My mom on lead (and approaching the crux) of Garde...
Description
A fun and long (for Las Conchas) climb on the heavily featured and somewhat vegetated wall just left of Drive By Shooting. The crux, like many of the climbs at Las Conchas, is getting off the ground. One can meander all around this wall with its many features.
For a long time this wall was top-roped off the tree at the top. Anchors and a route up this wall were bolted in late 2006.
Lines can be and have been led on this wall using gear but no one line was ever identified and the gear was funky in flaring pockets of fairly crumbly rock. For those reasons I picked one of the more natural lines on the wall and established this bolt-protected line. Gear-protected climbing can still be done on either side of this bolted line and still make use of the bolted anchor.
Location
Shown as route #4 on route topo photo for Las Conchas Gateway Rock.
Start the route 20 feet left of "Drive By Shooting" on Entrance Rock. A good walk off or walk up to set the top rope can be done by going towards the highway on the trail for about 50 yards and following an obvious trail up.
Also makes for an interesting lead on natural gear. In general, I would say the quality of the protection is less than ideal though, so keep that in mind. I was able to get about three bomber pieces and another three or four less than ideal placements while staying pretty much in line with the bolts. I'm sure more exist - tricams would've come in handy for some of the horizontal placements. This is something I've wanted to do for a while, just because I knew it'd go, but I can't say I'll do it again.
In a sense, it's good that this route got retro bolted (it was a trad lead and had been so for many years). More people do it now and it takes some pressure off the other nearby similar rated climbs. Perhaps its the ethic of the day and so maybe Forest will also be retro bolted and there will be another line that people will do more often.
That's sort of a gray area in my opinion, Marc. And I don't think it speaks to the ethic of the day. My feeling on this was it's an entire wall and never was one route really identified as "the route" so yes, I took it upon myself to pick what looked like the best line (no doubt climbed before) and bolt protect it. I did ask around to see if I could identify an FA but that was not fruitful because of the vagueness of the actual route and fact that it had probably been soloed by high school kids in tennis shoes in the way back.
Other contributing factors to placing the bolts are how poor the rock is for natural protection and the fact that people were always tying off from that tree at the top for TRing.
I do agree it's nice that it does take off some pressure from nearby routes and Cattle Call Wall. It also seems extremely popular as a bolt-protected route. Sure I may not have been "right" to bolt a line there but based on the popularity of the line, I'd say it was OK to do so.
Regarding (07) Forest, it does have FAs identified (Cam Burns, Mike Schillaci) and I'm sure they'd have an opinion on the idea of retroing it.
By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM Sep 10, 2009 rating: 5.6
Most of the Cattle Call Wall sport climbs were all also bolted years after they had been climbed first, on TR if not on lead. Whether or not you or I approve of that from an ethical stance, it's now the most popular/crowded cliff in New Mexico in my estimation. 'The people' clearly appreciate having sport-bolted 5.6-5.8s at scenic Las Conchas; most of them don't know or don't care that someone climbed them w/out bolts back-in-the-day.
I'm reminded of a "entertaining" event there once. We were climbing (05) Drive By Shooting when this group of middle school-aged kids walked by and one started saying, "look y'all, those climbers need ropes to climb that stuff but look at it, it's easy. I don't need a rope, watch this..." and the kid headed up the Garden Wall while being egged on by his friends, "yeah, man, show 'em how it's done!" The kid got higher and higher and was definitely well above the point of no return (no easy downclimbing and closer to the top). He paused and looked around with a look of nervousness on his face that was equal to or greater than the looks of nervousness on our faces. He committed to the finish and topped out unscathed. While his friends cheered him on, I'm pretty sure he was thinking he wouldn't do that again.
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