New book 'Nova Canyon' helps climbers reach new heights in the Sandias

Rock climbing in the Sandia Mountains just got significantly more accessible, and hopefully, a little bit safer.

University of New Mexico professors Benjamin Warner and Dr. Michael Russo have collaborated to co-author “Nova Canyon: A Rock Climber’s Guide,” which maps out new rock-climbing routes in the Sandias while also serving as a fundraiser for the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council (AMRC).

Climbing has been an integral part of life for both Warner and Russo for quite some time now. Warner, an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, got hooked while working for the National Park Service. More than two decades later, he’s climbed in places such as South America, Mexico, India and Canada.

“Now I obviously live in Albuquerque, and the Sandias are right here in our backyard — and I spend an enormous amount of time up there on the cliffs,” Warner said.

Russo, an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, grew up playing traditional sports like football and baseball, but he found himself gravitating toward rock climbing more often when he was in medical school.

“I still tried to do those typical fitness routines — running or cross-training or weightlifting — but when I got into med school, I like realized I couldn’t turn my brain off from the stressors of all the things I had to do and all the things I had to study,” Russo said. “And climbing was the one thing that turned off my mind in the best way. It was like this escape.”

As climbing aficionados, both Warner and Russo saw plenty of untapped potential in the Sandias, but they knew that not everyone in Albuquerque found the area to be approachable.

“In terms of accessible rock climbing, even for folks who live in the Metro area, there’s just not a lot of options locally. You have to drive up past Santa Fe, you have to drive down south past Socorro or (Truth or Consequences) to access what would be considered novice climbing,” Warner said. “And all the while, these folks who go to the climbing gym here in Albuquerque, they look up and they see miles of granite cliffs above them, but there was just no opportunity for them to go cut their teeth, for them to take advantage of this wonderful resource that we have here in Albuquerque because the climbing just wasn’t very accessible for beginner climbers in the Sandias.”

To put “Nova Canyon” together, Warner and Russo collaborated with a number of local climbers to help find new routes and document the area. Not only did the additional input help to create a more comprehensive guide, but the authors hope that it will inspire similar endeavors in the future. When researching the project, Warner and Russo discovered that rock climbing guides were extremely uncommon — if not nonexistent — throughout the United States.

“What I would love to happen is that some of the folks who we’ve mentored in rock climbing development in the Sandias, they find another spot in the Sandias that actually mimics what we’ve done,” Warner said. “They create dozens and dozens and dozens of new routes that are safe, that are accessible, that are well documented, that are well mapped. And they write their own guidebook in an attempt to continue to self-support search and rescue here on the mountain.”

Early returns on “Nova Canyon” have been overwhelmingly positive. The book was on pace to earn more than $5,000 in donations — each purchase requires a minimum $25 contribution to AMRC — and sell more than 200 copies. AMRC’s work supporting outdoor safety in the region made it an ideal beneficiary for book proceeds, and those efforts hit especially close to home for Russo due to his focus on emergency medicine.

“Everyone wants help and everyone deserves help,” Russo said. “And so this was a way for us to try to put money into the pockets of the people doing the most important work, which is those who are the safety net for the people who choose to go climb or in general, recreate.”

Thus far, the climbing community has been appreciative of the new options “Nova Canyon” has unveiled. In the past, it took some serious effort to find appropriate climbs in the Sandias, as people might have to decipher sketchy maps and navigate difficult terrain just to locate one ideal spot. Now, Warner says, there’s enough of a concentration of climbs so that “you can go spend the day with friends in one place, enjoying yourself.”

“I hope that others across the western U.S. and elsewhere also look at what we’ve done and say, ‘Hey, funding for search and rescue has been called into question in numerous locations across the country.’ This offers one possibility of a novel approach to fund search and rescue,” Warner said.

New book 'Nova Canyon' helps climbers reach new heights in the Sandias