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!
Some rocks in this area are on private property. MORE INFO >>>
...the remainder are on US Forest Service land. A map detailing the public areas can be obtained from the ranger station en route to the rocks from the village of Tres Piedras.
BETA PHOTO: View of South Rock from the parking area.
Description
Tres Piedras offers a selection of traditional routes (some with bolts) on quality granite slabs, cracks, and steep faces. Spanish for "Three Rocks" Tres Piedras (obviously) consists of six major rock formations, with climbing on enough aspects to seek out sun or shade as necessary. This is the best granite cragging in the state, with about 60 climbs on pristine granite similar to that in the Platte, J Tree, and City of Rocks (but obviously nowhere near as extensive).
TP has an undeserved reputation for being scary. Most climbs are well-protected at the cruxes but may have less pro on easier low-angle sections; and many climbs have excellent pro the whole way.
In addition to the taller routes, the bouldering is excellent here and it is not uncommon to see as many crashpads as ropes.
An aging incomplete online guide is posted on the LA Mountaineers website here The 2 guidebooks ('Taos Rock' and 'Rock Climbing: New Mexico') are both excellent and virtually identical as far as the route descriptions and photos; however, 'Taos Rock' (unlike RC:NM) also documents some of the bouldering.
Getting There
The small village of Tres Piedras is at the junction of US 285 and US 64. From the intersection, go west on US 64 for 0.7 miles (past the ranger station) to an unmarked dirt road on the right. Follow this for 0.5 miles to the parking area (left at the "T", left at the "Y").
Start at the base of a right trending diagonal crack on a ledge 40 feet up the center of the wall. Follow the crack up and right, heading left and up where the crack turns left just before it ends....[more]
Historical Query: In the old-school typed guide that is linked here, does anyone know what the capitalized letters in the route descriptions stood for? Such as: BLACK LICHEN (5.6 I, 1 pitch, B.P. ) CRACK N' FRICTION (5.5, I, 1 pitch, E. ) QUEEN CRACK (5.8, II, 1 pitch , E.D. )
What do the "B.P." "E." and "E.D." stand for? These are the only three acronyms that are used, appearing repeatedly throughout the document. Are they descriptions of the protection? Maybe, because "E.D." appears to correlate with climbs that were not free leads.
Why is there no information on the vast amounts of bouldering in the area. Plenty of it abounds. Furthermore, I have climbed a good number of the routes at TP and I love them too, but come on. Don't get stuck on disscusions of runout 5.9. The place needs a face lift. Organize. You should be able to get a serious rebolting project going with the pack service and the acsses fund to reinstate some of these still state of the art test pieces. Think, the fa'er had a new bolt. Some reequiping of fixed pro is not "cheating", or "bad style". We have the same issues in North Carolina (did i forget to mention that I am from NC). If it is the relative safty of the route that makes it bad (old fixed gear) replace it in the same spot and have at it just the same as the first guy. Step it up.
Tres Piedras
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