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!
Description
Winter Climbing outdoors in Taos. A veritable sun-trap, the Solar Asylum remains in the shade until midday and then the winter sun warms the wall in the afternoon and evening. It is climbable on all but the coldest days of winter. There are a dozen routes (sport, mixed, trad) with overhanging, featured lower thirds and headwalls with steep technical face and crack climbing.
Getting There
You may approach the base of the cliff by crossing the Hondo Creek at 0.3 mi East of the John Dunn Bridge. Follow a faint trail east along river and the switchbacks to base of crag. You may also find it convenient to follow B0001 West from the highway north of Arroyo Hondo. Continue to the right up onto the mesa. Then turn right and down the hill to the north on a dirtroad passing left of an old pick-up truck. Trend toward the gorge and to the south on obvious jeep trails so you come the top of a double track trail at the plateau overlooking the confluence of the Hondo and the Rio Grande. The cliff top if 50 yrds to the east of the wire fence on a faintly cairned trail. Rap the routes or find the climb down about 100 yards to the west. Look for blue webbing and a rap ring set back from the cliff on a juniper tree. This can be used to safely access anchors. Check this and any webbing prior to use.
One of the best single track rides in the county (Horsethief) goes right by the parking spot at the top of this crag.
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