Crag review- El Rito NM

overview 

El Rito is a small crag located just outside of El Rito, NM. Being a few hours outside of Taos, NM, this crag sees light to moderate traffic. When the Gearonimo crew was climbing, we ran into a total of 3 different parties over 3 different days. We also checked out the Little River Wall, which is super close to El Rito, just one canyon over.

You can see where El Rito (on the left of the image) is in relation to Taos (on the right of the image)

This is a close up of the El rito climbing area. The yellow line is the aproch, with the camping and paking being at the other end of the red dots. 

Acess, and Aproch

The trailhead parking is a fair size, with lots of dispersed camping nearby. The hike in is fairly easy, being flat for the first 1/4 of the hike, then it's just a steady uphill for the rest of the hike up till you're at the crag. Once at the crag, there are a few different walls scattered around, all super close by. The approach for Little River Wall is even easier, but look out for snakes.

The Rock Itself

The rock is pretty unique, being made up of conglomerate rock, making super cool slopers and bomber pockets. Some of the cobbles are loose and wiggling, which makes some of the routes a little sketchy. It also makes you think about all the other holds you touch. Overall, the rock is very cool and fun to climb on (it's somewhat similar to Maple Canyon, UT). I would suggest aggressive shoes to be able to get into those small, tight spots.

This is a close up of the rock at El Rito

Bolting

All the climbs we were on were bolted fairly well with all the crux moves protected. Though most of the bolts were solid, we did notice a few loose/spinners. And some bolts seemed to be in questionable parts of the rock. Overall, we felt very safe for the whole trip. Additionally, the routes are very reasonably sized, so you don’t need to haul up a bunch of climbing gear. The longest route we got on was 12 bolts, while most of the other climbs are 8ish. The routes at Little River Wall are much taller, so you will need more draws.

Tyler is climbing and cruising thrugh a warmup

Camping and Amenitys

We didn't explore the camping too much, but we drove past 5 or 6 large sites before picking ours. Walking around the campsite, there seemed to be more down the road and on the other side of the small creek. A creek? Yeah!! But don’t expect it to be flowing—when we went, it was dry, but talking to others, they said it flows seasonally. There were also no toilets over by this camping, but you are close enough to walk to the crag! At the Little River Wall, there was a flowing creek and bathrooms! But this area does see more local traffic.

This is the camping by little river wall

Weather 

When we went, the days were pretty hot, but it's pretty easy to chase the shade with there being a number of different walls with different aspects to climb on.

In the end

We were super stoked on El Rito, having super cool climbs and features, an easy approach, easy camping, and not being too crowded. There are definitely some routes we have ticked and look forward to heading back and giving them a few more burns.