Crescent Moon Buttress

So not too far outside of Hidalgo, there's this pretty aesthetic buttress between Mina and Icamole called Crescent Moon Buttress. It's right next to this other long wall with a bunch of routes on it called Culo de Gato, but Crescent Moon Buttress has only one 8-pitch bolted line which goes right up the middle of the buttress.

Crescent Moon Buttress

Despite the fact that I've been to Potrero like a dozen times, I've never climbed at Culo de Gato or the Crescent Moon Buttress. And as I had a rental car, my buds Devon and Eric and I made a plan to head out there and do the buttress one overcast morning. We left camp around 9ish, drove NW on highway 53 past Mina, turned left for Icamole, and then turned onto some random gravel road that takes you right past a smelly chicken ranch and near the base of the buttress. The guidebook says to follow the path of least vegetation to the obvious trail to the base, but we soon realized that this "obvious trail" was a myth when we started bushwhacking through cactus to get there.

Where's my machete?

Anyway, we eventually reached the wall and found a line of bolts that looked promising. Eric started leading the first two pitches, trailing two ropes behind so that Devon and I could follow at the same time on different ropes (using a Reverso or similar). Devon then led an amazingly short "pitch" to a 3rd-class ledge that you have to walk across before starting the crux pitch, which was 5.10a. Not too hard of a pitch, but a little exposed and tricky.

Cruxy and exposed

After that, there are a couple more easy pitches until you reach the top of a flake with a gap between where you are and the rest of the wall. So you have to rappel down into a notch and then climb back out of it to do the last two pitches.

Rapping to the notch

I had the pleasure of leading the last two pitches, which unfortunately could not really be linked due to rope drag, but the last one goes at 5.8 and was actually kind of tricky and cruxy after the traverse. We got up to the top and enjoyed a beautiful 360-degree summit. It was actually really amazing. We signed the summit log, and noted that the last ascent had been done approximately 11 months earlier - apparently this climb doesn't get done much!

Beautiful summit!

Chillin

Unfortunately, this is where the hard part of the climb started. We managed to rap back down into the notch, but then we weren't really sure which way to rappel. The book says to rappel right, but doesn't really specify if it means climber's right or right as you're looking at the bolts in the notch... so we eventually rapped on climber's left into some loose 4th-class terrain. That was sketchy enough, but as we continued moving downwards we found ourselves having to actually make some scary and somewhat dangerous downclimb moves on 5th-class rock while carrying our ropes and wearing our approach shoes (or sandals).

4th-class scramble, yay!

Thankfully, we did successfully make it down the sketchy 5th-class rock unscathed, but only to be greeted with a pretty steep and loose scree field that was loose and scary enough that it seemed better to slide down on our asses rather than try to walk down. So we did that for a bit, hoping we wouldn't gain too much speed and slide out of control, and then walked across some talus to try to get back to the cactus field. We did eventually make it back to our packs at the base of the climb, and then back down through the cactus field to our car, but by the time we finally reached the car we were completely exhausted, I think mostly from the mental energy and fear of not knowing if we were going to be able to get down without accidentally hurting ourselves on the walk off, as well as the annoyance of having to navigate a cactus field.

Sunset on the buttress

To be honest, I don't think I'll be repeating this climb anytime soon due to the difficulty of the descent, but it was a really beautiful aesthetic feature to climb and a really amazing summit, so I'm glad I did it at least once =)

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

Black Cats and Petroglyphs

Saturday

After my third day of climbing in a row, and Alexis's second, we decided to take a rest day. While most rest days in Potrero for me typically consist of sleeping in, making a late breakfast with coffee, and relaxing a lot, Alexis really wanted to see some petroglyphs mentioned in the guidebook in an area called Boca del Potrerillos, and I suggested that we should also check out the hot springs, so we had a fairly ambitious rest day ahead of us. The only problem was figuring out how to get to the petroglyphs... searching the internet for directions gave us a halfway decent idea about how to get there but it wasn't exactly clear if the directions would work or not.

So soon after we headed out, we tried to follow our directions, and ended up on the road to Icamole. We were pretty sure we had missed the turnoff by the time we reached the Ex-Hacienda del Muerto, but the gate was (surprisingly) open so we stopped and took a look around and took a lot of photos. After that we ended up driving around on some gravel roads with no success. Frustrated, we decided to head into Mina and ask around. Since there is a museum called Museo del Bernabe de Las Casas, we decided to check out the museum which was actually really cool - a tour of the formation of the earth, dinosaurs, mankind, and more modern times in the Salinas valley.

Tan grande!

After we finished the museum, we asked if they knew how to get to Boca del Potrerillos, and the guy handed us a map printout which made it very clear and obvious how to get there. In fact, you just turn off of highway 53 when you see the sign. Okay then. We arrived and expected to have to pay a small fee but the guy there only requested that we sign the guidebook. Alright then! What we found was a plethora of what appeared to be basalt rocks just covered in ancient petroglyphs. Que chido!

Petroglyphicos

Next, we booked it out of there and took off on the road for Icamole in order to get to the Termas de San Joaquin, a hot springs pool about an hour away from Hidalgo. I always love going there on rest days; really nice warm water in a beautiful underground pool. After a bit of swimming and relaxing, we headed back to town for some dinner and drinks.

Sunday

Having had a rest day, we decided to tackle another multipitch. I haven't done Black Cat Bone (9 pitches) since three years ago, and it's a really fun route, so we elected to do that one. So we had a light breakfast and headed out. Alexis was nervous because she wasn't sure how she would do on the 5.10d crux pitch, but I was nervous too since I had to lead it. Last time I climbed the route three years ago, I got to follow the hard pitches but this time I was the leader.

The first few pitches went very smoothly, swinging leads on the first three pitches to the Garden of Bleedin' (3rd class), and then Alexis led the next 5.9 pitch. I was pretty nervous starting up the 5.10d crux pitch, but kept moving up and trying to keep a cool head as I headed up. Surprisingly, I had no problem with the cruxy thin moves leading up to the roof, but had a hard time pulling the roof. I couldn't find a left handhold that I really liked in order to pull up, and kept going back right to the safety of the bomber tufa pockets, but eventually decided to just go for it not knowing if I would take a fall or not. I didn't, and was super stoked to finish it clean. Alexis followed as I shivered in the sudden shade and wind, and although she had to take a few times she had no problem making it up. Success!

The cruxy roof

We then had only a couple of 10b pitches and a 5.9 to end the route, so I led the b's and Alexis led the last 5.9 pitch and we enjoyed the somewhat uncomfortable yet beautiful summit ledge.

Black Cat Bone summit

Monday

On Monday morning I wasn't feeling very well (food poisoning?) and we weren't feeling like climbing, so Alexis went for a quick run in the Potrero while I slept in and then we lazed around until it was time to take Alexis back to the airport.

The Eternal Question: Will the Wolf Survive?

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday

So I was supposed to leave Seattle at 8:30am on Saturday December 7th. The plan was perfect, I had all of my camping and climbing gear stuffed into one large duffel and a backpacking backpack, and had arranged an early morning trip to the airport. Then, early that morning at 4:30am I got a voicemail from American Airlines informing me that my flight had been cancelled. What. Apparently there was a major icestorm in Dallas and they had to cancel 1400 flights going into or out of DFW that day. I ended up eventually getting a new flight to Monterrey about 36 hours later, but in the meantime I felt suspended like a ghost. I wasn't supposed to be in Seattle. I felt like the universe had split and I was the poor sap stuck in the version where I didn't get to go to Mexico. It was very odd.

Anyway, I did eventually make it to Mexico on Monday morning and started setting up my tent and getting ready for the days ahead. The weather was a bit chilly but Potrero was beautiful as always =)

Except for that ugly new tower...

Tuesday and Wednesday

My friend L. was also scheduled to arrive on Saturday evening shortly after I did, but her flight was canceled as well so her new flight was really late on Tuesday night. Her flight was booked kind of at the last minute and she hadn't done a lot of research on the area so she seemed really relieved and almost surprised when I picked her up at the airport on Tuesday night no problem. We stayed up late drinking and chatting and looking up at the stars.

On Wednesday we woke up a bit late but decided to do a few single-pitch routes on the Mota Wall so that L. could get used to the sharp limestone here. After a few of those I convinced her to try doing Will the Wolf Survive with me, a fun and interesting four-pitch romp in Los Lobos canyon. We ended up doing the first two pitches until we ran out of energy and daylight.

Like a boss.

After the climb, I convinced L. to go out and try a pizza place in Hidalgo which I'd never been to before. So we went, and it was actually some of the most delicious pizza I've ever had. It was incredible! I really highly recommend this place for any travelers coming here.

Luigi's!

Thursday

Thursday morning, yet another friend (A.) arrived at the airport, and I picked her up and we headed straight back to Potrero after a short stop for breakfast. I was partly frustrated that L. and I hadn't finished the Wolf, and it's a pretty fun and interesting four-pitch romp in Los Lobos canyon so I suggested that A. and I just do that for the day since our time was limited. So we did, and this time we made it to the top =)

Wolf Summit

I should mention that I felt bad that I was sort of ditching my other friend to climb with my second friend, but L. found someone who wanted to climb Treasure of the Sierra Madre with her so she ended up having an awesome day as well. After we met up at camp, we went out to this house in town known for it's ginormous hamburguesas. Funnily enough, we ran into three other climbers who came out as well and the six of us ate and chatted together before heading back to camp =)

Friday

The next day, despite the fact that I'd already climbed the previous two days, I thought it would be a good idea to make A. do Estrellita with me. It's a pretty fun/awesome 11-pitch route that has a variation that goes at no more than 5.10b, and even the 5.10b pitches are easy. Plus you can link several of the pitches. She was nervous about doing such a long multi-pitch, but I assured her that we would be just fine. We linked some pitches and swapped leads and made it up in only about 4.5 hours. We could have been much faster actually but we were taking our time for water and snacks between pitches and we didn't link everything that we could have. Regardless, we made it to the top and enjoyed the view and the lonely palm tree at the top =)

The iconic palm tree.

After we got down, we took L. to the airport and then stopped for enchiladas and campechanas at La Estacion, a local Hidalgo restaurant, then we headed back to camp and hung out with the other climbers there. I should mention that I love the vibe at La Posada, all of the climbers are really nice and friendly and fun to chat with at night. It's a really great atmosphere, and there are always some interesting characters, but in particular we were amused by a guy who was really tall and really liked backgammon =)

BONUS MUSIC VIDEO

Climbing in Mexico: Worth the Risk?

In general I find that people are incredibly terrible at assessing risk. For example, parents are more afraid of letting their kids play at a friend's house whose parents own a gun than at a house with a swimming pool, but guess which one is 100 times more likely to result in accidental death?

As a species, we are far more afraid of activities associated with sensational news than really makes sense, from a statistical point of view. I don't want to discount the recent incident in Hidalgo, but I sincerely believe it was a one-time freak occurrence. Meanwhile every day in American cities, people are murdered, robbed, and assaulted and nobody even notices or cares.

I spent four months here last year, and literally NOTHING bad ever happened to me, nor did I ever feel unsafe in Hidalgo or EPC. You might be looking for trouble if you walk around the bad parts of Monterrey at night, but you never have to go into Monterrey while visiting here - the road from the airport stays north of the city. You also don't drive through the city if coming from Texas.

Look, climbing is a dangerous sport. It amazes me that the same people who are so bold on the rock are afraid of coming to Mexico, yet I can pretty much guarantee that you are 100x more likely to get hurt climbing than you are to experience any negative consequences from being here. And just like climbing, there are things you can do to mitigate your risk. For example:

• If driving, cross the border during the daytime, and don't stay in Nuevo Laredo longer than it takes to get your visa and car permit.
  
• Drive on the toll roads. They are smoother, faster, easier, and safer.
  
• Avoid Monterrey if possible, especially at night - like any large city, there's bound to be some violence in the bad parts of town.
  

El Potrero Chico is an amazing, beautiful place, with towering limestone crags jutting out of the ground at an impossibly steep and awe-inspiring angle. Don't let your fear of the unknown prevent you from experiencing all that it has to offer.

Climber Injured on Mota Wall

So a few days ago, on Monday night, I was eating some dinner that some friends and I had cooked in the La Posada kitchen. We hadn't been eating long when Magic Ed came into the kitchen and said to us, "Hey guys, I hate to interrupt your dinner, but we've got an injured climber and we need all the help we can get."

We immediately got up from the table and started gathering our gear. Ed said we should bring ropes, harnesses, slings, etc., but he was a little vague on the exact details of what happened or where. There weren't very many of us at camp so he rounded up a few more people in the other camps and we headed down to the Mota Wall in the van.

When we got out, we could already hear moaning coming from pretty high up on the Mota Wall trail. Apparently what had happened was this: Ed and Frank had been descending from a route after spending some time bolting it, and they had two different ropes set up for the rap down. In order to make it down, both Ed and Frank needed to switch ropes at the last anchor in order to rap all the way down to the ground. Ed had rapped first, but I guess Frank forgot to switch ropes at the anchor and kept going... and rapped all the way off the end of the rope, and fell about 20 feet to the ground. Apparently there was no knot at the end of the rope /-:

Despite wearing a helmet, Frank hit his head pretty hard, and seemed to have fallen on his right shoulder / arm pretty hard as well, and tumbled a bit down the trail before stopping. When we got up to him he had blood all over his face and some on his arm and shirt and he was moaning loudly from the pain.

The Brazilian guy (whose name I unfortunately don't know) got to him first, and apparently he used to be a firefighter in Brazil, so he took control of the situation and started asking Frank the typical questions, like what's your name, do you know what time it is, do you know where you are, etc., trying to determine how conscious he was. And of course, what had happened and where he hurt. He helped get him into a more comfortable position and kept talking to him.

It was pretty clear that Frank was in shock - he was in severe pain, he was cold, he was panicked, and most of all he was scared. He kept saying he needed to get the hell out of here, off the damn mountain. It's been quite a while since I've seen someone in that kind of state, panicked and bloody, and it made me tear up a little, thinking about just how fragile life can be sometimes, how one mistake can change everything.

We did a few things, like give Frank some water, and tried to stabilize his right leg (which seemed to be in pain?) and his right arm / wrist, which seemed to be broken. But really there was little we could do until the ambulance arrived. When the police came I hiked down because I wasn't sure if anyone was telling them what was going on, so I thought I'd try to advise them of the situation. I told them that Frank was high up on the hike, near where the lights where, and that we needed a stretcher. But the ambulance wasn't there yet.

After what seemed like an eternity, the ambulance finally arrived with a team of 5-6 medics. Thank God. They set up their gear, and followed us up the hike until we finally reached Frank. It was relatively high up there, maybe 200 feet above the road, and a pretty steep hike. Once there, they started outfitting him with better equipment to stabilize his head/neck, his arm, and his leg.

Frank was in a lot of pain, and they didn't give him any painkillers, other than the Ibuprofen that Ed had given him earlier. It was very difficult and painful to get him onto the backboard, and then they had to attach the backboard to the sled so that he could be carried down.

Us climbers had set up 3-4 climbing ropes attached to trees so that we could attach the rope to the top of the sled and help "belay" him down the very steep hike while the medics and climbers helped support the middle and bottom of the sled. Fortunately, once he was in the sled it didn't take us much more than 10-15 minutes to get him down since everyone was helping.

Soon after, they loaded him into the ambulance, and figured out which hospital to take him to, and took off. The rest of us climbers watched the ambulance drive off in silence, contemplating the seriousness of the situation. It seemed to us at the time that Frank's injuries were not so severe that he would die, but... you never know. He's also an older guy, at least in his sixties, so we were all pretty concerned about what would happen next.

As of this writing, I believe that Frank is still alive and in the hospital, and I think he's getting better, which I am very grateful for. I didn't know Frank particularly well, but I did climb a couple of routes with him last week and I also recognized him from last year. He's really a nice guy, and I really hope he pulls through.

I have to admit that I personally didn't do anything particularly heroic, except perhaps dropping everything to go help out a fellow climber. Anyone in my situation would have done the exact same thing. But it was really heartwarming to see so the EPC climbing community rally together to help someone who'd been injured. Together we were able to get him off the mountain, and it was great to see so much teamwork, solidarity, and unity among us.

I also want to give special thanks to the Brazilian guy, who took control of taking care of Frank, and Edgardo, who was instrumental in translating between Frank (who only speaks English) and the medics who only speak Spanish. Plus, Edgardo went to the hospital with him and spent all night there.

Please, please, tie knots in the end of your ropes when you're rapping off of a multipitch, wear a helmet, and double-check everything. Climbing is dangerous, but most accidents are preventable. Stay safe out there.

Firespire

[This post is backdated and from memory. Apologies.]

So my buddy Quest is really big into fire poi / fire dancing. If you haven't heard of it, basically you light things on fire and swing them around doing tricks while dancing. He's actually pretty damn good at it, and he taught me a couple of new tricks.

Anyway Quest found out that there was some kind of online contest where they wanted photos of "Extreme Poi", doing poi in crazy awesome places. So he decided that the ULTIMATE place to do some poi would be on top of one of the spires at El Potrero Chico.

Imagine doing fire poi on top of this guy.

So, we made a plan. We decided to wait until the full moon, climb the downhill spire slightly before dark, and have another team of climbers climb the other spire and take photos of Quest on the top, doing fire poi. Unfortunately, we started climbing a little bit late, so it was getting kinda dark when Quest led the first 5.7 pitch of Crack Test Dummies, and by the time I started the 5.9+ pitch it was seriously dark. Fortunately, I had a headlamp, but I couldn't figure out how to attach it to my headlamp, so I wore it around my neck, used it to check for bolts, and mostly climbed in the dark. I could barely see the holds in front of me. Plus the climb is super scary and a bit run-out so I was pretty freaked out. But I made it, and Quest followed. I think Quest was even more scared than I was, haha.

Anyway, soon after we got up there, the moon came out, and I belayed Quest as he climbed the last 10 feet from the second anchor to the very tip top of the spire. It's kinda small and sketchy up there, so Quest was pretty scared, but he hugged the spire and did some fire poi while sitting down. Here are some photos:

Quest had to clip these sketchy pitons on the way up.

Quest getting set up under the full moon.

Sick!

This one's my favorite.