Percha Creek, Hillsboro 

The unnamed 5.8 at the far left is a very nice route.
Some little bitty stoppers will sorta protect the start.

Bring a 60 meter rope.

Dennis Jackson's new book "Climb New Mexico" (2006) has this crag pp. 381-85. Both the topo and Jackson's book need updating. I made notes after climbing here Nov. 2004. First, we started climbing here in the mid 1980s (not 1990s). Routes tended to be trad and TR. The bolted lines came later.

Key--DJ (Dennis Jackson's book); T (revised topo (Kelly Elverum) posted by Jeff Amato)

DJ#3 "Duck Soup"--bolted line
just left Edmund' crack 5.10/5.10+ walk off right
just left a bolted line with anchor
the creek is under these climbs unless climbers have added rocks

DJ#4 (T-1) "El Solo Loco" needs bolts and anchor, currently a free solo
DJ#5 (T-2) "Grady's Route" there once was a Lost Arrow down low
DJ#6 (T-3) I did the FA with Cindy Weaver, it is called "Patience"
DJ#7 (T-4) "Burning the Candle at Both Ends"
just left, a bolted arete
the creek is pooled under these climbs as well

DJ#8 (T-5) "Meanderneath You
DJ#9 (T-6) "Project"
just left a bolted route with anchors, some type of 5.10

DJ#10 (T-7) "Worth the Wade"
DJ#11 (T-8) "Wade for Me
DJ#12 (T-9) Dihedral 2
DJ#13 (T-10) "Nutcracker"
DJ#14 unknown

DJ#15 (T-11) "Just Your Style"
DJ#16 (T-12) "Rolling Stones Gather No Mas"
just left bolted route with anchors

DJ#17 (T-13) Unnamed trad to anchor

Hopefully this post will generate some additional comments.

This area has seen some serious terraforming since last year. All the trees below Duck Soup area are gone, and the ground has eroded out a few feet, making the initial moves tricker. Most of the trees that interefered with Meanderneath You are also gone. In fact the only tree that remains at the base of the crag is the tall cottonwood in front of Nutcracker, and much of its root-base is showing.

Grady's route, 10b(?) just to the right of Patience, recently got two shiny new bolts down low courtesy of Grady Viramontes. It's trad the rest of way up, but protectable. Cool climb!!

Here is a little history of this area.

Tony Grenko and I started the development of this area in the very late 1970s and early 1980s. During this time we were climbing in tennis and hiking shoes and using hexes and nuts for protection. We learned to climb by reading books (Rock Climbing by Peter Livesey, Ropes Knots and Slings for Climbers by Walt Wedlock, Basic Rockcraft and Advanced Rockcraft by Royal Robins) We did not have a bolt kit, or even know about bolts.

In particular we climbed most of the easier routes on the left side of the cliff (Unknown #13 and the cracks around it). All routes we put up were done traditional (it was the 70s-80s after all) style as we did not know any better at the time. To us climbing was walking up to a cliff and climbing it.

Eventually, we started climbing with the Southwest Mountaineers who educated us on the finer points of climbing, for example route names and topos. Sometime around 1983-84 we brought a group of Southwest Mountaineers to the cliff. I remember this vividly as I was nervous that the area would not prove worthy compared to the various walls in the Organ Mountains the SW Mountaineer had showed us. But is was hot and and this location is higher and cooler than the desert around Las Cruces.

Potentially of interest to some is that Tony and I actually tried to ice-climb the cliff south of the road one winter after a storm. We got about 30 ft up before running away. We also climbed the cliff a mile or so up Railroad canyon and the cliff opposite Jordan Hot Spring on the Mid-fork of the Gila river, probably the loosest most dangerous climb of my career.

02/03/2009 - There is a nice bolted route (10d?) with a couple of roofs 10 feet left of The Nipple.

There are two bolted routes with shared anchors 10 and 14 feet left of Duck Soup. The first route is a challanging face climb, the second is a nice climb on the arete.

Note the picture taken on this page with a few black lines to show the routes.