Climbing the Sentinel, Sandia mountains

Page Type: Album

Image Type(s): Rock Climbing

Page By: Liba Kopeckova

Created/Edited: Sep 16, 2009 / Sep 16, 2009

Object ID: 554210

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Sandias

The Sandia Mountains are a mountain range immediately to the northeast of the city of Albuquerque in New Mexico, and practically in my backyard. (I live at its foothills).
Sandia means watermelon in Spanish, and is popularly believed to be a reference to the reddish color of the mountains at the sunset. However, the most likely explanation is that Sandia Indians grew squash and the Spaniards thought that those were watermelons.
Most of the rock is limestone, nice for climbing. There is a multitude of trad climbs. There is also a sport climbing area - Palomas Peak (I have posted a couple of photos from there on SP previosly).
Because of the approaches to the climbing areas, you will typically find solitude while climbing. And despite the fact that you are climbing in New Mexico, you can get cold. Most of the climbs are above 9,000 feet.

The Sentinel

The Sentinel is a picturesque granite summit on the ridge between upper LaCueva and Chimney canyons. Climbs on the Sentinel tend to be in 5.7-5.8 range (all trad). Lost Edge seems to be the classic here, starting with a beautiful and smooth dihedral. There are no bolts along the route. Standard rack with camalots from 0.4 to 2.0 is plenty (0.5, 0.75, and 1 doubles). I also used my new DMM alloy offsets just to test it out. It is a 2 pitch climb, some people make it a 3 pitch climb.