| North Ridge of North Truchas via Quemado Creek Route |
Contribute  Loading... Geography Parents Loading... Routes
| North Ridge of North Truchas via Quemado Creek   | 
| Page Type: Route Location: New Mexico, United States, North America Route Type: Hiking Season: Spring, Summer, Fall Time Required: Most of a day Rock Difficulty: Class 4
| Route Quality: | | | | Loading...
| Page By: Your Dudeness Created/Edited: Aug 3, 2008 / Aug 8, 2008 Object ID: 427719 Hits: 210 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Under ConstructionWe decided to scramble up the west face of North Truchas by hiking in from the Quemado Creek trailhead. We left the car at 8:15 AM and returned to it at 3:45PM. I think we might've been able to cut an hour off this if we'd been trying to set speed records. We hiked in along Quemado creek until we were in the meadow above the falls. From the car we stayed on the trail for about an hour and a half until we picked a route that headed towards UN 12,900. We went up the route discussed below, along the north ridge to north Truchas, continuing on the south ridge to the saddle between North and Middle Truchas, then down the trail from the saddle back into the meadow. The portion of the trip from North Truchas back to the car is identical to that discussed by attm in his class two Rio Quemado to North Truchas route route. The portion from the ridge to North Truchas follows the same general path described by Frishman in his North Ridge route. However, at the two cruxes of our hike we deviated significantly from Frishman's route. We endeavored to follow the ridge as closely as possible. Staying on the ridge took us through the "crux notch" which is an easy class 4 climb of about 15 feet on good rock. The easy climbing through the "crux notch" hasn't been discussed in the accounts of the north ridge that I've seen. The one part that hasn't been discussed at all is the scramble up hill from the meadow to the ridge line. There are many ways to do that scramble and we tried to pick one that might have some interesting terrain.
The north ridge of north Truchas. The North Truchas summit is off the photo to the right. Our route went straight up to the ridge, reaching it just to the right (south) of UN 12,900 which is the high point on the left side of the image. |
We aimed towards the narrow water path 
The water path with "light daggers". The daggers are the two right pointing illuminated triangular shaped regions. |
in about the center of the image. Thomas took a slightly more technical route. Rachel couldn't bring ourselves to commit to the first move (unroped). Thomas said the second move was harder than the first so I think we did the right thing. Then Rachel and I tried ascending a chimney to the right of the right "light dagger" and found it was very dangerous. All the rock was loose including big boulders that one would ordinarily think would be solid. We down climbed and found an easy class 3 route that went right and up onto the grass. When we reached the ridge we were slightly south of UN 12,900 and opted not to climb it. For us the crux was the small notch to the north of the headwall. Basically our route was straight along the ridge with minimal deviation. This enabled us to make the climb pretty quickly.
The Crux Notch |
Rachel Ascending the Crux Notch. |
For us the head wall discussed by Frishman (http://www.summitpost.org/route/245678/n-ridge-of-n-truchas.html) and others was sort of trivial. We found a solid class 3 route that went almost straight up the ridge line. We didn't follow or see the cairned route that Frishman took. Thomas decided our route up the headwall. In typical Thomas fashion he found a route that was direct and had very solid footing with perhaps a single class 4 move at the end. I didn't bother to take photos here.
Frishman's route. Where he went right we stayed left on very solid ground. Actually in Frishman's caption for this image he mentions another feasible line to the left. Presumably this was the line we took. There was one move at the end of our ascent through this that one might argue was class 4. |
It is possible to avoid the piece I called "the crux notch" by downclimbing around it. Similarly there are various routes through the head wall. The main thing is simply to avoid loose and rotten rock of which there is plenty. Test all hand holds and be careful where you place your feet.
After the headwall everything is class 2 back to the car. Once we got back to the meadow we took a nice long break and took off our shoes and stuck our feet in the icy stream. It was a good trip.
Route DescriptionAdd Route Description text here.
Essential GearAdd Essential Gear text here.
External LinksAdd External Links text here. Images
|
|
Sangre de Cristo Mountains
