A few weeks after our little climbing adventure in Spain, Maggie and I had a free weekend. The psych was still high, so when Maggie asked me what we should do, I said, “Well I was thinking about this ridge traverse in the Sandias.” I showed Maggie the route and she was instantly stoked to do it.
Whiskey Ridge is about a half mile long and ascends 1,000 feet. The climbing grade is 5.6, and two rappels are required. With these stats, I thought of it as a technical scramble. Mostly very easy climbing, but a rope is necessary. However, an alpine trad objective like this was definitely pushing my comfort zone. As the weekend got closer, my anxiety grew to the point where I happily would have changed plans if Maggie had wanted to. Alas, we decided we would give it a shot, putting no pressure on ourselves if we wanted to bail mid-route.
The logistics of getting to the ridge and getting back down pose a bit a of a challenge. It sits in a large gap between trails. Based on another trip report, the approach is on the Domingo Baca trail, and the descent is on the La Luz trail. Connecting the dots, we picked out some off trail sections on the map. We decided to start at the Sandia Peak aerial tram to split up the approach and descent more evenly.
23 March 2025
We woke up at 4 am eat a good breakfast and drive down to Albuquerque. Packs saddled and approach shoes on, we set off from the tram a little after 6 am as dawn was starting to glow behind the Sandia Mountains. Our objective was looming directly above us, a ragged shadow 3,000 feet up. It was intimidating for sure, but I’ve learned with these things to take it one step at a time.
The first step was hiking about 4 miles to the start of the climb. I often hear climbers bemoan any approach longer than a mile, but Maggie and I are hikers to the core. We were totally enjoying the hike in! A creamy lenticular cloud, lit up by the sunrise, guided us towards Domingo Baca canyon. We left the trail for a gentle ridge heading straight towards tram tower two. There were cactus and yucca to dodge, but this portion was fine to navigate through.
The final 1/10th of a mile below tower two was a dense thicket of gambel oak. Maggie and I finally got a good bushwhacking experience, which is hard to come by in the desert!
There is a 150 foot cliff at the base of the ridge below tower two. We did not climb this cliff in the interest of time. By the looks of it, I think this cliff would be the best climbing on the whole ridge. We hooked around the east side, scrambled up to tower two, and found ourselves on Whiskey Ridge. It looked like we would be on rock going forward, so we put our helmets on here. The terrain was still no harder than class 3 scrambling to start, so we didn’t rope up yet.
Maggie and I got over the first hump. There was a bit of walking through more cactus and shrubbery, but the exposure ramped up considerably. A narrow, sloping catwalk was an intro to the reality of this climb. Soon after, we had to traverse a small ledge, awkwardly blocked by some boulders.
With the adrenaline pumping and some vertical rock in front of us, we decided it was time to tie in. Maggie had a good ledge to belay from, in a sort of right facing corner. I climbed a few feet up and over a narrow section of ridge, placing one cam. The next move involved an airy step into a left facing corner. I couldn’t find anywhere to place protection. I poked my head around the corner to talk to Maggie. She said it would be alright if we wanted to bail here. “I know I can do it, I’m just scared,” I said.
I collected my self and took a deep breath. I stepped out into space and finding a good foothold. The moves from there weren’t difficult, but the mental pressure of knowing I only had one cam 20 feet behind me was occupying my thoughts. “This is what it’s all about, right? Scary, run-out trad?” I shouted back to Maggie. The 5th class climbing was short, and I found myself back on level-ish ground where I belayed Maggie.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the worst of the exposure was behind us. I was on high alert, fully expecting the rest of the route to be just as precarious. There was a long section of scrambling and walking, which helped calm the nerves a little. Maggie and I stayed tied in with coils and about 30 m of rope between us on running belay, or as I like to say, “free simul”. Half the rope, twice the consequence!
The rock quality was not confidence inspiring, mostly consisting of talus jenga blocks. The boulders were generally wedged in place with one another, and heavy enough that they wouldn’t move, but just seeing that we weren’t on solid rock attached to the ground added to the fear factor. We had to tip toe through some sections to avoid dislodging rocks. I purposefully trundled some rocks off the side of the ridge when I knew it was safe to do so.
The second 5th class pitch was a short dihedral. Another airy step was required at the start of the pitch, but the cracks were plentiful and I was able to get a few cams in. I scrambled over the next hump and down a little ways to the start of “the complex”, where I belayed Maggie from an established rappel anchor. It took Maggie a little bit of time to free a cam, but she climbed through without a problem.
Ahead of us was a bit of a puzzle. We knew there were two rappels on the route. We set up for the first one and I started off by rappelling a few feet straight down off the left side of the ridge. This was clearly going to drop me off route, so I climbed back up and tried to continue along the ridge by stepping across a small ledge. This was a bit tricky to do while fiddling with the rope on rappel. I felt secure in my position, but moving horizontally from the rap anchor on the edge of a cliff meant that any slip would lead to a big swing back into the wall.
I finally got to a face where I could sit back in my harness and weight the rope. It was an interesting fall line, where I started on the left side of the ridge, dropped down to a thin saddle, then met the ground on the right side of the ridge. It was a broad ledge with some fir trees, so I got off rappel to explore ahead while Maggie started her descent. I scrambled up the next bit of ridge and watched Maggie rappel. She was really taking her time. When she finally caught up with me, she said, “That was so fucked up!” Maggie was definitely more tuned in to the risk of swinging back towards the anchor.
The hours were flying by. We had been on the ridge for over four hours. With a lovely sub-peak to take a break on, we refueled with cold pizza and Redbull.
The next rappel was simple, dropping us onto a small saddle. However, the vertical rock in front of us looked tricky. We tied in again and I placed a cam and a hex near the start of the pitch. It was steep for 5.6, but short and doable. I belayed Maggie off a tree maybe 50′ past the vertical section.
The wind was howling. Time was slipping through our hands. We were on the final scramble to the summit and I was feeling frantic. This section looked steeper and higher consequence, so I asked Maggie to keep me on belay. The scrambling turned out to be fine up until a little boulder problem over a no fall zone. Maggie caught up to me and I asked for a belay again. I placed a small cam and a nut for peace of mind and cruised up to the summit. Maggie followed soon after, and we realized we had done it, our first alpine climb!
Of course, the summit is only half way. It was a short, easy scramble down from the summit to a saddle just northwest of the peak. After seven hours on the ridge and mostly just snacking on bars, Maggie and I were starving. We knew the hardest part was behind us, so we sat for a few minutes to eat the rest of our pizza and snacks for the hike down. We couldn’t sit forever as the springtime sunset was fast approaching.
We set off downhill through subalpine conifer forest. There were blowdowns and shrubs to avoid, but it was generally easy hiking. I am very glad to have planned out the descent route ahead of time. There was a key saddle to cross over to reach the next gully to the north by The Thumb, which would bring us down to the Old La Luz Trail. Other than slipping on some snow and breaking a trekking pole, the route worked perfectly. There was a final bit of bushwhacking to reach the trail, but once we found it, we knew it was smooth sailing back to the car.
The sun set as we were hiking down the last few miles of the La Luz trail. It was another spectacular New Mexico sunset. Sixty miles to the west, Mt. Taylor was set ablaze by the orange glow, fading through every color of the rainbow to that piercing desert blue sky. I can’t tell you the last time I was awake and outside to see both sunrise and sunset. Even if it meant we would be hiking in the dark, this gorgeous sunset was the cherry on top of a successful day in the mountains.
Climbing Whiskey Ridge was a long and challenging day for us, but it was tons of fun! This was exactly what we needed to push ourselves a little and learn what it takes to do an alpine climb. Being in the mountains all day with my partner in life (and climbing) was simply wonderful…
If you’ve made it this far, check out the footie from our adventure (6.5 min):
Some extra beta for climbers:
- Distance: 10.7 miles | Vert: 3,600 feet
- Time: 13.5 hours (Approach 2.5 hr, Ridge 7.5 hr, Descent 3.5 hr)
- Pitching out the climb with 20-30 m pitches really slowed us down, but we were being quite cautious. An efficient team could easily shave off a few hours.
- We wore approach shoes all day. This worked out well since the 5th class sections are easy and short.
- Radios were quite useful since the climber and belayer are almost always out of sight of each other.
- A 60 meter rope was plenty long for the rappels. It may be possible to do with a 50 m rope, but I can’t say for sure. A 30 m rope with a tagline would be the lightest option.
- The first rappel is likely more suitable as a down climb/lower. That would eliminate the complications of scrambling while on rappel.
- We brought a single rack of cams 0.3-2, nuts, and some mid-sized hexes. Confident climbers could probably do with out the passive pro, but I did use a little bit of everything. A handful of slings are good to have for trees and boulders. Bring some webbing or cord to replace the rap anchors if needed.
Distance Over Time 