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!
Russel Peterson, Mike Roybal, Kathy Kocon and Stev...
Description
Potrillo cliffs is the primo beginner toproping/trad area in White Rock, and was the first major basalt cliff "discovered" for climbing in White Rock. The cliff has two faces: one facing south, and one facing west, so you can find sun or shade as you like.
It's a great place for the beginning trad leader, as the cliff is short, hosts many 5.6-5.9 routes, and the pro is great. The cliff is a little shorter than most at White Rock (45'), but for the more experienced there are a number of compelling 5.10 climbs and a few harder ones.
Bolts were once installed here to provide anchors and prevent damage to the trees, but these were chopped by unknown "elitists". At present, many people anchor off the trees, or set anchors with trad gear (recommended).
Take NM state road 4 just south of White Rock, turn onto Monterey South. Stay on Monterey South, to Potrillo Rd, where you take a right. Take this until you can turn right on Estante Rd. Follow Estante around a left turn to a pullout just past a fire hydrant on the right side. Park here and don't block the hydrant or the mailboxes. Walk the trail south 100yds, where it forks, take the trail heading right. Follow this to a "Government Property" sign, and head left on a faint trail or cross-country to the cliff top. To get to the base, scramble down the east side of the cliffs. Should take about 10 minutes.
I agree that anchors at some of these other areas would be helpful and would help to spread out many of the people who tend to not carry long webbing or static lines or who don't have a rack of gear to set up anchors. A problem at many areas in White Rock are that the trees are dying due to drought and bark beetle invasion.
Note on the LAM pdf file that is linked here: The narrative directions to get to this crag are generally correct, but the the map illustrated as Figure 1 in the online guide is incorrect. The actual Potrillo cliff lies ca. 400 meters south of the location plotted on that map. It appears that whoever created the map based it on an actual topo map or aerial image, because there is in fact a low mesa with a cliff at the indicated location, but it is not the same cliff as the Potrillo crag.
Potrillo Cliffs
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