Sasha felt otherwise. We slowly picked our way up to the gully beneath the route and when Liz saw that I expected her to continue scrambling up the 4rth class gully, she put her foot down. We roped up for the gully. The climb itself was a great little route. The business was the first 20 ft, which were steep, dark, and dirty. Absolutely no evidence of Charlie's FA is left, and I felt as though I was making the first ascent all over again; brushing off the dust and dirt, cleaning out the cracks before trusting my jams, carefully testing the rock for soundness.
CLA is the shaded corner on the right side of the Dome.
Cultural Learnings of America
I didn't remember the approach being too difficult, the usual scrambling up boulders and dodging the prickly plants. KLiz and Sasha felt otherwise. We slowly picked our way up to the gully beneath the route and when Liz saw that I expected her to continue scrambling up the 4rth class gully, she put her foot down. We roped up for the gully. The climb itself was a great little route. The business was the first 20 ft, which were steep, dark, and dirty. Absolutely no evidence of Charlie's FA is left, and I felt as though I was making the first ascent all over again; brushing off the dust and dirt, cleaning out the cracks before trusting my jams, carefully testing the rock for soundness.
CLA is the shaded corner on the right side of the Dome.
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