OK I'm back from a weekend of tooling around southern New Mexico and I have pictures to show for it. On Friday I drove down and delivered Soleil to her new owner. I got to meet Kitsu, the male glider who is destined to become Soleil's new boyfriend. The new owner seems very cool and I'm expecting to see pictures of Soleil in her new habitat sometime soon. After that I drove over to Akela Flats to watch Mike practicing for his race this weekend.

Mike on a borrowed Honda while his Ducati is in the shop. Notice his number, which of course is the mass of the electron. Why, you ask? Because pi was already taken by a friend of his (see photo gallery, click above).

Mike, Christina, and I had dinner at some really weird resturaunt in the middle of nowhere called The Adobe Deli. I had a huge steak in preparation for the next day's climb. They french onion soup was phenomenal. I bid Mike and Christina farewell and drove back to Cruces to camp out before the big hike. Here's the mountain I would climb:

Organ Needle, the right-most summit in the photo, is the tallest point in the rugged Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces. Click for photo gallery

This was the first time I've camped in my new truck, and everything went very well. The weather was perfect and I was very comfortable. A good night's rest and a hearty dinner left me in prime climbing condition the following morning and I felt very strong during the entire climb. I think all the handball I've been playing recently has really paid off in terms of my physical condition. At 4,100' of vertical, this was a very significant climb for me but I came away not at all tired. So I'm really excited for the coming summer climbing season. I'm also tentatively planning a trip to Orizaba this winter (~18,500' near Mexico City). Anyway I succeeded in climbing Organ Needle and it was definitely one of my favorite mountains to date.

Organ Needle conforms to what I am going to call the "Parabolic Approach," in that it gets progressively steeper until, at the end, you are climbing a vertical rock face via a system of cracks and ledges. It reminded me a lot of Wetterhorn, only larger (though less high in an absolute sense). In the first half of the linear distance traveled, I had only gained one sixth of the elevation. The bulk of the elevation gain comes in two brutally steep (30°+) cliff-base traverses. The summit is really small and the views of White Sands and the rest of the Organ Mountains are tremendous.

It took me 5 hours to reach the summit, and another 3:45 to get back to the truck. When I returned to Las Cruces, I was really hungry and thirsty. So I went to the Outback Steakhouse and ate their largest steak in about 10 minutes, along with approximtaely 12 glasses of water. I think my waiter thought I was weird. It was perfect though; just what I needed. Drove home last night, arriving just after midnight (after a breif nap at the Santa Fe rest stop for safety's sake).