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BETA PHOTO: Topo of Mountain Mama
Description
Claimed to be one of the best 5.10 routes in the Sandias. Most of the climb is on clean rock, with a few loose sections, as goes the Sandias. See attached topo for more detailed climbing beta.
Pitch 1 (5.10a): Climb up to a ledge to the right of the dihedral. From atop the ledge, clip the bolt, and move left into the dihedral. Follow the dihedral up, eventually following a protectable crack to the left. Follow to a hanging belay.
Pitch 2 (5.10a): Some face climbing to a bolt leads to a right facing dihedral. After finishing the dihedral, climb up and to the left through some ledgy sections, eventually gaining the anchors on a nice belay ledge.
Pitch 3 (5.10c): This is the pitch that makes this climb what it is! Climb up and slightly right, and through the bulge. You can clip a fixed pin below the bulge and add a 0.4 or 0.5 Camalot just before pulling through it. After the bulge, continue up some ledges to a nice hand crack. Follow the hand crack and pull through a roof section. Clip the anchors. There are two crux sections on this pitch, over the overhang and going up through the crack. Some believe the overhang is more difficult, others believe the crack is more difficult. Take your pick!
Pitch 4 (5.9+ or 5.9): I thought this was the worst pitch on the climb, mostly because I really like cracks and not disconnected and run-out face climbing. There are two variations, both of which I have done, and the first is the one I would recommend the most.
V1: (highly recommended): Traverse left from the anchor, clipping a fixed pin underneath a roof, and continue low and left directly underneath a roof. The feet are great but the hands can be difficult. Felt pretty awkward but solid. At the end of the roof is a crack that can be followed straight up. I placed a nut to pull the move then reached down to remove it after I placed some pro. This helps to eliminate rope drag. Continue up, cliping two fixed pins, and continue through meagerly protected climbing and route finding up. You will angle slightly to the right before moving left again and up to the anchors.
V2: (not recommended): Though the initial climbing is probably more fun this way, you end up with rope drag from hell in combination with run out climbing. Climb straight up from the anchors through some fun 5.9+ climbing. Clip a fixed cam with a fixed nut not so far above that. After the fixed nut traverse left. You will see a fixed pin below your feet but going down to clip it would result in impossible rope drag. You will also see places to place meager pro (much of which I did not use because of fear of rope drag). After climbing high enough I did get some pro in. Move slightly right through a crack then back left to the anchors. If you really enjoy run-outs and heinous rope drag you should consider going this way!
Pitch 5 (5.9): Short, move up and right from the anchors, clipping a pin (the first time I did this route I clipped a pin, did not see it the second time; however, the pro is more than adequate) then gaining a nice ledge. Continue up and right from the ledge to a very large ledge. Build an anchor here.
Pitch 6 (5.7 or optional 5.10b): We did the 5.7 section. Climb up and right of a huge dihedral, continuing right up poor quality rock to the summit. Anchor from a tree. Although we considered the variation, we were not sure exactly where to go.
DESCENT: From the summit, looking down to the northeast face you will see a half dead tree with some slings wrapped around it. Rap from this tree while angling north as much as possible. Once down, traverse north on grassy ledges to get to the first obvious couloir. Scramble up this, using a fixed line about 2/3s up. This gully ends west of the log structure you saw on your way in.
Location
To find the route, go to the center of the Torreon. As you are tramming along the base of the rock, continue looking up until you see a huge roof in the middle of the face. To the right of the roof there is a prominent dihedral with ledge just to the right of it, and a bolt about 15 feet high. This is pitch one of Mountain Momma! There are some bushes in the crack to the left of the ledge you will start on. The bushes are within the crack you will begin climbing on higher up.
Protection
- Double set of Camalots from 0.3 to 2 with 1 #3. Micro C3s or equivelent were also helpful in a few sections. - Set of nuts - Slings for wandering
The standard line traverses on the 4th pitch. This is a much safer variation and adds some good face climbing to the route. It is also possible to find a decent fifth pitch if you climb up and left, but most people take the weakness through some lesser quality rock. For more info check out Mick's guidebook. It is very good.
Crossroads (5.10a)... Has anyone been on this route, or have any beta regarding the route? Its left (climbers left) of Mountain Momma. Mike Schein put it up in 1995.
Mick's guidebook has a description of the route. The route might have been improved a little since the first ascent, but the description is generally accurate.
By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM Aug 7, 2007 rating: 5.10c
This is an excellent climb. The crux 3rd pitch is really wild but has really good pro right at your nose on both hard parts. You could pull on your gear through these short 5.10c sections if necessary.
Pitch 4 is not 'all that bad', if you traverse left at the start (Var. 1). Typical Sandia face climbing... kinda like Warpy Moople's p5. The sling on the piton at the start of p4 is probably not there.
With a 60m rope you can combine pitches 5+6. (or probably p4 +p5 would work.. but p5 +p6 is better)
The 5.10 finish variation for p6 shown in Sandia Rock is not really obvious where to go.
By Jason Halladay From: Los Alamos, NM Jun 9, 2008 rating: 5.10c
Stellar route for sure!
We pulled off a very large and loose flake right off the belay on P2. The flake was up and right about 6 feet from the bolted belay. It was dangerously loose. I don't think it changes the character of the route as it seems the way to leave the belay is up/leftish on nice finger cracks anyway.
For the hand crack section on P3 I kept bumping up the #3 camalot as I went. Some may want a second #3 rather than bumping up. But the crack is very secure so it's not super necessary.
There is no sling on the pin that protects the traverse out left to start P4. It's a reachy clip to get to it but not bad.
The pin to start P5 is still there (as Anthony mentions in the above description.) Although, good pro options exist around the pin anyway. Also, we linked P5 and P6 all the way to the top with a 60m rope and no serious rope drag (10' of rope to spare). We looked for the alt. 5.10 finish but couldn't find it. I ended up leading up a large corner system that is pretty much directly above the belay atop P4. Not sure if this is the original finish but it was fun and fine.
The 5.10 finish is just left of the big dihedral you describe Jason. It is basically directly above the anchor at the end of pitch 4. The topo in the guide shows it further right than it actually is. Look for a thin finger crack to a small roof. The roof has somewhat hollow rock, but otherwise it's a nice way to finish the route.
In the "DESCENT" section, how is going up that gully that ends west of the log structure? Somewhere, I thought I saw it referred to as "The Bowling Alley."
We did the described rap from the half dead tree. But for less than stellar reasons, we scrambled up to the middle of the saddle that is north of Torreon. We then made a NW'ly ~80 foot rap from a ~one foot diameter tree on the saddle. After the rap and with some drop in elevation, we returned to the approach gully via an exposed but easy traverse (class 2 max?). I'm guessing this way took at least an additional hour to return to the log structure compared to going up the described gully. Please tell me we avoided a death-scramble up the gully. ;-)
Sorry Bill, Maybe I forgot to mention to Matt that after the rappel you are supposed to head somewhat right to get into the gulley. There is no bowling going on in the proper gulley unless maybe it is raining really hard or you have someone yelling epitaths at you and throwning stuff down the gulley at you all while questioning your manhood (competely different story). Though you may have avoided the boulder problem with the fixed rope? I'm not sure of the saddle you ended up in but John K says that there is a good pitch or two of 5.9/5.10 that goes directly up to the log structure on the wall that sits above and slightly left of the top of the Torreon.
Nah. No worries, Lee. The information we had with us at the time was plenty clear. We just did not make full use of it. Thanks for the info on the intended gully.
Torreon
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