April 30, 2008
Driving through the canyon of El Salto to Galeana
This was an amazing ride from El Salto to Galeana. We had to go over a 10 000 foot mountain pass that had some rough terrain. It took us 7 hours to drive 115 kms....We camped at Puente de Dios which is just before Galeana. We slept under the stars and woke up to a beautiful sunrise.
Climbing in El Salto
We had a last week end of climbing in El Salto with all our friends we made in Potrero and Monterrey. We climbed a bit and mostly drank beer at Kika's because it rained most of the time. Everyone left on Sunday night except Alain and I. We left early Monday morning and made our way towards Galeana. El Salto is one of the most spectacular places we've been yet......It has the most beautiful Limestone walls we've seen here in Mexico.....We'll never forget the good times we had there....
April 25, 2008
Chilling at Carlos' Sweet Casa
We finally made it out of the Potrero, but not far down the road. Here in Monterrey, chilling at our friend Carlos'
casa. It's a nice place to relax our fingers from the Potrero Limestone.
Carlos Ramos is a strong climber from Monterrey. He's got a sweet setup at the entrance of the Huasteca Canyon with a big bouldering cave, ping pong table, badminton, turtles cruising in the backyard, the only thing missing is a pool to escape the heat. Thanks for his hospitality, he let us basecamp at his home for several days before heading south into the unknown Mexican world.
April 24, 2008
Climbing Via Ferrata of the Pico Independecia
We heard about this Via Ferrata that is in La Huasteca Canyon so we decided to get a big group together and check it out. It's about a half an hour hike to the base and then the bolted ladder begins. Its around 500 feet of these ladder systems going from one side of the mountain to the other and eventually to the summit. There's a few obstacles to make it more interesting when you get close to the top. I thought those were pretty cool, one of them is three aluminum ladders connected together by wire and as soon as you get on it you can feel the exposure right away. The other obstacle is this walking on ropes going from one peak to the next.
April 18, 2008
The Potrero Marathon
So we were attempting to link up a few multi pitches to climb 50 pitches in a day but we fell 14 pitches short........We started off with Time Wave Zero 5.12 which is the longuest multi pitch sport climb in North america. Here I am on the 23 rd pitch, topping out at around 1;30 pm.......We left at 8 am from the bikes.......We were supposed to leave at 6 am but the Alarm didn't go off as planned so we started a little later than we wanted too. It took us 2 hours too rap 23 pitches from the summit of TWZ. It was 3;30 pm at that point and we were thirsty for beer so we hit Chon's up for an Indio and a big bottle of water. After rehydrating ourselves we headed back to the canyon and started climbing Yankee Cliper which is a 13 pitch 5.10 route....Alain was leading the first 3 pitches in one when Edgardo arrived at the bottom and told me he wanted to join us. So him and I did the first 3 pitches close together to reach Alain which was belaying us from the top of the 3 rd pitch. After that we decided to simul climb the rest of the climb.......Edgardo was all fired up and fresh so he started leading with about 30 draws hanging off his harness. He was able to link up the next 5 pitches in one go.......I have to say it was a little scary at some times cause Edgardo was skipping a lot of bolts and the three of us were all climbing at the same time. There was a rope but it felt more like soloing cause if any one of us had fallen it wouldn't of been good.........Luckily all went well and we reached the top of the 13 pitch in 2 hours and headed down emmidiatly. The winds were strong and it was getting dark so we didn't want to waist any time. We reached the bottom and Dane was waiting for us with a little safety treat. It was 9 0clock at that point and we had been climbin and rapping for 13 hours. The goal was 50 pitches but we were exausted and to find motivation to go back up another route was extremely hard so we stopped there. We still managed to climb over 3000 feet in 13 hours which we're happy with. I'll never forget how much pain the feet can actually take.
April 1, 2008
El Potrero Chico Mexico
After a long 15 hour drive from Austin, we finally pulled in to Homero's campground at 3:30 am. The boarder crossing was interesting, we finally got out of Laredo and reached our first check stop and realized we had forgotten to get our bike permits. We had to turn around and head back to the vehical registration place. That put us back almost 4 hours. I was happy to pull in at Homero's and set my tent close my eyes and go to sleep.
Life in the Potrero
Life is good here in the Potrero. The climbing season is from October all the way through March. From what we can see it's mostly Canadians and Americans that come here to escape the cold winters of North America. Alot of locals from Monterrey come here on the week end to get away from the city. It's a pretty sweet set up here. There's about 6 campgrounds and three restaurants to choose from. It's about 3 - 5 $ a night for camping depending on which campground you choose and how long you stay. 1 $ for a beer and 2 $ for a big caguama which is 2.5 beers. A meal runs you about 3 - 7 dollars and if you decide to cook your own food it even gets a lot cheaper. You can survive on 10 - 15 $ a day here with no problems.
Fitness Semana Wall
Excellent Climbing if your willing to crimp down on 13's. It's for sure one of the best walls here but it's hard climbing. Very thin and technical with a little overhang. Most people leave their draws for a couple of days and project routes here.
Bouldering in Plutonia cave
After climbing lots of small crimps we decided to go check out the cave. Lots of good boulder problems with big holds. It's always good to switch it up and climb different stuff.
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