Moving to Albuquerque, climbing suggestions?

Hi All!

My girlfriend and I are possibly moving to Albuquerque for graduate school at UNM in the fall. We will be visiting the school in the middle of March for a long weekend. We would like to spend one day each checking out the city/places to live, the school, and the climbing. Looks like there are a ton of good climbing areas around the city. Does anyone have some suggestions for good local climbing to check out? Bouldering and/or sport climbing would be easiest and preferably within an 1hr or so from Albuquerque. Thank you for the suggestions!

Neal

I'll leave it to other people to describe the rope climbing, but the bouldering you'd be wanting to check out is either the stuff in the sandia foothills, sharp grainy slabby granite of mixed quality but some good locals stuff, or the pond at ponderosa, steep problems v3-11 on welded tuff of dramatically varied rock quality that can also be rough on the hands.

the box in socorro has fantastic bouldering but is more like an hr and 15 from abq.

Diablo Canyon has some great long sport routes.

Hit up these guys sites.google.com/site/unmmt…
White Rock has single pitch trad and sport ~1.5 hours away
Diablo Canyon
The Box in Socorro is good.
Jemez area climbing is pretty with nearby hot springs.

Palomas is less than an hour drive with a 30 min hike. Over 100 sport routes, but you have to pick them carefully, as there are some fantastic ones and also plenty of crap. It is South facing limestone that ranges from featureless friction slab to hard steep stuff. Grades are .7 to .14-. Not my favorite place, but it is quality.