Cerro Pedernal as rendered by Georgia O'Keefe. (I forgot to take a photo of this scene for comparison; Sierra might lend me one.)

Cerro Pedernal
Elevation: 9,862'
Clean Prominence: 1,342'
Key Prominence Saddle: UTM 13 364826E 3999484N 8,500' (+20)

Sierra and I drove on 4WD roads to within a mile of the summit and about 1,400' below. Hiked north, straight up the increasingly steep slope following good cairns until we reached the eastern end of the summit block and the boundary cliffs that rise about 50' from the top of the slope. Had to contour west along the cliff base to a weakness at about the midpoint of the cliff face. There, a brief class 3 traverse (it was only about 12'; I'd call it class 4 if there weren't basically zero exposure, but it did involve climbing a vertical wall with good handholds) led to a sloping ramp leading to the right and up above the cliffs to the summit knife. We spent some time taking pictures of Abiquiu Lake and the Ghost Ranch area, then made our way to the western end of the ridge, which is the highest point.

The wind up on the summit ridge was tremendous and extremely cold. We grabbed the summit register and headed back to the shelter of a nearby bush. Sierra insisted that we sign the register with a Haiku, which I was grudgingly persuaded to participate in writing. I think we ended up with something good, though I've already forgotten what it was. Whatever we wrote in the register was sensible, serious haiku, which obided by the rules of a traditional Japanese haiku (impersonal, invokes a season, descriptive, etc.). Sierra saw to it that none of my smart ass comments made it into the final version. But she's not here now, so I can write the haiku that should have been:

Of course, this vastly superior haiku breaks more or less all of the rules of traditional haiku, but more accurately reflects my feelings at the summit. Actually it wasn't that bad. The view was amazing and it was only cold when we were out at the exposed western end retrieving and replacing the register. The climb was fun and the weather was pleasant except at the summit. On the way down, we stopped at some patches of exposed agate rock and grabbed a few specimens for Sierra's rock tumbler.

Photo gallery