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!
Description
This climb is one of the cleanest and longest face climbs at the Y, and is the classic 5.10 at this crag. It starts just right of the cave.
Begin with a traverse to the right, then up 5.8/9 cracks to a slot with an awkward mantle move (well-protected with nuts). Above is the crux of the route, where you reach the cracks whose outline resembles the state of Wisconsin. Gear is tricky to find here, but is good. This section is usually passed with a funky lieback on the right side to a high reach. Small gear can be placed atop the 'Wisconsin' flake, then run it out to the top on 5.8/9 cracks, or place marginal nuts.
Some longtime locals say things like "if you know what you're doing, you don't need to do a move harder than 5.9". Maybe so, maybe it's 'only 5.9' after your 25th time?
Location
This climb is on the north side, starting just to the right of the obvious cave. It heads nearly straight up a slightly overhanging crack system with the cracks 2/3 of the way up describing a shape that loosely resembles like the state of Wisconsin.
Protection
I protect this with 1 set nuts + 1 Yellow #2 Camalot (or other big hand size cam). Some may want some finger size cams too. And whatever you need for an anchor.
This is a memorable route. How can the FFA occur before the FA?
By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM May 23, 2008
Thanks, my mistake... corrected. A whole paragraph about the interesting history of this climb can be found on this page of the LA Mtneers history section The history section of "Jemez Rock" also mentions this climb.
This climb has seen a solo ascent by Mark Schraad.
Glad you enjoyed it. I did too. Leading this climb opened my eyes to view harder 5.10s and 5.11s at White Rock as being within my ability to try to lead.
By Jason Hundhausen From: Los Alamos, NM May 23, 2008 rating: 5.10c PG13
Correction: This climb has seen an inadvertent, toprope-turned-freesolo ascent by Mark Schraad, when an extraordinarily inane student in the LA Mountaineers' course took apart the anchor before checking to see if anybody was climbing up. Needless to say, it was the last time Mr. Schraad volunteered to teach with the Mountaineers.
Yipes! My dad threw up a bunch of topropes on these cliffs in the mid 70's, it was my first rock climbing experience. I don't think I managed to make it up this route back then, but I came back 20 years later to finally climb it (on toprope). The basalt was always so slippery and hot in the summer!
George...first place I climbed at in NM back in 1972 with the St. John's Search and Rescue Team. I remember some little kid running around causing trouble...:)
Mike Roybal was a extremely talented climber and there was a really cool crew of climbers in Santa Fe at that time.
North Wall of the Y
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