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nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 15, 2009 - 02:15pm PT
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Edit: My first climbing movie: http://vimeo.com/3743533
A day's drive south from Albuquerque carries us through the rugged and expansive beauty of central New Mexico. Miles melt away fast and easily in the vast plains rimmed by ragged ridges. We're like a drop of water dancing across God's crucible. We reach Truth or Consequences, and I'm mesmerized by an American flag whipping in the wind. Its deeper portent eludes me.
The striking profile of the Organ Mountains dominates our view as we head onward into the deep south of New Mexico. How can such a dramatic razor be sculpted from an empty plain? We bend to the east through Las Cruces, past the southern hills coverd with low wide houses in sandy hues. It reminds me of hill stations in the Himalayas. But I don't reminisce long because we've reached Baylor Canyon Road and we're bouncing along a dirt road surveying the western side of the range. It is sunset, and the soft pink and orange of a desert sunset nudge us closer to making a firm evening plan. We decide on Aguirre Springs, the opposite side of the mountain range. We reach a campground as the last light is fading behind the silhouette of the Organ Mountains. Sleep comes swiftly, shielded by enchanting peaks in the high desert plain.
Our objective is Sugarloaf, a dome of smooth white granite that stands in stark contrast to the surrounding brown and gritty range. It is our white whale.
The day breaks without us, and we spend a leisurely morning inside our tent. The wind knocks anything off the breakfast table that we haven't pinned down. We're on the trail by crack of noon. Or thereabouts, because we didn't bring a watch. An hour and a half approach from a group picnic area should have us to the base, for a romp up 1800 feet of 5.6 slab.
The trail is easy to follow for the first 50 feet. We cut left into a steep arroyo, gravity forcing us to run and dodge cactuses at the bottom. After a bit of bushwacking and cactus dodging, we regain the trail and enjoy a leisurely stroll through the desert hills. The sweeping plains to White Sands are on our left, the razor ridge is on our right, and our white whale is straight ahead. After a few hours, we are a little higher than the base of the climb and deeper up the canyon, but there is no sign of a backcountry camp where we were supposed to turn left. We backtrack, and decide to shoot up a 4th-class granite spillway that drains Sugarloaf's northwestern flank. At some point we're back to bushwacking, dirt-clawing, and sketchy-lichen-slab-traversing. We penetrate a final phalanx of twig-forests and skirt back down to the proper base of the climb, and take a much needed break! There's too much wind to comfortably eat lunch at the base of the climb, so we head to the lee of a nearby tree for shelter while we regroup. So far, it's a classic adventure outing, and I'm loving it.
We start up the slab without fanfare, and the climbing is easy. That's a good thing, because there's not much protection. My 60 meter ropes can't reach the double bolts on the 3rd pitch, so we simul-climb the last 30 or 40 feet. The wind is becoming more noticeable.
Irene heads over the curving granite horizon on the fourth pitch, and I sit low at the belay for a while before levering up to see what she is doing. Just leaning back against the slings on the belay, it's hard to keep my balance in the gusting winds. Soon I head up to join her, and the wind might fairly be described as howling. Instead of just running up what should be an easy slab, I find myself side-clinging micro-nubbins to keep from getting blown sideways. I'm leaning into the wind, but when the gusts die, I have to quickly shift weight to avoid falling forward. It's not so bad on toprope... probably not as fun with 50 feet of slab behind you on lead. Nice one, Irene!
I reach the belay, and Irene is not having fun. We're clipped into the belay together with our heads right next to each other, and we have to time our conversations between the nearly constant and increasingly strong gusts. We're definitely past the "casual" part of the trip, and decide it's time to bail. It's comical how much the wind is knocking us around on our little leashes at the belay station, and we start laughing.
We spy a tree about 50 meters below us and way off to the right. Irene raps straight down and does a tension traverse over to the tree, which is quite a feat with the wind trying to help her into a wild pendulum. I soon follow, and we begin pulling the ropes. As soon as we let go of one of the strands, the entire strand is flung by the wind out of sight across the slab to the left. As we keep pulling our end of the rope, it becomes stuck. Undaunted, we pull harder, and eventually build a 3-1 pulley system and haul with all our might. Things are looking a little serious now, because we have no usable rope, we're still up a fairly high way, and the wind is getting stronger. There is only one decision.
We loosen the rope a bit, I set a couple of kleimheists tied to my harness, and Irene gives me a belay on the tail of the rap rope we have. Irene wants to go, but I'll have no part of it. I start teetering up the 5.7 slab with the weight of the wind like a constantly changing ton of bricks on my back. I have to lean on the kleimheists a lot, and I try not to think about the rope suddenly becoming unstuck. The rope becomes taut on the little lead line we set up, and I pause for a moment. Again there is only one decision. It's unnatural untying the figure eight and letting it fly out of reach.
After an eternity I reach the midway point, a little cluster of holes that I figured could hold some protection in case the rope above me cuts loose. I fiddle for a minute, the wind banging me against the slab, and I give up after my feeble placements fail the pull-test. I teeter upward sliding my kleimheists, not sure what is holding the rope above me. At least the end at the rap station below is tied in. I pass the knot tying the two ropes together, and another 15 meters brings me to the upper rap station.... The ropes are wrapped around each other several times, and that friction was enough to thwart our 3:1 pulley and to hold me when the wind pushed me over. With some effort, and no help from the wind, I untangle and get the ropes running freely through the bail carabiner.
Just as I'm about to equalize the length of the ropes, I hear Irene's voice. It's a relatively quiet moment between gusts, but still there's no chance of undertanding what she said. She's pointing at the other end of the rope...
So picture it: Irene is at a rap station with some tail of rope. Up from there to the end of the first 60m rope, past the knot and 15 meters of the second rope, I'm at the higher rap station. The remainder of the rope is flapping off to the left. Now the section between Irene and I, the same section I just ascended, has blown as far to the left as it can, because I loosened it while sorting out the tangles above. It's still connected to me at the top and to Irene below. But in the middle of the rope, about 20 meters to the left of Irene, it has become wedged in a crack! I can't pull it up to equalize the lengths. The loose end of the rope I have is not long enough to reach down to the stuck part or to the rap station below.
Of course during this time the wind has become more insistent, and my tolerance for rope shenanigans is lessening. I do the only thing I can at that moment and figure-eight the free end of the rope directly to the rap station. I then rap down the single strand to the point where it is caught, trying hard not to become a human kite. After freeing the stuck section of rope, Irene pulls in the slack to reduce our opportunities for further adventure. Now I have a mini-dilemma: should I ascend the rope, reset the rap station, do a double rope rap down to Irene, then try to pull the rope again? That sounds like a recipe to repeat the last hour. And it would be less fun this time around.
Dusk is deepening, and the moon rises over the white whale above us. I don't want to perish tied to the white whale. I want to be Ishmael, to be alive when the story is over. I can buy a new rope.
I traverse right, leaning into the gale and toward Irene, wary at every moment of flying backward in a huge arc near the end of a 60 meter rope powered by wind and gravity. A few minutes later I'm at the rap station with Irene and we breathe a sigh of relief.
With only minor shenanigans we manage our way down to another tree and avert any disasters with our single 8mm rope strand. A final exciting rappel over a sharp lip brings us to a catwalk where we exit right, and we're on the ground in relative safety! The wind is less down here, sheltered by the trees and below the gap in the ridgeline that funnels all of nature's fury at the upper reaches of Sugarloaf.
Since we bushwacked to the base of the climb, we're not sure how to pick up the trail on the way down. Instead, we follow a series of gulleys and take the course that water would. This works to a point, but after a while we seem to be too close to the desert floor and disconcertingly far from the ridgeline that served as our reference point. But we persevere, and pick up a good trail that appears to bring our follies to an end. Well, let's call it a respite.
We let our guard down as we skirt the base of the final hill that overlooks our camp and the parking lot where we left the car. What began as a great trail turns to a good animal trail, and then it's just empty spaces in a random sea of creosote and cactuses. We can't really say we're lost, because we can see the North Star. And we can see the desert floor is down east from us and the interstate is somewhere off to the north. It's just the fine details, of say where we're located within a couple of square miles. It doesn't seem like much, but you can do a lot of wandering in rolling hills and washes and gulleys in a desert at night. A lot.
Now it's after midnight. We're tired, out of water, it's cold, and our direction is guided by instinct. We've been battered by wind, stuck at the end of our ropes, attacked by cactuses, and I'm perfectly in my element. Well, at least in hindsight I get that wistful gleam in my eye :)
We must be getting close to the parking lot, can't be more than half a mile from it. I scramble up a rocky prominence, and at the top I find my emotional nadir. In every direction as far as the eye can see: a sea of creosote, cactus, and various dark shrubbery. No man-made structures for miles around, no lights except reflections in the eyes of a creature of the night. I stand for a moment and stare harder, hoping to pierce the veil that separates us from the end of our adventure. I don't relish it, but I can deal with it. The sense of not knowing. It's just a little discomfort in the big scheme of things, a cold night out. I wish I could spare Irene from that. She crests the little outlook, and nature affords no hope of a timely conclusion to our saga.
Irene is a stoic, but that is her breaking point. We have a little talk about these "adventures" I like, mainly a talk about not having them. I'm remorseful. There is this thing called free will and she has a choice in the matter, but still I have a tendency to plan trips with uncertain outcomes and uncomfortable conditions that she'd rather avoid. So our deal is this: sport climbing and adventures restricted to the relatively known areas in Yosemite from now on. I don't really blame her, since nearly every trip we've been on has ended with wandering lost in the night, facing a strong possibility of shivering it out til dawn: Cathedral Peak (well we didn't get lost that time); Matthes Crest; Conness (only a little lost); and now Sugarloaf in the Organ Mountains. We're not that slow; it's just that we've tended to start late when climbing together, stop to take too many pictures, and so on.
Well now we're both exausted, and Irene is ready to stop. I scout around for the best place to sleep, and offer her my jacket. That little gesture is enough to keep her going. I'm aiming westward to intersect camp, but Irene comes up with the better idea of heading north to intersect the road between the camp and the parking lot where we left the car. We follow several little ridges up and down, scramble through trees, and a gleam underfoot catches my eye: a shard of glass. A little farther I notice a broken beer bottle. I've never been so happy to see a broken beer bottle. For where there are broken bottles, there are redneck yahoos or misguided youths. And these denizens seldom stray far from a trailhead. Sure enough, within fifty feet we're on a double-wide trail and in moments we hit the road on a different trailhead than we started. Four tenths of a mile later we reach the car, and it is done.
I've got some pictures, and even some videos, but they just don't do justice to the thing. And how do I know Irene is the woman for me? After reviewing the videos last evening, her only comment was: "we should buy cheaper ropes this time."
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cleo
Social climber
Berkeley, CA
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Mar 15, 2009 - 02:25pm PT
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great report. desert at night... brrr. will you go back.
oh, and we'd love to see pictures.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Mar 15, 2009 - 02:36pm PT
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Sounds like fun.
My only trip to the Organs was pretty much just the opposite. We had a local friend to house us, wake us early, and guide us to the base of our chosen climb (Tooth or Consequences) at a reasonable hour. We made it the seven or so pitches to the top, and safely back down by cocktail hour. How boring.
But on a more serious note, the climbing there is incredible. I think the fact that Hueco Tanks is just an hour away sucked a lot of people out of Climbing in the Organs. Maybe a good thing. Anyway, if you ever get back there, do jump on Tooth or Consequences -- it's a great climb.
D
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nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 15, 2009 - 03:18pm PT
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I'd like to go back to the Organs for LOTS of fun looking climbing. Folks in Las Cruces, NM have it good. At least until summer rolls around.
The hard part for me is time! Flight to ABQ + 6 hour drive there and back on a 3-day weekend (maybe can fly to El Paso, but still a good drive...), it's much easier to go to Red Rocks for a lesser level of planning and there's a lifetime of climbing there too. Even Zion is easier to reach from San Francisco bay area.
So much to do, so little time! I guess I'd rather have that problem than a lot of time with no imagination to fill it.
But for any who are interested, Organ Mtns are definitely worth many visits. Very cool place.
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nita
climber
chica from chico, I don't claim to be a daisy
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Mar 15, 2009 - 03:41pm PT
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nutjob, Thanks for the fine report.
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nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 15, 2009 - 04:41pm PT
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Area overview:
The eastern side of the range:
North Face route goes right up the center (to the left of the big roof system):
Cool hike in:
The route follows the left skyline:
The weather started getting rough:
The tiny ship was tossed; if not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost:
It was amazing how quickly the clouds changed... going back and seeing some videos, we should have noticed beforehand how quickly the clouds whipped across the summit ridge, and we should have anticipated ridiculous wind:
This shot is on my computer desktop for the moment:
Where the f@$#!! are we?
Next day for perspective... from the campground you can see the tiptop of Sugarloaf (the left bump):
And some bonus shots on the drive back:
I think this is where Locker worships:
I guess the wind issue extends to other mountains in New Mexico:
We got the Truth, and the Consequences, in the Organ Mtns:
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Mar 15, 2009 - 07:10pm PT
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Way to go nutjob!
Buggs and I had a cool adventure down there too.
Rather than head toward Sugarloaf, we busted up to the Rabbit Ears, and had an awesome day.
I've never tried to post a link to another thread before, so here goes.
I like adventure climbing too! That's what it's supposed to be about ain't it?
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=762984&msg=764716#msg764716
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BrassNuts
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Mar 15, 2009 - 09:25pm PT
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Bump for a fine story, good pics and a thread about climbing adventure!
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MH2
climber
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Mar 15, 2009 - 10:53pm PT
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A fine story, indeed.
nearly every trip we've been on has ended with wandering lost in the night, facing a strong possibility of shivering it out til dawn
?!
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Mar 16, 2009 - 09:39am PT
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Nice report NJ! A little adventure lets us know that we're not at work, eh? Organs are pretty cool. Only made it there once so far, but need to get back. A friend and I hoofed all the way up to Sugarloaf once to climb and we were denied by the high winds. Pretty grim.
Pic I posted in the other thread:
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MH2
climber
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Mar 16, 2009 - 01:50pm PT
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Now it looks white, but more like a shark than a whale.
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
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Mar 16, 2009 - 02:39pm PT
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Good stuff, Nutjob. This pic is great:
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 18, 2009 - 11:08am PT
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nice, (the scene with the bugs at the beginning went a tad long though)
also, the stills are great, if you put a bit of the wind sound on that segment of the sound track it would add to your "story"
As for adventure... well... if it's not about meeting adversity then what is it about?
Good show Irene & Scott!
Start your "attempted and failed" list now, it provides some ideas later on...
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Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mar 18, 2009 - 12:17pm PT
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Awesome TR,
A triumph of your own personal style!
Zander
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nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2009 - 01:53pm PT
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I just wanted to take a moment and reflect on style. Or maybe a sickness? But really I'm happy about it... I've got a 3-day weekend to do anything in the state of New Mexico, with tons of sweet places close to Albuquerque or Santa Fe or Taos. Instead, I pick a climb that involves 12 hours of driving and 11 hours of wandering in the desert hills for 4 pitches of climbing and a rope fiasco!
The funniest part is that my original plan was to fly in Friday morning, do the drive (arriving by 2pm?) and approach hike (at base of climb by 4pm?), and climb the thing by moonlight! The idea was to be back in time to drive a few hours to Carlsbad Caverns for a 9 or 10am guided tour on Saturday, then a big drive back to Albuquerque. Jeez. Give me a rope, but you better keep the map and the plans.
Edit: sorry about over-indulging the bugs in the opening shots of the video. I get caught up in stuff like that sometimes. Don't give me the camera if we're on a tight time budget!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Mar 18, 2009 - 02:07pm PT
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Yer a NUT, but nice JOB.....nutjob...he hee he...
I liked the vid too. must have taken some time.
I'll be back there soon.
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Daphne
Trad climber
Mill Valley, CA
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Mar 19, 2009 - 02:36am PT
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bump for a trip report-- glad you posted the pictures- I grew up near the Organs and it was great to see them silhouetted again.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Mar 19, 2009 - 06:00am PT
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hey there nutjob... say, this was a really great job you did here... trip report and all...
say, even if it wasn't as smooth as you'd have like... say, it was one ol' adventure, at that....
great pictures... thanks so much for the share...
say, i have seen the mt ranges off in the distance so very much back when our family would travel through there... really wished i just go up and touch them... (too far off, though, we were traveling through).,... (not to)..
thanks again...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 19, 2009 - 12:02pm PT
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"We can't really say we're lost, because we can see the North Star."
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