Who: MJ and Deanna (in the car), Hiroki and Laurel (met them up here), Susan, Jeremiah and Denali.
When: April 8 to April 11

If you wake up in Los Angeles and leave for a road trip at 5a in the early morning, encounter 20 minutes' worth of traffic in the first 15 minutes, stop for an hour's lunch in Arizona, and break for gas 3 times, I promise you that after 11 hours of driving 750 miles east you will get to Enchanted Tower near Datil, New Mexico at 5.30p, in time to climb at least one route before it gets dark.

Which was what we did. (Lead feet. That's the only way to explain it.)

It's like Malibu Canyon rock: volcanic tuff. Only solid. And longer. At least, the Tower is. Everything else on average was 6 bolts with the top 2. Yes, six bolts. You could onsite a lot of things here.

There's not much in terms of "pretty" flowers, but it's rather scenic as a whole. It's quiet; the weekend we were there, there weren't a lot of people. Remember, this is someone's backyard, and they've generously given climbers--and only climbers--access to it. There were lots of climbs I'd have loved to do if we had more time, but after 3 days straight, we decided to pack up and start heading home. We drove to Flagstaff, climbed for a bit, and then drove home. You can read that entry, or you can see what we did in the slideshow.

› Enchanted Tower slideshow (browser back button takes you back here)