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Pinch to Grow and Inch

5.11a PG13, Sport, 80 ft (24 m),  Avg: 1.6 from 7 votes
FA: Tim Naylor
New Mexico > Taos Area > Vista Verde Crag > 4. Afterburner Face

Description

Start up mini arch with 2 bolts then go right on chossy ledge to arete and up technical corner. After the corner trend right to lower off. Be careful at the 4th clip (I think?)! FFA was done with 5 bolts!? Done on my birthday 2001.

Location

About 50 feet left of Afterburner.

Protection

7 bolts to anchors

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Climbs better than it looks
[Hide Photo] Climbs better than it looks

Comments [Hide ALL Comments]

Nicole Copti
Santa Fe
  5.11a PG13
[Hide Comment] Another route that is a bit confusing to know which one exactly you are getting on. Assuming I did the correct climb, it starts at the detatched flake and is the one next to the leftmost climb (although here on MP it says Let The Daylight In is right next to the leftmost climb, this one matches the description better though and LTDI's description seems to match the climb to the right of this one, although I did not do that one). Clip two bolts and get onto the ledge then go waaaay up and right on runout loose rock and clip your third bolt (maybe shared with LTDI?) then back a little left where the fun climbing begins.

Take this beta with a grain of salt since clearly I was not entirely sure of which climb I was on, but after a lot of looking at MP, some headscratching, and reasoning that this felt a lot more like the 11a than the 12a/b my partner and I came to this conclusion. Mar 7, 2020
tim naylor
  5.11a/b
[Hide Comment] this starts between ltdi and speed of sound. Mike arranged the routes left to right for the anchors but the starts are out of order because the routes ltdi and pinch cross each other on the chossy ledge at the 4th bolt. Mar 11, 2020
Nicole Copti
Santa Fe
  5.11a PG13
[Hide Comment] Gotcha. I started on the second route to the left (between LTDI and Speed of Sound) and then when I got to that bolt way out right in the choss (did I miss a bolt cause I saw that as the 3rd bolt?) I stayed left which I guess made me do a combo of the two routes. However, staying left did keep me in the technical corner as described in PTGAI and going right would have had me climbing the arete as in LTDI description. Either way, it was still a fun climb! If you start on the detached flake, get to the third bolt and stay left you are in for some adventure climbing (5.9 PG13) at the bottom followed by fun technical climbing after that around the 11a level. Mar 14, 2020