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!
BETA PHOTO: The Left end of Below The old New Place. Bolted r...
Description
This crag is known for its high concentration of fully-bolted sport climbs, that ascend high quality pocketed basalt. This cliff probably has the highest concentration of hard routes at White Rock, with 10 of its 30 or so routes checking in at 5.12. The cliff also offers an excellent cliff-base atmosphere, with large, flat belay zones, flat rocks for sitting, and a beautiful, relaxed setting. The routes are so convenient and dense that its easy to tick 10 or more routes in an afternoon.
The cliff faces generally East like most WR crags, but the dihedral-ly nature of the cliff causes a bit more sun/shade variety than other nearby crags. The most norhterly facing routes get shade a bit after 1pm, while some routes aren't fully shaded till after 3pm.
While the rock here is excellent, the crag is a bit short (~50-60 feet), and many of the climbs suffer from mud runoff, coating routes like Sardonic Smile in a thick layer of dirt. Its easy to spot the dirty routes from the ground: they're the ones that look white or light gray.
Getting There
Stolen from Jason H: From NM4, turn south on Rover Blvd. Turn left on the first street on your left, Meadow Lane. Stay on Meadow Lane for 1.3 miles and park near 719 Meadow Lane. Please respect the homeowners and don't block mailboxes or driveways. A concrete public access trail heads down between 719 and 721 Meadow Lane. You'll know you're on the correct trail if two large, seemingly nasty, Golden Retriever dogs are barking at you. At the end of the concrete veer slightly left and continue straight towards the cliffs. Once at the canyon rim, turn left and walk N for ~50 yds, along the top of "The Old New Place". Locate an easy descent path (one 6 foot downclimb) that switches back down past the Old New Place (to the S), and eventually leads to the S end of Below The Old New Place. Total approach time is ~5 minutes. First bolted routes encountered are Scandinavian Airlines and Inflight Movie.
A beautiful slightly-overhanging-but-locker finger crack with 'just enough' footholds on the face goes to a bulge where the rock changes texture near the top. Here, a solitary hand jam provides a welcome rest before a couple of thin, cruxy face moves to easier ground. Bear a little to the right up high to reach the anchors. Originally rated 5.11c/d, but general consensus is that this is a notch or two easier....[more]
Ditto on the improvements to the approach trail and anchors - thanks!
To anyone looking to climb at Below the Old New Place: Please keep in mind that there are now "fixed" carabiners on several of the routes (Flesh Eating Gnats, Wailing Banshees, Monsterpiece Theater). Recently, somebody took the carabiners off the anchor chains on Flesh Eating Gnats! This happened sometime between April 15th and April 29th. Remember: carabiners on anchors are not booty! They have been generously donated to the crag to facilitate cleaning/lowering, so please leave them there. Thanks!
Below The Old New Place
Print a Mini-Guide - Includes Routes!
RSS Feed
