Welcome to the New Mexico section of Mountain Project!
The contributions that are made to this site are greatly appreciated; this site is made up of an awesome community of users that make the site what it is.
Although there is very little information regarding “rules” for submitting climbing areas and routes to this site, the New Mexico Administers all agree that the following guidelines may be helpful to truly make this site go “Beyond the Guidebook”.
1) Don’t be a jerk (this one states the obvious). 2) Route and area submissions should truly be helpful to those out climbing. Before posting, you should have some first hand experience actually climbing the route. This always results in a much more useful description. 3) Please, please, please… Don’t copy route descriptions directly out of guidebooks, online publications, etc. This is plagiarism! Remember, BEYOND the guidebook! 4) Please use the spell check and make an effort to use correct grammar.
Again, the Mountainproject community truly appreciates the efforts taken to make good route descriptions. If you feel that a route or area description is not up to standard, a brief email to one of the area admins for suggestions on improvement will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for taking the time to make the New Mexico section of Mountain Project quality! We look forward to seeing you out there!
Looking at the sport area from the trad area.
Description
Fun, vertical to overhanging “conglomerate matrix of metamorphosed sand and mud with inclusions of smooth, rounded cobbles of all sizes. The cobbles, and the holes they leave when they fall out of the matrix, form excellent holds that allow relatively moderate climbing for such steep rock. Fully overhanging routes can be below 5.11, and anything less than vertical will probably clock in at 5.8 or below. All routes are sport bolted, so you can concentrate on the climbing instead of the protection.” (text copied from Gary Clark's online guide: http://www.lamountaineers.org/Elrito/sport.htm)
Getting There
El Rito is located about 50 miles north of Santa Fe (please see a road map to find El Rito). From the east end of the village, turn north on Forest Road 44 (dirt). Drive 3.75 miles from the pavement, and park to the left just after the sign “Cañada del Potrero.” Camping is available at several locations up this spur road, which ends in about a half-mile. Now walk across the road to a trail paralleling it headed south. The trail crosses a bridge, then turns south up the sidehill to the crags. (~15 min.)
Beautiful line with the Crux getting from the first to the second bolt. Belayer should be attentive here, as there is a large block at the base of the climb that would suck to hit. There seems to be a mild lack of concencous in rating this route, as the online guide calls it 5.12a, and the "Taos Rock" calls it 5.11d/.12a. It seems to me to be on the lower end, .11d. ...[more]
Unless you have titanium testicles bring a stick clip. B1 is consistently well off the deck. This is an odd concept for my feeble mind to grasp. Why create a route with a serious groundfall risk on the start, then bolt the remainder into submission?
For purposes of comparison: If these routes were in AZ or CO they would usually get a full number grade less than the online guide gives for the difficulty.
Kudos to the developer(s) for the excellent lower out anchors. All sport routes would benefit from a similar setup. I'm sure the cost was not minimal.
Overall this is one of the best sport areas I've seen for both the average as well as the elite climber: Beautiful surroundings, nice approach trail, unique rock with interesting features. Clark's online guide is a gem. Well done Gary...!
Gary Clark's naclassics.com website is no more but never fear! The online content from his site moved to the LA Mountaineers website including the excellent El Rito Sport guide.
a full number grade, come on now. I think these routes are graded pretty similar to rifle, Where in Az has steep climbing like this besides "Dry Creek"?
FYI, Gary Clark's PDF guide to the El Rito Sport Crags has been fully updated to include the 12 new routes that have been established since the PDF was last updated in 2006. Get it at El Rito Sport guide.
El Rito Sport Area
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