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!
Scott Jones sweating out the descent hike after cl...
Description
The middle peak of the Rabbit Ears group. The west face has some beautiful lines, and there is hard-route potential on the north side where a steep series of roofs dubbed the ChurchKey is found. You're not likely to run into other climbers up here, but you will find great 3-4 pitch routes. If you time your ascent right, you can climb in either the sun or shade. Even in July, you can comfortably climb here, although the approach/descent begin to get stifling.
Getting There
Approach can be made from either side of the range (Starting from the Aguirre Springs parking or from the Topp-Hut). the typical approach is to come from the Topp Hut. Hike into Rabbit ears canyon, past The Citadel and Lambda Wall. Continue up the canyon, staying in or near the stream-bed which is usually dry. Eventually, there will be a lesser-gully that branches off to the left directly up towards the North and Middle Rabbit ears. Follow an indistinct trail next to this gully which leads roughly to the base of the Northwest face of the Middle Rabbit Ear.
Descent
The descent route is off the south side. Scramble down to a large tree, with several old slings and a wire-cable around it. A two-rope rappel gains a large tree-filled ledge. There is also an old belay station consisting of two old 1/4" bolts which allows you to gain the ledge with two single-rope rappels. Walk to the far west side of the ledge where a chain anchor is found. A single-rope rappel reaches the ground.
The descent route roughly follows the "normal Route".
Print a Mini-Guide - Includes Routes!
RSS Feed
