As I mentioned in my previous post, our first day in Santa Fe, New Mexio, was an amazing desert adventure. After our trip to the Farmer’s Market, we headed out for a day of climbing at the Potrillo Cliffs.

This line of short, but sunny and bomber basalt cliffs sits above the Rio Grand river canyon, just south of Los Alamos. In fact, inorder to get to the cliffs, you have to walk past a very interesting, specific, sign that outlines all of the possible bombs that we might run across, and who to call if we find some. The area sits on the edge of the Los Alamos munitions testing range, and we all learned a lot about what bombs look like from checking out this sign. I hoped to find a purple grenade!

At the end of November, this area had perfect climbing weather. There were clouds occasionally obscuring the sun, and a chilly breeze that came and went, but plenty of warmth and light. We hung topropes on several climbs and worked some beautiful cracks.

Dylan has a nice write up and good pictures from the day on his blog as well. I loved the thin hands cracks on Upper Kor’s Crack (5.9), the chimney start on Chuckawalla (5.8) was awesome, and the overhanging fingers start on Lower Kor’s Crack was tough but very, very fun.

We climbed until our shoulders started to give out and the sun had dipped near to the rim of the canyon. Then we packed up, hiked back through the deserted, and headed into a cold, quiet starry night. Ann and I spent two glorious hours at Ten Thousand Waves, and Mark and Dylan had beers and a hike home from the Second Street Brewery. It was, as I have said so many times before, and awesome day.

By the end of November, Mark and I were feeling pretty run down. Winter was rolling in fast and we wanted a climbing trip to the desert. Mark managed to wrangle the whole week of Thanksgiving as vacation, so we left Friday night (the weekend before) and drove straight through to visit Dylan and Ann in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Dylan and Ann have been living in the desert hippy mecca for about a year and a half, and they have built a fantastic life for themselves. They have explored the mountains and cliffs, paths and arroyos all over town. Dylan is vegan and becoming an incredible cook, so their kitchen seems to be always full of interesting, organic, fresh, gourmet food. Ann, who lived in Santa Fe long before we ever met, returns faithfully each week to an amazing Japanese-style spa and bathhouse for cleansing and meditation.

It’s a simple, quiet, healthy lifestyle, and it felt so very good to be a part of it for one weekend last month. I have found myself constantly craving the peacefulness that I felt that weekend ever since I left.

Saturday morning we headed to the Santa Fe farmer’s market for snacks, meal fixings, organic car deodorizers, and desert culture tourism. I’m a huge fan of farmer’s markets, and I got a kick out of the different items on sale at this one. Bound sage bundles were very popular – when burnt, they have healing effects. Dried chili pepper wreathes seemed to cover every other table – they are the official symbol of Santa Fe. Then there were mushroom CSA shares, yak meat from Taos, locally made breads, vegan breakfast burritos, spicy hot jellies and chutneys, and piles of fresh produce, even at the end of November.

Our wandering around the Santa Fe market was the start of the best desert day I have ever had. We went on to climb sunny basalt cracks overlooking the Rio Grand. Then finished it with Ann and I alternating hot sauna and cold mineral baths at the most amazing, quiet, moon-filled Japanese bath house. It was incredible. I miss it all: our friends, the desert nights, the meditative quiet, and the great food! I miss it so much, it actually hurts to write about it.

Sunday morning we all woke up to a little sun cracking through the windows at Dylan and Ann’s loft. The forecast didn’t look much better, but the peaks of sunlight gave us hope. We packed up and head to local Santa Fe climbs in Diablo Canyon.

The photos from the weekend are up in the gallery.

By the time we got to the crag, the clouds had closed in again, but, this time, the rain didn’t pour out. We hiked up to the big Sundevil Wall, threw down our packs and started up a few routes.

Claire led the first route, putting up a great climb of Post Moderate (5.9). Dylan took off on Hell Boy (5.8+) right behind her. After they made it up a few bolts, we had a few sprinkles, and the decision was made to climb only first pitches.

This worked out well. As the sprinkles came and went for an hour or so, we all took turns climbing the nice moderates on the dark, volcanic rock. Eventually, the skies cleared for about an hour, and we actually got some sun to warm and dry the desert around us. A few people got on Highly Caffeinated (5.10-) as a top rope using the same anchor from Post Moderate.

Dylan led up the long Naked Lunch (5.10), and then Claire followed the full 150ft to the high perch. As they worked on setting a two-rope top-rope for the long climb, the first rolls of a distant thunder washed up on our cliff sides. We quickly had two climbers run up the first two routes and clean the anchors, and Dylan and Claire rapped off their climb.

As we packed up, quickly, thunder and lighting blew in from a big storm to our south. A few of us threw our gear in our packs and jogged down the hill to the cars. Others moved a little slower, but were lucky to run into two hikers on their way out of the canyon. The hikers directed a few at the bottom of the cliff to check out “the really cool thing” that was just around the corner of the cliff wall.

On the far side, was a crazy solar powered ice cream cart! I didn’t get to see the installation art piece, but Mark had a tasty ice cream bar and was video recorded for the artist’s work. I hear it was a very cool thing.

In the afternoon, we waited out the storm and the hail at the Second Street Brewery. (As per Ann’s comment, Saturday was actually at the Santa Fe brewery.) I had very tasty nachos, a nap in the loft, and another evening of fun card games and camp food on the deck.

Monday morning, we got breakfast in downtown Santa Fe, and wandered a bit through adobe shops to the local REI, where I managed to keep the total under $100. Mark and I said goodbye to everybody and headed home. The Memorial Day Weekend gatherings are fun, no matter the weather, or the amount of climbing, and I think we should do this more than once a year!

The traditional gathering of friends for climbing over the long Memorial Day weekend took place in New Mexico this year! Dylan and Ann, Doug, Zach, Claire, Dennis, Mark and I all met up at Tres Piedras in northern New Mexico, in the dark and the rain, late on Friday night.

Thanks to the inspiration of a local photo gallery, I decided to shoot the weekend in black and white, playing with different settings on the camera and post processing. I think the pictures turned out… interesting. Some look a little over done, others under. Let me know what you think!

All of the shots from the weekend are up in the gallery. Also, Dylan started a flickr group for our photos here.

We knew the weather forecast for the weekend was bad, but the sopping wetness that we all woke up to on Saturday morning seemed unreal for the desert state. Dylan joked, appropriately, that we had been transported during our dark drive the night before to Squamish, which seemed more likely than New Mexico on Saturday morning. The air was thick with mist and fog, the Ponderosa pine trees dripped water from their needles, the sandy dirt road was running with new little rivers, and the lovely granite domes of Tres Piedras were slick as glass.

It seemed unlikely that we would get much climbing in. We hiked around the rocks, identifying nice looking, but very wet, routes. The skies stayed dark, and rain drizzled on and off all morning.

Tres Piedras looks like a fantastic place to camp and climb. We could set up all of our tents just a few hundred feet from the rocks, in a fantastic grove of Ponderosas. The area was quiet. The granite routes looked beautiful.

After our hike, we retired to camp, and munched on lunch while the skies opened up for another downpour. We relaxed and debated the weekend plan for the next hour. Should we hang out at the wet camp, and hope to climb the next day? Or pack up and drive to Santa Fe, where Dylan and Ann have a loft apartment and we could all “camp out” on their floor?

The idea of sleeping away the afternoon in a tent sprinkled with rain, or slacklining between wet trees did appeal to me. But after an hour, the rain got harder and harder. Our tent appeared to be leaking slightly (note to self – need to redo the seam seal). Slacklining would be nearly impossible in the deluge. We needed to leave.

Two hours later and we were in the tasting room at the Second Street brewery in Santa Fe. Still a little damp, but with higher spirits. We grilled our camp food on Dylan and Ann’s deck, drank lots of beer in the loft, and played card games until late at night. Note for other rained-in campers: Apples to Apples seems to be much more fun than Fluxx for a big group. If you can find it, though, invest in a few decks of Dutch Blitz. You won’t regret it.

I love the state motto for New Mexico: Land of Enchantment. You just can’t walk around the desert and mountains in this place and not feel some kind of mystical connection with the land, the sky, and the ancient Native Americans that also walked through these mountains. Maybe it’s the low population density, or the beautiful mesas and desert rock formations. Whatever it is, every time we visit the state, I feel like I’ve gone someplace beautiful and remote, a wild and exotic land, that is barely part of the world I live in every day.

I woke up early and energized on Sunday morning. Mark and I had to leave by noon to make a Sunday evening commitment, but nobody was stirring when Liv and I set out on the trail. Even though the sky was deeply overcast, I took the dog and hiked up to the top of the mesa we had been climbing on the day before, in the hopes of getting some pictures of the sun rising over the canyon, or the desert beyond.

The trail to the top edge of the mesa was about 2 miles long, and probably took Liv and I about an hour to do. The clouds were breaking up as I reached the edge, and the sun had long since risen. There were no incredible sunrise pictures for me that morning, and judging by the moist, cool breeze coming over the the mesa, there would be no climbing before we had to leave at noon either. But it was really nice to sit on the edge of the cliff, in the quiet desert morning, and watch the clouds slowly roll over the canyon and lands far beyond.

Eventually, I left my little perch and hiked back down to camp. The rest of the gang were hanging out in Dylan and Ann’s camper, drinking lots of coffee, making biscuits for breakfast and doing crosswords. I really suck at crosswords. Evidently, “creative spelling techniques” are not part of the challenge of the puzzles.

The clouds slowly burnt off, and Dylan and Ann decided to head up the hill for another day of climbing. Mark and I packed up camp and reluctantly headed home to our normal lives. It was a very nice, if too short, weekend away from reality.

Mark and I have climbed a little bit in New Mexico, and each time, we’ve been impressed with the quiet, secluded nature of the crags, even if they are just off the road. Last weekend, the stars aligned, plans came together, and we were able to meet Dylan and Ann in the Land of Enchantment.

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We drove down to Sugarite Canyon State Park on Friday after work. We got caught in a bit of traffic in Denver, but made it into the campground just before the gate was locked at 10pm. Following the pattern from the previous few days, it rained for most of our drive down.

Pictures from the weekend are up in the gallery.

On Saturday morning, we rolled out of bed a little later, made breakfast, and hung out with the ranger who had spent the previous evening dealing with rowdy campers for a little while. Eventually, we packed up and hiked up to the lovely, south facing basalt cliff. The approach felt relatively short, and we enjoyed the hike up to the rim of the mesa through high desert forests and prairies.

The day turned out to be clear and beautiful. The rock was sunlit, warm, and the views from the cliff-line were incredible. We were on the edge of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, in the high country of northern New Mexico. To our south, we could see distant deserts and open lands, with peaks, mesas and wind-blown sand sculptures. The summer has been feeling late, and the desert climbing season will be starting soon. Looking out at the beautiful landscape below us, I started to get excited about new adventures this winter! But for now, we were having a great day in the mountains.

Pete’s Downclimb (5.6) – Mark and I started the day on a nice crack suggested by Dylan. We had brought a light rack, with gear up to one #3.5 cam. Mark got about 10ft up this route and realized that the whole thing was going to take much bigger gear. He climbed back down, grabbed all of Dylan’s Vedauwoo big gear, and then headed up again. The climb was lots of fun, and Mark even found a perfect little placement for the smallest Big Bro about 3/4 of the way up. I followed, and enjoyed the nice little ledges and pockets covering the climb.

Crack Head (5.8) – Dylan lead up this route while we were figuring out gear on Pete’s. And we began our day of free-loading off of Dylan’s TRs. Why not? It was a fun day with good cracks. After each of us climbed and enjoyed the perfect hand crack on Crack Head, we’d clip a few of the top draws on Sangre Verde (5.10a), and then run up that nice arrete on TR. The pockets were lovely, the moves were smooth and the traverse back to the anchors at the top was spicy.

Salt Mother (5.8) – Another Redpoint feather in Dylan’s cap, and another TR for Mark, Ann and me to enjoy. The climb starts with a tricky thin fingers crack, that felt creepy and insecure. It ended with thin hands that were perfect for me, and quickly became my favorite route of the day.

Great Roof Left (5.9) – This intimidating roof hung over us all day, and Dylan attacked it on lead. Mark and Ann followed happily, and everybody seemed to agree that this route was not as hard as Salt Mother. I hung out in the sun with the dog, resting my now aching wrist and hoping that this pain wasn’t a resurgence of the tendinitis I dealt with a few years ago. Eventually, I decided that it was the end of the day for me, but enjoyed cheering everybody else up their routes.

Motengator (5.8+) – I guess 4 pitches just weren’t enough for Dylan at the end of the day. We had all started talking about cold bear and ice water, but we had plenty of time left to get one more in. Dylan lead up this route, which seemed much longer than any others so far. Perhaps it was the heat or exhaustion from a long day, but it also seemed harder than the 5.8 grade would suggest. Careful, but strong, crack technique got Dylan, Mark and Ann to the top of the route without any problems.

Ok, without many problems. Mark lowered Dylan off of his belt, which was not set up well and resulted in a few minutes of apparent agony for Mark as his belay device dug into his crotch and the rope ran over his leg. Evidently, the usual belay set-ups that Mark uses for me, don’t work as well when your climber weighs 50 more pounds.

By the end of the day, we were all smiles, sunburns and sore muscles. We hiked down the mesa and spent a cool evening camping out with our friends.