Below The Old New Place

This crag is known for its high concentration of fully-bolted sport climbs, that ascend high quality pocketed basalt. This cliff probably has the highest concentration of hard routes at White Rock, with 10 of its 30 or so routes checking in at 5.12. The cliff also offers an excellent cliff-base atmosphere, with large, flat belay zones, flat rocks for sitting, and a beautiful, relaxed setting. The routes are so convenient and dense that its easy to tick 10 or more routes in an afternoon.

The cliff faces generally East like most WR crags, but the dihedral-ly nature of the cliff causes a bit more sun/shade variety than other nearby crags. The most northerly facing routes get shade a bit after 1pm, while some routes aren't fully shaded till after 3pm.

While the rock here is excellent, the crag is a bit short (~50-60 feet), and many of the climbs suffer from mud runoff, coating routes like Sardonic Smile in a thick layer of dirt. Its easy to spot the dirty routes from the ground: they're the ones that look white or light gray.

This area first appeared in the original "Sport Climbing in New Mexico" book by Randal Jett and Matt Samet. The Below the Old New Place excerpt from that book can be found here on the Los Alamos Mountaineers website.