Hot Springs, Snot Girlz, and Hard 11s

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I had a lazy morning heading out to the Tuesday market in Hidalgo, and had some delicious coffee at the Buho, and then headed back to camp. This dude Eric had arranged for a van and a driver to take a bunch of us to the San Joaquin hot springs. I can't turn down a trip to the hot springs, so even though I had already been a few days prior I signed up to go again. There were eight of us and we had a great time enjoying the hot water. We also ended up doing a little bit of yoga and stretching down there which was really quite fun. I think the best part of this day was getting to know everyone else on the trip a little bit better - a couple from El Salvador and Guatamala (Luna and Felipe), another couple from Vancouver (Rachel and David), a mathematician from Houston (Fred), an artist from Boston (Devon), and Eric from Detroit.

Wednesday

On Wednesday Eric and I had planned to do Yankee Clipper, a nice/fun/easy 15-pitch route on the Jungle Wall. Unfortunately, we didn't exactly have an alpine start so when we got there another party had literally just started. They didn't seem like they were going to be particularly fast, so we decided that following them would be foolish, so we headed to the Mota Wall to do Snot Girls since Eric hadn't done it before. I wasn't particularly psyched for it but only because I remembered the first pitch to be a bear.

Indeed, the first 5.10d pitch, which I didn't even have to lead, was no easier than I remembered it being and I ended up super tired and pumped by the time I reached the first belay. Yet I still had to lead the next pitch! But that ended up being no problem at all somehow even though it was supposedly 10d. We headed up a few more pitches of very interesting features and arrived at the next pitch, which I had to lead. This pitch was very interesting because it starts out with an airy exposed traverse over to the right followed by moving upwards awkwardly on large blocks. But it was no problem, and neither were the next two pitches, so before we knew it we were at the top of Snot Girlz for yet another beautiful summit.

Oh captain my captain

When we got down, I was really motivated to do a few more pitches since we got sharked on Yankee Clipper, so I convinced Eric that we should do Jungle Mountaineering, which is only four easy pitches on the Jungle Wall and I'd never done it before. I got to lead and link the first two 5.9 pitches and the last 5.10a pitch, and it was really quite excellent. So despite not quite getting to do what we planned we had a really excellent day, and 11 pitches ain't bad.

Thursday

Since Wednesday was long but mostly easy, I made plans to climb Pangea (5.11d) with Luna and Felipe, but they headed out before I did and I didn't see them when I arrived. Confused, I decided to hike up to the base of Timewave Zero since I'd never been there before. The hike was kind of long and kind of tiring, especially in the 81-degree heat, but I found the Surf Bowl and the Timewave Buttress and saw the shoes of the party climbing the route that day.

I headed down and encountered Luna and Felipe finishing up Crack Test Dummies of off the spires. They had decided that Pangea was going to be wayy too hot so we headed over to the Wave to do some routes. Felipe onsighted Tufa the Price of One (5.11b), which was awesome, and I tried to lead it but fell off the top bolt a couple of times. I always struggle with the ending of that route. Oh well, I gave it a really good effort and took two really excellent falls =)

I also struggled to lead Surfin the Wave (5.10d), but again took two really good falls trying to pull the cruxy overhang, but eventually finished the route thanks to some beta from Esther. Also I blamed my hangover and my dehydrated state for my failures =)

The sun started coming onto the wave, and we were about done with it anyway, so we headed out to the Virgin Canyon and I convinced Felipe to lead Don Quixote (5.11d). He did really awesome and just barely missed the onsight, but put up the route and I was fortunate to get to practice it on toprope again. I was pretty nervous, even on toprope, but somehow managed to climb it without falling and it almost felt easy. What? I blame my new aggressive rock shoes that were amazing for smearing the blank right face of the dihedral. And also having had practiced the route quite a few times. That probably helped too. Unfortunately, now that I've climbed it clean a couple of times on toprope that means I probably need to man up and try to lead it soon =)

Luna on Don Quixote