Fugueing Around in the Organs

The Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces, New Mexico, beckoned us from snowy Boulder this past New Year's week. As it turned out, winter followed hard on our heels, and we didn't go far south enough. But, the minor nuisance of new snow on the routes was far surpassed by the dazzling magnificence of the craggy, Organs in en unexpected robe of white. The city of Las Cruces has surely the most spectacular of all desert ranges in the country in its backyard - truly a desert Chamonix of towers, aiguilles, and stark granite talons rising four to five thousand feet above the town. This awesome section of the Organs, carved out of a granite intrusive, is called the "Needles". Most of the spires in this group would be of limited interest to peak-bagger...types, as the easiest routes are still fifth class. Luckily, the highest, Organ Needle (8,990'), is third' class. We climbed two other fine peaks in the range, Organ Peak (8,860') and Sen Agustin Peak (7,025"). Driving down from Santa Fe on Tuesday before New Year's, we had time in the afternoon before sundown for a quick bag of San Augustin (Organ 7-1/2' quad) from San Augustin Pass (5720'), where the highway to. Alamogordo Crosses the north end of the Organs.. This delightful little peak, a mile north of the pass, has a non-trivial granite dome for its summit. The peak goes most easily on its southeastern side, where some easy, bushy third class puts you on a little eastern buttress which leads to the top. Next day we climbed Organ Peak (Organ Peek 7-1/2' quad) in a terrific windstorm which blew the roof off a church in El Paso. The trip is about 8 miles RT and took us 7 hours.. The roadhead area ("Heyner Resort" on the topo map) is privately owned but the proprietors are only too happy to let you wander around at a fee of $1.50 per-car. From the ranch house one hikes north over a low divide to enter Fillmore Canyon. It's fairly bushy going around a deeply entrenched waterfall.. In fact - if I may digress for a moment - the Organs are surely the brushiest desert peaks I have ever experienced. With the sole exception of the jumping-type chollas, every conceivable variety of stabbing, slashing, sticking, clawing, and' jabbing vegetable is right at home there. After the waterfall is passed, it's possible to drop into Fillmore Canyon, which is pretty good going all the way to the base of Organ Peak. At 6-7000' the cactus and thornscrub lifezone is supplanted by savannah grassland with live oak and magnificently big alligator-bark Juniper. Above 7,000', scattered stands of Ponderosa mixed with Douglas fir appear. Unfortunately, another component of this forest ecotone, is oak-brush, which forms the "upper brush zone" of the Organs, a non-thorny but fiercely tangled mass of branches which often must be just muscled through. At 6,760', the main Fillmore Canyon is left, and the route turns up a side canyon to the north through an overhanging rock gateway called the "Narrows" on the topo map. This canyon is followed to the NW base of Organ Peek. Any of several steep spurs can be climbed to the north ridge of the peak, whence a struggle over, under, around, and through the oakbrush brings you to the summit. The wind nearly blew us off the top; otherwise, it would have been a great place to relax and enjoy the view, especially that of the Organ Needle, which looked very much like the Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristos from that angle.

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