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: Revenge of the Elderly, 5.7, Gemstone East, Sandia...
Description
This is a longer, somewhat wandering, route on the Gemstone East crag. It generally has a northern aspect, but it does get sunlight; it could be icy in the deep east-facing features if one were to try a winter ascent.
This route is described and pictured in Jackson's (2006) New Mexico guide as well as in Schein's (2003) Sandia guide book; it is also described and illustrated in the 3rd edition of Hill's "Hikers and Climbers Guide," although it is not in the 2nd edition (don't know about the 1st ed.). The route appears to have recently been 'pruned' with a garden trimmer.
Pitch 1. Friction up the slab past three bolts, with delicate moves past the top bolt to a ledge with a tree at the far left end. Probably good to set a piece above the bolt line before you traverse to the tree, to protect the second. Belay at the tree, which sports a bunch of tat slings; a crack in the slab next to the tree can serve for an anchor backup.
Pitch 2. A short pitch up and right over easier, blocky ground toward the massive left-facing dihedral. Follow the left-leaning dihedral up a short distance to a 'cave' in the wall of the dihedral. Hint: I hit the dihedral too high, and missed the cave at first because I wasn't looking down to the right. Crawl through the short tunnel at the back of the 'cave' to a solid belay stance where you can stand up, emerging from the rock like a prairie dog. Belay either from a gear anchor at the entrance to the cave, or leave a directional piece at the entrance and belay from the tattered slings at the back of the tunnel. These slings are the established second rap point for this route's descent.
Pitch 3. Out of the crawl-through, and then slightly right up a broken lower-angle face to the base of a crux chimney that narrows at the top. Interesting stemming to the top of the chimney leads to another short face that culminates in a prominent arched roof with a clean arc-shaped crack marking its base. To belay, I built a gear anchor in this crack at the left side of the alcove. At one time there was a sling over a horn in a little recess about 15 feet to the left of this point, suggesting a possible rap anchor.
Pitch 4. Exit from around the left side of the alcove, climbing for a short distance to the left, then reach a broken slab that heads up to the right. A left-leaning shallow, broad chimney with twin cracks then leads to the final friction face. Traverse this slightly runout, delicate slab, up and then right, ending at the three-bolt, two-chain anchor (the third bolt at this station is just a spinner buttonhead).
Location
Start at the toe of a broad slab, about 50 feet below and climber's left of Opal and Emerald City (easily accessed by downclimbing a class 2-ish gulley below Surf Naked, or by a climbers' trail that contours in from the base of the Gemstone West crag).
Descent: Several options are available, depending on which guide book you consult, but all involve rappelling. For many of the Gemstone East routes that are listed on mountainproject.com, rapping RotE is presented as the preferred option. Conversely, Schein (2003) recommends rappelling Emerald City. We rapped RotE, so I cannot comment on the Emerald City option.
To rap RotE: the top rap anchor features two bolts with chains. Using two ropes, a ~150 foot rap takes you to the slung block at the cave/tunnel at the top of the climb's second pitch. This second rap anchor featured 5 weathered slings, two aluminum rings, and a cheap quick-link as of April, 2008; it looked ok but slings may need updating periodically, so plan accordingly. From the cave/tunnel anchor, a ~105 foot drop will apparently set you down at the base of Surf Naked, but to get to the base of RotE, where your packs are presumedly cached, it'll probably be more like a 135 foot rappel. Hint: The orientation of the rings and quicklink on the slings at the cave/tunnel anchor made it appear that one should drop off the notch to the east and then down the face. Should you do that, you'll probably have to prussik back up and free the pinched ropes from the slot in the edge (I know, a rookie mistake). It's better to drop directly down the face from this anchor, and then find a way to descend the left-facing dihedral farther down; your pull from the bottom will probably be cleaner that way.
Notes: The sling that used to be over the horn left of the third anchor may indicate an available rap station, in a pinch. That, in conjunction with the slings on the tree at the first belay station, suggests that rapping the entire route in four drops with a single rope may also be possible.
Protection
Standard rack of singles in cams and nuts. I used a #4 camalot, but that is not essential; smaller cams are more useful (e.g., Metolius #1-3 sized). Three bolts are featured on the first pitch.
By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM Apr 7, 2008 rating: 5.7
Great description, Chris.
You can combine pitches 1 + 2 with a 60m rope. No real good reason to do this though, as the tree anchor is good and the ledge is spacious. You can combine pitches 3 + 4 with a 60m rope (maybe 50m?). This might cause some rope drag (on the delicate slab crux at the end), but means less time constructing anchors at a cramped intermediate belay.
Pitch 1 is probably more likely to be wet than any other portion of any climb in the Gemstone area . If there is any snow remaining on north-facing slopes, it is probably wet..
The descent down Emerald City requires 2 ropes, and works ok. You go with 2 ropes to a 2-bolt anchor at the top of p1 for Emerald City; angle to the west. Two ropes from there to the ground. Can't say which is better; I've only gone down Emerald City (3 or 4 times?), and it's worked.
"Revenge..." is a good early season warmup and is one of the best routes at its grade in the Sandias, although my personal preference is for the climbs up high that aren't so low-angle.
We did this last summer. You end up crawling out of the Belay and heading up for what is described as the final two pitches. I linked these two pitches and had no rope drag problems, but I was using double ropes so you wouldn't expect much.
Edited to add: We did this whole route in two pitches by skipping the tree all together and going directly from the bolts to the dihedral. I didn't lead this pitch but I didn't hear too much about rope drag so it must have been ok. (again double ropes...)
Fun, although the last few moves to the anchor took me about 20 minutes.
(In all honesty I followed the thin seam up until I could reach out and clip the anchor with a quickdraw, and then stepped over) After watching my follower cruise the slab section, I'd suggest going that way unless you lack the courage (like me).
Marked a copy of the beta photo with a variation to the upper half of Revenge. Found something like this in Mike Hill's guide. For some reason, I find it enjoyable enough to tolerate the rope drag.
P1 and P2 can be combined as noted by George. The cave (and tight rope drag) can be avoided by exiting the dihedral about 10 feet before the cave (there is a little alcove here) to the RIGHT to gain the belay ledge. This requires a 60 M rope.
Gemstone East
RSS Feed
