| North Face of Medio Truchas Trip Report |
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| North Face of Medio Truchas   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: New Mexico, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 32.84000°N / 113.91°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Jun 11, 2006 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter | Page By: Your Dudeness Created/Edited: Jun 15, 2006 / Sep 20, 2007 Object ID: 200541 Hits: 1027 Loading... Page Score: 87.6% - 5 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Getting there On the trail. We left Quemado Creek trailhead at 7:20AM. We got back to the car at about 5:45PM. This picture was taken in the avalanche path, about an hour in from the trailhead. The previous time I came in here I brought my dog and she tangled with a porcupine right here. She got it right in the kisser. It took three of us to pull the quills out.
The water fall is below the avy path in the photo. I would argue that the top of the fall is the lowest point in the basin, but you're still quite a ways from the point where you really start climbing. I think he Quemado Creek trail head is at about 9,000'. The avy path and the top of the fall are probably about 10,500'. If you have better altitude data, PM me with it and I'll put it in here.
EDIT: On Sept 15 2007 we summited both middle and medio truchas, and carried a gps with us. It reported the trailhead as 9,800' and the top of the falls to be 11,300'. Route finding
When we got here we didn't know precisely where we were going to climb. We'd all forgotten our helmets so rock fall was a serious issue. Chuck and Darien finally chose to climb on the face. Thomas who was leading me wanted an escape route in case I freaked so we climbed along the red line shown in the image. We were sort of on the edge of the face but where we could escape out to the right onto easier terrain. It was a good choice. These two videos are the discussions of who was going to climb where. Ultimately the decision was "well, we'll just go up there and find two good routes where we don't have to worry about rock."
 We took the route shown here on the ascent. Climbing! You wouldn't know it to hear this but I really don't have much of a southern accent any more. I think I was a little scared and all that corn pone just came gushing out. Hell. I don't even know what corn pone is! The starting crack was one of the two most difficult spots on the climb for me.
 Thomas at the first belay station
 Me somewhere in the middle. Last Pitch
This clip shows the other most difficult point of the climb. It was a little tricky for me following Thomas. For him this was all trivial. I couldn't guage the difficulty by watching him. He just moved right through everything. When I saw this crack I thought it would be easy, but there were two moves that took me a long time to figure out.
 Thomas waiting at the third belay.I think it was this belay where Thomas said "don't touch the death block". The death block was a slab that was somehow perched on the face I was climbing on. It was maybe 8 inches thick by 10-20 square feet. It was almost not touching the face. Unfortunately I was too scared to mess around with my camera.
 Thomas at the last belay station. Most of the climb up to this station was exposed but easy scrambling. From here we unroped and went up and to the right until we were just above and to the left of one of the snow gullies. The only exciting thing there was free climbing a class 4 wall that was steep and exposed. I had to build up some nerve before doing that, but once I started it was easy. There were lots of good hand and foot holds in the rocky grass. Descent  The upper basin. It bends around further left. The lowest point of what I consider to be the basin is at the top of the falls at around 11,300'. The highest point is about 12,000'.
 North Truchas from Medio Truchas. From the summit ridge you can summit any of the Truchas peaks or you can cross over to the eastern slopes and descend into the Pecos water shed.
 On the descent we went down the route shown here. Note that this photo was taken a year earlier after the wettest winter in 111 years. EDIT Sept 15 2007: CLARIFICATION On Sept 15 2007 we climbed up the (approximate) route shown in this picture but we stayed a bit more to the right. It is not the route Thomas and I climbed down. I don't recommend this route. It is very steep and the rock is loose and rotten.
Thomas and I descended the scree route shown here on the left in my good friend attm's picture:
[img]http://www.summitpost.org/images/original/109866.jpg[/img]
Thomas and I descended the scree route on the left in this image. On Sept 15 2007 RachelR, Andy, and I ascended the route on the right and descended the route on the left. This is a good descent route and I expect it is reasonable on the ascent as well. You might want helmets. We tried to stay at the same elevation so as not to drop rock on each other. The route on the right is not that good.
 Chuck found this Piton high on the face. Images
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Sangre de Cristo Mountains
