The entire climb pretty much follows the large crack system.
P1: 5.7 Climb up the crack, easy at first, but the bolts are spaced further apart. There are some 5.7 moves shortly before the belay. 100 feet.
P2: 5.9 Continue up crack using stemming, face climbing and some hand jams along the way. The book said this was 5.8, but it felt plenty harder than that. This is a long pitch with some wayward bolts, so use slings when necessary. 138 feet to a 5 bolt anchor and a nice belay stance.
P3: 5.7 airy. 12 feet. 1 good bolt, then 3 rusty rings, then a chain anchor on either side of the top. To finish the climb, gently walk a few feet over the loose blocks to the summit and stand tall.
Descent: Lower one person down 12 feet to the good anchors. Then only one person has to rap off a single chain. From top of pitch 2 do a long rap to anchors on Gettin' Wood (down and upslope a little) Then another long rap to the ground. We did the raps with a 70m rope, but had extra each time.
Location
On the shady side of the downhill spire at large crack/chimney looking feature.
By Jason Halladay From: Los Alamos, NM Jan 1, 2008 rating: 5.8
It's a shame there isn't a better anchor setup on the summit because setting up a belay just 10 feet below the summit and doing all the shenanigans to get up to the top and back down to the top of P2 is time-consuming and awkward. In any case, a better finish than going up the standard P3 with crappy rings for protection is to make an airy step left from the top of P2 to the nicely bolted east face. The climbing is no more than 5.7 there too. Using two 60m ropes tied together we were able to rap from the top of P2 all the way down to the ground going over the route Gettin Wood.
This routes can be dangerous. We didn't have a problem, but it felt sketchy and I was worried about loose rock the whole time. The next day - another couple pulled a more-than-human sized boulder off the second pitch that came tumbling to the path below. I would say, avoid the route since there are countless better climbs here.
Las Agujas (The Spires)
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