The Box is a box canyon of rhyolite, near the town of Socorro with about 300 routes – mostly sport. The contrast of the red/brown rock and bullet blue sky is worth the trip alone.

The North Box has a handy parking area, where overnighting is tolerated, leaving you in pole position to get on the crag (not that there was anyone else there!). There’s climbing on both sides, but the plum crag is Red Wall (the farthest wall on the right hand side of the photo below).

100+ft of crimp-tastic tuff. Helen had resolved to have a rest day so theoretically we should have had plenty of time, but an over laid-back start meant I was in a race against the clock before the sun came around onto the wall. The combo of Lucid Fairyland and La Sombra makes for a good 30m warm up, and I barely had time to pull the rope before jumping on Phase Dance, 11a, whilst it was still in the shade. Of course that scenario results in sun-blindness and a desperate hunt for holds, and I only just sketched my way up it. Very good though!

A foray around on to the North Wall yielded shade, but also steep, bouldery routes which were unappealing, so we braved the sun on the Corner Block instead. Last Tango, 11a, is a super-thin slab, which I abandoned near the top with cripplingly sore toes, and ended up doing No Holds Barred, 5.8, to retrieve the gear. No contest for the finest climber in action in The Box that day…

Fab starry sky…

Next day we swapped ends for The South and dropped into Scarry Wall (no that’s not a typo for Scary – it’s an homage to the author of The Biggest Word Book Ever and other brilliant illustrated children’s books). Another crag that enjoys early shade, and another race against time to make the most of it. We managed to bag Lowly Worm’s Applecopter Express, Officer Flossy, Rudolph von Flugel, and Goldbug, all 5.8s,…

… and Snozzle, 5.9, in reasonable comfort.

On to the main Southern Box area for the afternoon, where Alcohol Wall promised full-on shade (and full-on steepness) on the right of the photo below:

Blue Agave is a great 10b on exhilarating pockets, once you negotiate the poorly bolted start.

I barely covered the ground on Home Brew, 10c, and should have quit whilst I wasn’t too far behind, but instead went for “just one more route” and got completely shut down on the adjacent 10a. Hrmm – perhaps a rest day is in order…

Heading north to El Malpais National Monument, we passed the surreal Very Large Array Radio Telescope…

… shortly after an equally surreal 30 miles stretch of absolutely straight road…

… on our way to another extremely well appointed and great value (ie free!) Campground.

El Malpais protects a few hundred square miles of lava flows and other results of volcanic activity – some as recent as a few thousand years. Most fun are the lava tubes, where a cooling surface has insulated an underground river of molten rock, leaving tunnels the size of subway stations

We also walked around the 300m diameter crater of the El Calderon cinder cone, and played Frodo and Sam in various “Cracks of Doom” on the lava flows.

If lava’s not your thing, then there’s plenty of somewhat older sandstone geology to admire, including New Mexico’s biggest natural arch, La Ventana…

… and the perfect sunset viewpoint of Sandstone Bluffs.

Talking of sandstone, we’ve been in the States for almost a month and still haven’t climbed on any! That was about to change courtesy of the hive-mind of Mountain Project, who’d recommend Mentmore, near Gallup, in answer to my “Where should we go?” forum post. Comments on the actual crag section of MP were less encouraging, mentioning graffiti, fly-tipping and broken glass – could be twinned with Hobby (our local and much loved crag, Hobson Moor Quarry near Manchester). They also mentioned other hazards, including snakes, spiders and shooting (thankfully not an issue at Hobby!) but it was very much on our way north into Utah so worth a look.

Over the last couple of years the town of Gallup has purchased the surrounding land and looked to control the previous anti-social behaviours…

… although it appears that they haven’t quite reached 100% compliance!

There’s climbing on both sides of a broad valley: The Original Side (seen behind the sign) and The New Side. This allows a choice of sun and shade for most of the day, apart from a transition around lunchtime when pretty much everywhere is sunny (which is of course when we managed to arrive). Here’s the New Side, with the well-named Monolith in centre shot.

Dodging the rays, as seems to be the case for most of the trip so far, we sought out The Corridor immediately behind The Monolith, where we bumped into a couple of friendly Albuquerque visitors. The stunning arete, this side of the climbers, is Technorazor, 12d, I guess a harder but much safer Master’s Edge.

We worked our way through the 10a-c routes on East Corridor Wall – great climbing involving often long moves between breaks, with either crimpy but fragile holds on the hard “desert varnish” skin, or rounded sandiness elsewhere.

Braving the heat we went for a final route on the The Balcony – Betty’s Redemption is a really fun 5.8.

Here’s a view back up the crag, with another stunning 12c arete on The Monolith on the right and a view across to The Original Side. Plenty to come back for and a great journey-breaker in the otherwise huge desert (literally and figuratively in terms of crags) between The Box in central west New Mexico and Moab, almost 500 miles north in Utah.

Talking of the huge gap in climbing areas is to avoid the elephant in the room. Enchanted Tower, near Datil, is a contender for the best sport climbing in New Mexico, but unfortunately involves a long and RV-incompatible dirt road approach. Next time, maybe…

The absence of climbing (and indeed camping) options between Gallup and Moab doesn’t reflect a shortage of rock or wilderness – quite the contrary!

However, much of the land in the “Four Corners” region of the US (where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet) is vested to Native Americans, most notably in the form of The Navajo Nation. Much of this landscape is utterly magnificent (including the poster-child “Mittens” formations in Monument Valley), but it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the indigenous peoples got the lean end of the deal in terms of the productive capacity of the land. It’s hard to imagine scratching a living here (and sad to see that the most visible signs of “industry” are the occasional tawdry casino and knock-off fireworks shop – both exploiting regulatory loop-holes to pander to the whims of the newer arrivals).

A notable exception is the dramatic valley protected by the Canyon de Chelly National Monument (over the border in Arizona). This collaboration between the NPS and The Navajo Nation allows for a Campground and Rim drives, while reserving access to the fertile valley floor to the Navajo.

A beautiful stopover and a taste of magnificent desert and canyon scenery before heading into Utah.