Pecos River Canyon, about half an hour north of Santa Fe, gets a name check in the title of the Jemez Rock guide and sounded worth checking out. It’s a very pretty valley with some great fishing, judging by the number of folks casting their flys from the banks. There’s also some great camping, including a simple riverside site we stayed at, and a load of “primitive” dispersed options.

However, to be honest, the actual cragging is okay rather than awesome. No complaints about the approach walk to the premier sector – Cathedral Rock, and the sharply featured granite gives good if finger-shredding holds, but there isn’t a huge amount to go at.

Ooze Move, 5.9, and Double Roof Dilemma, 10b, were both fun, and so was Easy Air which takes the righthand skyline at an airy and sandbaggy 5.8+!

An early finish saw us head south to Albuquerque to find a camping spot on some BLM land west of the historic town of Placitas, just in time to catch a magnificent sunset.

… which lit up the Sandia Crest.

Any fans of Breaking Bad will recognise this iconic backdrop to the frenzied action, and climbers will most likely have speculated as to whether it really is a limestone ridge? It is! There are some significant “backcountry adventure routes” on the Crest itself, which reaches a height of over 10,000ft (and even hosts a ski resort, though the season can’t be very long!) Our target was Palomas Peak, a subsidiary summit, with some well-regarded limestone sports routes.

The climbing is accessed via a dirt road, either from Placitas on the east side, or from the south near Tijeras. We went for the former and endured a bumpy and quite “exciting” five miles of grind, proving that whilst it’s doable by 2WD (in a 7 tonne meth lab!) the alternative approach would be less nerve-wracking and probably faster.

The climbing is clearly visible from the Palomas Peak trailhead, strung out along the mile-wide ribbon of more solid rock of the upper tier. The trail is a gorgeous walk in its own right, skirting cleverly through pine woodland around the huge depression between you and the crag, and getting you there with barely any unnecessary height gain.

We were carefully watching out so as not to miss the path to the foot of the crag, but needn’t have worried!

You reach the first major buttress in about 30mins but we hurried past the ironically named Slab Wall…

The Dihedral and Randy’s Walls were a bit more user friendly. We did a bunch of routes including Motion Activated, 5.8…

Same as it Ever Was, 10b

Northern Migration, 5.8

… and the stunning Green Eggs and Ham, 10c

Interesting climbing on good rock, and the routes certainly pack a punch despite maxing out at around 50ft. Well worth a visit for the location and outlook alone.

We decided to extend our New Mexico limestone campaign by following up on a recommendation from a couple we met at Pecos to visit New Canyon on the East Side of the Monzano Mountains. This is about an hour south of Albuquerque. It’s another very accessible crag, with the first routes just a few minutes from the parking, and set in a pretty valley. Again, it’s not the tallest crag, at about 40ft, but the limestone is better than it looks, with lots of pockets and positive crimps on cherty holds.

It’s fair to say that Helen enjoyed it more than I did. Here she is on DNA, 5.8

… and Need to Bleed, 5.8

Perhaps the best of the routes I did was Dave’s Face, 10c, at least in part because it catches some early shade on yet another toasty wall. More of a drive-by rather than a destination crag.