Boyer's Chute

Overview

Boyer's Chute is one of the easier routes that ascends to the summit of the North Rabbit Ear. It follows the great curving slash in the west face, and is visible from the nearby city of Las Cruces. The route doesn't require more than 2-3 pitches of roped climbing, but the 3000' vertical from Baylor Canyon Road and the ~500' of scrambling / climbing make for nearly a full day adventure. The adventure climbing aspects of this route and the great summit views make this a great alpine outing only minutes from the city.

Getting There

Follow the "Getting There" instructions on the main page for the North Rabbit Ear. Once in the main Rabbit Ear Canyon follow the path of least resistance up the drainage until you pass a large tower in the middle of the canyon on the west side. Once around the tower pick the path of least vegetation up the east slopes aiming for the center of the North Rabbit Ear. The Boyer's Chute route should be easy to distinguish and is the more southern of the two prominent chutes in the west face.

Route Description

The chute starts just to the south of a prominent buttress and quickly narrows down to a series of 3rd, 4th and 5th class obstacles. The climbing is varied with short sections of fun solid rock, followed by loose highly vegetated slopes. Many of the problems are short 10'-20' high walls and they can be easily surmounted with a pack. However as you get a little bit higher into the chute the problems get a little higher and the consequences a little bigger, such that most parties decide to rope up when passing a large chockstone on the right. If you look up and to the left at this point you should see an old cable wrapped around a large block on the north wall. We used this cable along with a backup sling to rappel this section on the descent.

It would be difficult to get lost once in the chute as long as you stay left at possible junctions. The crux of the route comes a short distance later near a lodged chockstone and during the ascent of a 5.4 chimney. Gear placements are plentiful on this short pitch and there was a two bolt anchor at the top of the pitch (it's now a one bolt anchor... see lizrdboy's TR for details).


Descent can be accomplished by following the chute back down or locating a couple of sets of anchors on the south side. We searched for a short amount of time for the southern anchors without luck, before descending our ascent route. There are a number of solid trees and chockstones to use for anchors if you decide to rappel some of the tricky sections.

Essential Gear

A small rack of stoppers and 2 or 3 small cams should do the trick. It's also advisable to take some webbing and rap rings to ensure a safe descent.

Parting Shot

The ascent up Boyer's Chute is primarily shaded and narrow, but occasionally the chute will open up slightly and you'll have views into and across Rabbit Ear Canyon. For much of the climb the walls of chute did a pretty good job of framing the Lesser Spire that is located across the canyon.

Images

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