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Early Wall - Left End 
Early Wall - Right End 
Runway, The 

Early Wall

Submitted By: Aaron Miller on Sep 28, 2009
Administrators: Aaron Hobson, Anthony Stout, George Perkins
Views: 338 page views

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Routes on the left side of Early Wall

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Description 

Early Wall is the broad wall on the left side of the canyon. This area sees sun early in the a.m., and shade the rest of the day. Overall, this wall has excellent climbs, but is not as popular or crowded as the Winter Wall and the Grotto, mainly because it is colder and doesn't have as many moderates close to one another.

Climbs are in three sections of the cliff:

  • at the Right End, just left of the Grotto- which has 2 pitch climbs, nice sport climbs 5.10-5.12, and difficult cracks.


Getting There 

  • The easiest approach is by the Grotto approach trail, then walk left along the base.
  • Climbs at the upper left end are most easily reached by a faint trail with cairns, along the left end of the talus.


The Classics

Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Early Wall:
(15) Drunk Rednecks with Golf Clubs   5.8+     Sport, 1 pitch, 55 feet   Early Wall - Right End
(08) Humbolt   5.10a     Sport, 1 pitch, 70 feet   Early Wall - Left End
(09) Two Wheel Drive   5.10d     Sport, 1 pitch, 60 feet   Early Wall - Left End
Mocos Locos   5.11     Sport, 1 pitch, 80 feet   The Runway
(18) Airbus   5.11 PG13     Trad, 2 pitches, 200 feet   Early Wall - Right End
(16) Clip Art   5.11d     Sport   Early Wall - Right End
(04) Schmeming   5.12a/b     Sport, 1 pitch, 80 feet   Early Wall - Left End
Browse More Classics in Early Wall

Featured Route For Early Wall
body squeeze in the crux

(18) Airbus 5.11 PG13  NM : Santa Fe Area : ... : Early Wall - Right End
An obvious long offwidth pitch can be seen from across the canyon as a corner thats adjacent to the right most rock buttress with lots of lichen (lichening the serpent is on this). The first pitch is either a dirty 5.8 stem corner that leads to a stellar cove below a clean squeeze bombay chimney or an easy traverse from a 5.8 sport route. Great belays with chain anchors. Fight your way up a hard 5.11 squeeze that gets you on top of a large c...[more]   Browse More Classics in NM


Comments on Early Wall Add Comment
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By Karl Kiser
Apr 1, 2008

For the record, a number of the cracks on Early Wall (both of the extreme left side and near Up to Bat) were done by a combination of Tom Wezwick, Mark Thomas, Chris Kessler, Alex Sfakianos and Karl Kiser. Rick Bradshaw et. al. may have done these at about the same time but we spent a lot of time cleaning. Rick isn't the only one to have worked on a route and then found it bolted.

By George Perkins
Administrator
From: Los Alamos, NM
Apr 23, 2008

Diablo Standard (as shown in Ricks' online guide climb 11) was climbed by Denny Newell and Jacques (?) climbed in the early 90s; DN described it as scary (using primarily hexes for pro), and thought that it maybe had been climbed previously.