Begehungen in Sandia Mountain

14.5 hours car to car. With Mark. Mark led pitches 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, & 12; I led pitches 3, 4, 6, 9, & 11. We unroped for pitch 8. I clipped loose and rusted pitons, slung trees, almost pulled a microwave-sized block onto myself, wiggled up strange slabby off-widths—in other words, had a full-on Sandia day!

10.5 hours car to car. With Denise! Led all pitches except for the first half of pitch 4, which Denise led. Combined the first two pitches on accident. Simul-climbed from the top of pitch 4 on.

Led pitches 1 & 3 clean, followed pitches 2 and 4. Hung on the rope briefly on pitch 2 when trying to get a half-stuck cam out. Mark wanted to do the 5.10a final pitch variation, but we wound up doing the 5.8 because a deep fog had filled the canyon and we didn't want to get stuck in bad weather. Pitches 1 and 3 were my first 5.8 trad leads. Pitch 1 felt fun and comfy, pitch 3 felt like it was right on the limit for me.

Didn't seem like this gets climbed too often (lichen and mud in a lot of the cracks, some loose rock), but it was a fun route! I led the first and third pitches, Mark led the second. The second pitch was my first experience with off-width climbing. I enjoyed it, but was also glad it was short and I wasn't on lead.

I led the first pitch, Mark led the second. The climbing on the first pitch was easy, but gear was a little hard to come by (at least to my still somewhat untrained eye). On the second pitch Mark climbed above the obvious 5.6 rightward traverse to create a much more difficult traverse on tiny footholds immediately under the roof. Some fun spice to end the climb!

Super clean and continuous crack and it's fun to follow a single line all the way up. We split it into two pitches, I led the first and Mark the second.

Followed Mark. Fun route! Would like to come back and lead it

Tried to lead the first pitch but it seemed too spicy for where I am currently as a trad leader. Got up to the top of the wide-ish crack below the layback and then decided to downclimb. Followed Mark on both pitches. Very fun climbing, especially the lieback! We had some routefinding difficulties on pitch two

Another good assent of an old favorite.

A real mental workout.

It was better than I expected. I was going to do the 5.9 unknown, which is all stemming and layback on a crack in a corner, but I wound up instead using more face than corner.

Fritz's toe was sore; so only I climbed it, twice. But it was just what I needed. Then storms threatened.

Fritz and I had to rap down and climb out to do this one. A little unnerving considering it had some loose, formed a steep gully and protecting yourself on belay slightly iffy.

Weird weather; high winds, heavy clouds, scud, spotty rain;so we decided to do something easy.

The ambitious climb of the year (so far) for Fritz and me. There's 5.8 on every pitch, and if we dared we could do the last pitch as 5.9 or 5.10. Didn't drink enough water so my fingers cramped up on the last pitch. As we finished little droplets started spitting from the sky.

First pitch a bit ledgy.

Fritz led the hard lead. I led the easy one. There are almost 3 5.8 cruxes (if that's possible).

The climb encourages some exquisite moves 30 to 40 feet up second pitch. It was a learning experience leading the first 10 feet of the climb. Was fortunate to lead most of the climb.

A truly delightful climb!!!

The standard ascent route starts up a chimney with some loose 20 to 40 pound boulders you need to hang on to climb it, so I moved 15' around the corner up a face (Fritz pointed out) which still had some, much more manageable loose rocks, for the first pitch. The rest was on the standard route.

Don't know if it's been climbed before; probably has. About 20+ feet left of West Face direct. Crack curves to the right and edges are roundded.

Listed in Hill's Guide to the Sandias as 5.6, actually 5.8. Big crack swallows up #3.5 Camalots. We had to reuse the sameone three times on the climb. Took a tumble near the top, made it on next try. Real pumpy. We had to climb, set pro, go down and rest, switch leads, climb further, set pro go down and rest, etc.

Toward the top I got ancy about making the moves I wanted (layback to mantle), because the ton and a half rock I wanted to use moves. So I went up a rather nasty little chimney (pumpy 5.7-5.7+).

I led the first, very fun, marginally offwidth crack and Fritz led the second offwidth.

We started about 100' to the right of Lost Line. The route joins Lost Line at the second belay point. Top half of the Third pitch features a fun arete (total 5 pitches). Slings at first belay point indicate it's been climbed often on.

Pitch one is terrific. If pitch two weren't so short and loose I would have given it "classic" status. We approached via Torreon, then scrambled down the S side of the Mexican Breakfast formation (though I think you could easily hike down the N side). After climbing, we hiked out the La Luz. That probably took us an extra half-hour, but it was less strenuous and more scenic.

My rope is only about 145' long now, so we synchro-climbed part of the route. Fritz led 90% of it. He did a great job on a route that leant itself to complex climbing styles.

Great climb. I set the first peice and backed down, My buddy Jim, set the next peice and another peice real close and backed down. I finished leading the climb. The guide book says two pitchs but I made it in one with a short 50m rope (part of it was cut off) and with my buddy Jim simil-climbing to the first piece (10-15 ft up).

Led the bottom pitch and toproped the top pitch a coupla months ago. Then I seconded it with Carl D. I'm starting to grock the possibilities on the crux moves on the first pitch.

This rock has some great moderate face moves (a test for my limits), I would say classic despite the route described below. We set out to climb West Face Direct, but when I got to the cliff face about 15ft to the left and below the starting bolts of West Face Direct, I decided to try going straight up on some face and crack moves. I made it approximately 2/3rds the way up the face and crack when I was stopped by difficult move to get up to some knobs above me. I lowered and traversed over to the West Face Direct crack, traversed farther left, and set a belay on the West Face Travers ledge between West Face Direct and the West Face Traverse 1st pitch. We finished the climb on the 5.5 face of the West Face Traverse second pitch.

For one pitch this climb was great. The most fun I've had in a long time. Jim lowered me back down to top roped it a second time.