The Pond is great place one hour north of Albuquerque. It has a little bit for everyone at all different grades. I will say that this place has the hardest V2s I’ve done. If you are into wine, there is a winery nearby that you can stop by afterwards.
Orange Lightbulb Boulder
This is a great lowball! It has warm-ups (V0-2), a moderate (V3/4), and a V10. You can pretty much touch the talk while standing on the ground.
Directions: Follow the trail from the parking lot to the big Scoop boulder. The Scoop boulder is the tallest boulder in this area. You can walk in front of it or behind it to get to Orange Lightbulb, but you have to continue walking past it. Orange Lightbulb sits on top of the next ridge that you can see once you walk past the Scoop. If you end up at King for a Day, you’ve gone too far, but are still close.
V2
Follow the red line. Start with hands matched on the one obvious hold in the scoop on the left hand side of the boulder (the circled blue hold). Your goal is to move out left to the hold with the star and up through the big holds. You can and should use the holds in the bigger scoop to the right to help move out of the scoops.
Shinjo (V3/V4)
Follow the green line. Start on the obvious hold in the scoop on the left hand side of the boulder (the circled blue hold). Follow the line for the V2 (move out and left to the hold with the star). Instead of going straight up, traverse the prow and top out.
Ichiro (V10)
Follow the yellow line. Start on the obvious hold in the scoop on the left hand side of the boulder (the circled blue hold). Instead of going left as for the other 2 problems, go right. There are various small crimps to use to make the gaston move to the right side of the scoop and then top out. See video for my beta, which is more static than how most people do it.
