Donna on Five Years After just below the cover pos...
Description
The first half of 5 Years After is a popular sport and toprope climb at TP.
Climb Chicken Shit to a ledge, or scramble up 3rd class to its left. Continue up on solid flakes and positive holds to a 2-bolt anchor. It's 5.8 with closely spaced bolts to this point; the 2nd bolt is not visible until it's at your nose. Most people lower from this anchor, but they are missing out. The adventurous can continue up a seldom-climbed and runout face (5.9 somewhat runout, at first, then easier above) between big flakes to the top of the rock. If you plan on continuing to the top, don't belay at the anchor, combine it into a single 190' pitch.
Location
The face left of Chicken Heads and right of Dirty Diagonal. The 2 bolt anchor is obvious. Lower from that anchor with 1 rope, or walk off to the right if you top out.
Protection
2 bolts to the 2 bolt anchor midway up. If you stop here, only 4 quickdraws are needed (5 quickdraws, if starting with Chicken Shit).
If you plan on topping out, you'll need some gear to build an anchor up high at the top, and a light rack of cams and nuts to 3", including micros, to get there.
That's pretty cool to see TP on the cover of Climbing. But what's up with tilting the photo that much when you can see the horizon? :-) Or that just a super wide angle shot? I look forward to seeing the issue.
No, it does not look like a super wide angle shot. The frame is definitely tilted to make it look steep and the anchor is partially hidden behind the title to make what is a descent route look like a steeper, longer plated granite 5.9.
I agree with Lee, poor photographic form. It is even funnier when all they had to do was photograph Techweenie or its 5.11 siblings for a true, vertical, plated-granite route that needs no tilting to do it justice.
Having read the article, I also question Matt's assessment of Clean Green Dream as the Solid Gold of TP and Serpentine Face as the Figures on a Landscape of TP. Figures is phenomenal and sustained and Serpentine is just pretty good with a really short crux; no real comparison. I can't fault Samet too much, he grew up in NM and like those of us who have lived here for a while, the perspective gets skewed. It must be the water from Los Alamos that does it. Articles about NM never seem to do it justice, which is good for keeping crowds away.
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By George Perkins Administrator From: Los Alamos, NM Aug 22, 2009
Got my subscription yesterday, was pretty pleased, thought the article was pretty good, did justice to TP and the Taos area, and it was nice to see the historical info on the region and the climbing history which isn't all that well-known. TP's not for everyone- the reputations vary from 'too slabby' to 'too easy' to 'too runout'- which is all sortof true and sortof not true- but if you get past those reasons, there's fun climbing to do here and I probably come up a couple of times/month. I'll agree that I'd happily trade TP's 60 climbs for Joshua Tree's 4000, but overall I think climbing painted a good picture without overhyping it, that a road trip/long weekend in Taos, with the cultural experiences combined with being able to climb on a few different crags in northern New Mexico, makes for a nice adventure. [But I drink the Los Alamos water too :) ]
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