Organ Mountain Summit Blitz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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