Mexico

     

Wow, this whole winter has seemed like a whirlwind so far.  I was in Ohio for almost 6 weeks for the holidays and buying my truck.  Then LeAnna and I drove the new truck back to Las Vegas during the week of New Year (spending New Years in the hotspot of Jasper, Arkansas!). Now, I'm down in Mexico climbing and looking for new climbing areas with my buddy Devlin and his friend Robin.  We're at a world-famous (among climbers that is!) area called El Potrero Chico (the little corral), pretty near Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon.  I endured a relentlessly uneventful drive across Texas but once I stepped out of the truck in Mexico it was totally worth the 24 hours of driving!!!

When I arrived it was rainy and cold but the next day dawned bright and sunny and we hiked back into the huge circular shaped canyon that makes up Potrero.  Dad, check out the iPod speakers, getting some good use in their natural habitat...

 

 

The next day we drove about 15 miles to this other cliff line that has a cool cave called the Culo de Gato (literally, the cat's ass) and climbed some really great lines.  This cave is huge!  Its hard to tell from the photo but the white streaks going up the face above the cave are probably 250-300 feet tall and the cliff looks to be about 400 feet in some places.  Since its a whopping twenty minute drive there are virtually no routes here.  If this cliff were in Utah there would probably be several hundred routes!  

 

After climbing for the day we drove around looking at some of the nearby cliffs and found this amazing looking arch.  There wasn't a whole lof of light left in the day but we hiked up as fast as we could to check it out...  Of course it wasn't as big as we thought at first ("that's what she said") but it was still a really cool feature.... maybe 60 feet tall and 30 feet across.  Running down the scree slope was the best part of the whole day!  With just enough danger (many, many cacti) thrown in to make it exciting.

  

Today was a rest day.  Took a shower, got some groceries... the sorts of things that just don't get done on climbing days.  Then we drove around to look at some more cliffs for potential route development (our alleged purpose of the trip!).  We saw a lot of cliffs again, but nothing that made us want to run up the 2000' approaches this time.  

Later this week I think we're going to drive to another area called El Salto and then maybe hook up with a local who may have some ideas for where else to look for our Motherlode!