Love tufa-pinching? Empanadas filled with dulce de leche? Chickens in the back yard? Sunrises on massive, limestone canyon walls? Delicious street food fried up in front of you? Local veggie trucks? Seemingly unlimited rock climbing potential? Puppies???
Mexico.
We cruised the Millenium FalcVan across the continent for
days until we arrived in the tiny mountain town of Cienega de Gonzalez, nestled
in the mountains of Parque Nacional Cumbres de Monterrey. For five weeks we lived in the big grassy yard at Dona Kika’s, in
a small van commune with Dan and Nicole, Kirsten and Yannick, Chris, and Jared,
and climbed at the crags of El Salto.
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| Panorama of our commune. Photo credit: Emrys Prussin |
The town had everything we needed while we were here. Once
we parked our vehicles we didn’t move them throughout our stay, so there was never
a need to fuel up. Kika’s store had all the essential groceries, many treats,
and a hefty supply of beer and tequila. Several days a week a propane tank
rolled into town, and every Saturday two different veggie trucks wove through
the streets selling to locals. Every weekend we ate dinner at Chuy’s local
restaurant, and plenty of places sold street food and elotes on Saturdays and
Sundays too.
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| Dona Kika's store |
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| Saturday shopping at the veggie truck |
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| Dona Kika herself <3. Photo credit: Chris Schwartz |
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| Serving up elotes (steamed corn on the cob with various toppings) |
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| Kika's cook shelter, bathrooms, shower and sink |
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| Chuy's restaurant - serving up the epic Hamburguesa Doble |
It is pretty quiet during the week in Cienega de Gonzalez,
but on the weekends the town comes to life. Locals from Santiago and Monterrey
come up the mountain on Saturdays and Sundays and rent cuatrimotos to ride
through the canyons. The people also love to stay up late and listen to music –
it is not uncommon to see huge sound systems with flashing lights strapped to
the front of quads, or come across several cars parked on the side of the
street blasting their music with all the car doors open. If you’re planning to
climb on Sunday or Monday mornings, earplugs are a good idea for the nights
before.
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| Cobble streets in Cienega de Gonzalez |
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| Rent cuatrimotos here |
***
Prior to heading out on the trip, we did two
months of strength and power training to prepare, and then took a week and a
half off of climbing before arriving. Due to our very wet west coast fall this
year, neither of us had climbed outside for several months, so we kept our
expectations for El Salto fairly open.
Turns out we were feeling very good, and the climbing went
very very well.
There are currently four main developed crags in El Salto,
with several other smaller walls that are continuously seeing new routes go up:
Las Animas (the souls), Cueva de Tecalote (gym roof cave), La Boca (the mouth),
and Cumbia Cave. You can find online topos and some route information here and here, but new routes are constantly being developed.
Las Animas
Las Animas is a massive, breath-taking wall, steeper than
vertical and boasting phenomenal lines ranging from 5.11+ to 5.14-. The wall is
stunning to look at with huge vertical streaks of alternating blue and orange
limestone littered with multiple tufa features. We learned that the wall earned
its name because in bright moonlight the tufas cast ghostly shadows across the
wall.
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| Hike to Las Animas |
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| Jared climbing amidst the orange and grey-blue streaks |
Ancient petroglyphs in the center of the wall have led to a
few routes being closed to climbers, but all remaining lines are currently
open.
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| Petroglyphs |
A popular quadding trail runs alongside the wall, so weekend
afternoons can be loud and unpleasant for climbing at Las Animas, but it is
manageable. Perhaps more difficult is the long “siesta time” in the middle of
the day. The wall begins to receive sun on the left side at 11am and by the end
of February we weren’t climbing again until nearly 4pm. Apparently this season
has been unusually hot, making it near impossible to climb in the sun.
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| Memorizing beta in siesta time |
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| Mona and Shep a snoozin' |
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| Jared and his new babe <3 |
Graham climbed 32 of the 48 routes at Las Animas
wall, including Dante’s Inferno Extension (5.14a; his first of the grade),
Strict Machine (5.13d; second ascent), and Murder Weapon (5.14a; third ascent).
Kim climbed Strict Machine as her first 5.13d, as well as Dante’s Inferno
(5.13d).
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| Graham on his send of Dante's Inferno Extension (5.14a) |
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| Chris cranking in the first crux of Purgatory (5.13a/b) |
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| Kim putting down Strict Machine (5.13d) |
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| Kirsten on her send of Body Groovin' (5.12b) |
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| Dan starting up on Dante's Inferno (5.13d) |
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| Kim on her send of the full Camino de Chino (5.13b) |
La Boca crag is much more technical and closer to vertical,
but it is not exempt from funky tufa features. There are more moderates
available at La Boca, with route difficulties ranging from sub 5.10 to 5.14-. The
wall is tall and orange, and many of the routes have beautiful, thin extensions
through an otherwise nearly blank face. It is a great place to go on weekends
to avoid the whir of the cuadrimotos and is often busy with psyched climbers.
Plus, at only a 10 minute walk from Kika’s, it is easy to return to camp for
the hours of siesta.
At La Boca, Kim climbed the classic routes Lounge Puppy
(5.13a) and Hijo de Puta (5.12b/c) among several others, and Graham finished
off Fantastic Voyage Extension (5.13c), Honey Bear Extension (5.13d/5.14a) and
Sound of the Second Season (5.13c). He also completed his first First Ascent,
of a mega techy route called Slabbergast (5.12d/5.13a).
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| Graham entering the crux on Fantastic Voyage Extension (5.13c). Photo credit: Dan Beland |
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| Kim snagging a rest on Honey Bear (5.12a). Photo credit: Dan Beland |
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| Dan climbing the stellar line Hijo de Puta (5.12c) |
Cueva de Tecalote
The Tecalote Cave is about a 25 minute walk past Las Animas
and the crag itself is made up of three small caves. In the furthest right cave
is Culo de Merlin (5.10d), one of the coolest climbs either of us has ever
done! Steep jug climbing leads to stemming off a huge hanging tufa that leads
to climbing through a five foot
long hole and then finishes with cave-like adventuring into the abyss of the
cave.
Graham’s biggest wish list climb, H-Bomb (5.14a), is located
at the Tecalote Cave. After a couple sessions to work on the boulder problem,
he quickly dispatched the route during the fourth week of our stay.
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| Jared mid-crux on H-Bomb (5.14a) |
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| Cave life |
***
On top of all the incredible climbing we met loads of great,
unforgettable people (and fur friends!) We spent a lot of time with Andres and
Juan Pablo from Guadalajara who were great helps in teaching us Spanish and
translating for us when we were stuck. Some of the climbing terms we learned
include…
Que machina! What a machine!
Eso! That’s it!
Que mamado(a)! So strong!
Buen pege! Nice try!
Venga! Common!
Venga guey! Common dude!
Chido! Cool!
Como te fue? How did it go?
A muerte! To the death!
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| Our patient teachers, Juan Pablo and Andres |
Two of the free range Chihuahuas living at Kika’s, Donny and Milli, recently had a litter of four puppies, so we watched them grow over our stay. Rita, another young pup, had a litter of five just over a week before we left. And then of course there was Fleabag (the kitten we wished was ours!) and Mona (adopted by Jared).
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| Donny |
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| Milli |
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| Puppies of Donny and Milli |
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| Fleabag |
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| Rita and babes |
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| Roscoe and Mona |
And that’s about it! We would love to come back to Mexico to revisit El Salto and check out many of the other climbing destinations as well…. Potrero Chico, La Huesteca, Guadalcasar, Chanta, Hilo Tepec and more.
Some coverage of our stay, courtesy of Gripped and Squamish Climbing Mag:
Finally, many thanks to Scarpa for putting the shoes on our
feet that carried us up all those climbs, and to Dometic for the cooling box
that kept our beer and food chilled in the scorching heat. :)
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