The Saloon

Finally, a re-visit to our new hang at the upper east fork, now dubbed the Saloon. Fun day with Gary, Eric, Marci and Jamie and the accompanying pack of dogs. Crazy NM weather, started with wet ground (thats a first), beautiful bluebird morning, then it snowed on us! Then sun again. Then rain. More elbow grease was invested in cleaning, and we more or less opened up a very nice new line, ~v5. Sloper start leads to an overhanging dihedral and a very cool blind static stretch move into a perfectly placed gaston and good slots for exit. Requires a bit of strength to pull the first couple moves then its mostly about flexibility!

Should be going there quite a bit this summer, good training wall. Cleaned up two lines that are likely fairly hard, I would guess at least 8. Good to have some projects!

The Golden Compass

Got bored and made a map of the main "destination" bouldering spots in N. America, partly useful to help me plan my forthcoming trips...


View Bouldering Road Trip Destinations in a larger map
 
Blue pins for winter destinations, red for summer (kinda...)

Roy Bouldering!

I dont know how the bouldering in "Roy" got discovered. I can only assume it involved some visionary state inspired by a Shamanically-induced trance, perhaps the vicious bite of a rattlesnake or the mescal dementia of the san pedro cactus. Maybe all three. It's in a pretty out of the way corner of NE New Mexico, basically a neverending series of canyons carved by the Canadian river through a thick layer of Dakota sandstone. The last ~100 miles of the drive you pass through wonderfully named Wagon Mound, Roy and Mills, populations 301, 237 and 30. We passed 3 cars on the way. Although the immediate area, comprised of ranch land and the Kiowa National Grasslands, is secluded, with virtually no services, at the same time it lies within a moderate 3.5 hr drive of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Amarillo TX and Colorado Springs. It was a pretty chill journey for us from los alamos.

The existence of Roy's bountiful Dakota sandstone was teasingly flashed to the public via Climbing.com several years ago, and certainly succeeded in getting many climbers interested, desperate even, to know about this unknown area. Fast forward a few years and some more lingering moments of exposure of this area now abound (Here and here and here and here). Myself, I found out about Roy from Noah Kaufman's adventures.

So, after moving to New Mexico, and a lot of faffing around, I finally got around to making the journey out east, a strange experience (for me) of seeking a climbing destination east of the Rockies. What's that about?!

Ok, so just a whirlwind 2 day trip, really it would take a good month or so to get to grips with what Roy has to offer, but first of all I gotta say Im impressed! The rock quality was excellent, with all kinds of features and overhangs to play with. I dont mind the grainy, sandy sandstone, and there was some of that, but there were also walls of perfect, bullet fine-grained maroon-varnished stuff, really perfect climbing rock that would impress anyone. Definitely the best rock Ive seen in NM, hands down.

Well I didnt get pictures of the best stuff and Im a little tired right now so Ill save you the blow by blow account of our adventure, but suffice to say Ill be back, ASAP!

Some random sandstone patina.

Roy! The future of agriculture, 1943

Thank you for making this obscure haven public land.

On safari on the approach

Really shitty picture of a cool warmup boulder

The sport routes there looked quite tasty!

Tiger Stripe Wall

A Jason Kehl EDIT: Brian Arnold DOUBLE EDIT: Brian Capps highball, One-Eyed Clown V10, a proud line

Middle Mesteno Canyon 

Jamie on Thumbelina EDIT: Spring Chicken V3

And may all your ascents lead to meaningful summits, young human.

As a postscript I'm very happy to disclose information about any of the climbing areas Ive been to, Roy included, so if you're interested PM me. If you do make it to Roy, be careful about just heading out wherever. The land ownership is like a patchwork quilt out there, and its your responsibility to figure this out before you get out there!

Pond obscura

Couple pics of semi-obscure Pond lines

Ok, not so obscure. Jamie on scoop aka spitoon.

Awesome Hueco-esque varnish on Lunch Lady.

Very techy problem Lunch Lady V5.

Steve's Spicy Tuna Hand Roll V4.

Corral Pics

As promised, some pics from last weekends development sesh at the corral, courtesy of Gary!

Eric doing some intense laybacking

Topping out Love Triangle V2. Techy problem up lazer arete

Jamie on an awesome V2 lip traverse

The further my tongue comes out, the harder Im trying

Awesome, as yet unnamed, boulder at the Corral.

Unfortunately this line doesn climb as well as it looks. The face problem to the left however is expected to be a super classic but super hard line.

Bad photo, but this feature is basically an oblique dihedral (yes, really). V4, on the Oracle boulder.

Pond tomorrow, psyched!