A nice spring / fall crag with a wide variety of routes. Around 30 routes contain a good variety of trad and sport climbs from 5.7 to 5.13.
This area is North facing so primarily shaded making it great for spring / fall and cold in the winter. May still be hot in the middle of summer.
In general the routes here are short and bouldery with hard starts to easier finishes. Most of the routes are vertical to slightly overhanging.
Getting There
From the Box Parking lot, hike directly down the streambend. Hike almost to the road and you will see North Wall on your right. This is the backside of Red Wall. Find a small trail starting out of the streambend up the short hill to the base. Trail ends just left of the Corner Block. Approach time is about 10 minutes.
Climbs
Climbs from right to left.
(01) Liposuction Massacre 5.10+ (Starts behind corner block) (02) The Truth 5.7 Trad (03) Direct on the Truth 5.9 Trad (04) Project (05) Alarm Arm 5.11+ Trad (06) Fatty 5.11b (07) Red Licorice 5.11b (08) Bashart 5.12c (09) Loser 5.13a, shared finish with Bashart (10) Maria de la Sangria 5.11+ (11) Unknown 1 5.11 (12) Grijavla Route 5.12c, listed as "Loser" in the RC NM Book. There is a 30 foot break in the climbs here (13) Minas Boreas (Tower of the North) 5.13c/d (14) Boss Hog 5.12c (15) Rock Trooper 5.9 (16) Black Crack 5.10+ Trad (17) Arch of Evil 5.10+ Trad (18) Jack be Quick (Candlestick) 5.12c (19) Grease Mechanic 5.12- (20) Box Baby 5.10b (21) Modern Day Contrivances 5.11+ (22) Box Frenzy 5.10a (23) Totem 5.7 Trad (24) Tomahawk 5.9 Trad The next 5 climbs are before Z crack, however they are listed after Z crack in the Rock Climbing New Mexico guide. (25) Unknown 5.10c (26) Power House 5.11c (27) Crystal Ball 5.11b (28) Unknown 2 5.10a (29) Unknown 3 5.10b (30) The Z Crack 5.8 Trad
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for North Wall:
I believe (11)Loser 5.13a, is actually just left of (8)Bashart 5.12c and shares the finish of that route. Then as you work left you have the 2 trad routes that are 5.11 and then (12)Grajavla route 5.12c.
After the 2 trad 5.11's and the Grijavla Route, there is a Chris Eckstien Project that I tried recently with him and apparently Nathaniel Walker spent some time trying, I'll write it up once we send, a bolt needs to be moved slightly. Then the 5.12- Boss Hog though I don't know if the name is right. There could then be some trad routes as listed and a hard 5.12c that Chris and Lance were calling "The Candlestick" I don't know which name is correct, their's of the one from the guide. There is one more difficult looking sport route, pressumably the 5.12- and I did not look around any further.
5.12c The Candlestick/Jack be Quick- climbs just left of black streak for 4 bolts with anchor in the streak up on the slab. FA: Lance and Chris. Due to the fact that this route climbs the fringe and into a black streak it probably needs a good brushing proior to climbing on it.
5.12? Grease Mechanic- climbs the blunt arete to a big runout between the 3rd and 4th bolt. The climb looks harder than the suggested grade but I have not been on it and the holds can be hard to find on this wall.
5.10?- climbs the pretty wall coverd by yellow lichen, looks pretty runout. 4 bolts
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