Mexican Road Trip

In January Matt, Adam and I headed on a little Mexican road trip.  We left in the morning after Adam and I got off of work.  The vehicle we were taking was a 19 year old Honda Accord.  On the 2,500 mile trip we would break 200,000 miles.  None of us were concerned with whether the car would make the trip, but Matt and Adam were both concerned with the trunk space.  You see I bought the car 6 months before with a subwoofer in the trunk and I didn't want to take it out.  I don't care about bumpin' down the road, but probably irrationally, I was worried that by taking it out we would mess up the rest of the sound system making for a very long, quiet ride.  Either way I made both of them pack very light which caused a lot of shivering later on the trip.  We got a cheap hotel outside of El Paso, food shopped, and filled lots of water bottles that night.  As planned we crossed the boarder early in the morning in hopes of making the 8 hours to Basaseachi before it got dark.  Everyone we'd talked to about traveling in Mexico suggested only driving during the day.  Luckily we remembered to get our Vehicle Import Permit as throughout the trip we were stopped 3 times by cops asking to see it.  A few hours past the border we saw a taco stand and couldn't resist.  We each downed 9 tacos to the surprise of owners.  We pulled into Rancho San Lorenzo in the late evening and met up with Fernando who owned the place.  

He organized a ride to El Gigante the next day for us.  After an good sleep we woke up and packed in preparation for 3 days on the wall.  In the afternoon we got picked up and dropped off at the TH for the wall.  An hour hike put us at the top of the wall where we would spend the night.  The next morning we woke early and rappelled the route leaving food and water along the way to be picked up as we ascended.  We also left some extra draws on the crux pitches which turned out to be nice but often they weren't on the bolts where you wanted them.  After 5-6 hours of rappelling we were on the ground and started back up.  We climbed the first 8 pitches to the Tower of Power where we'd left our sleeping gear and then climbed and fixed the next two pitches.  

Above the Tower of Power is where the climbing got hard.  Pitch after pitch of .12 climbing.  We only brought one lead line and one haul line to minimize weight and help with station management.  Luckily most of the hard pitches were about half a rope length, so the middle guy could just tie into the middle and we'd caterpillar our way up.  When we had a longer pitch we'd have the middle guy climb it on a micro traxion, maybe not the best option but it worked.  Once at the Critter Bivy which is where we spent the second night we once again climbed and fixed the next two pitches.  

 On the third day after waking up we jugged and hauled the two fixed pitches and punched it to the top.  We decided the last .12a pitch near the top was the best pitch on the route.  We joked that we should have just rappelled those top few pitches to climb the pitch instead of rappelling all the way to the ground and spending 3 days on the wall.  As we climbed the last pitch to the top the sun hit us and we started to thaw out.  The route gets zero sun so we'd been in the shade, and shivering for most if not all of the route.  We repacked on top for the hike back to the road.  Luckily our ride was there waiting for us and drove us back to Rancho San Lorenzo. 

Although we probably should of stayed another few days in Basaseachi we decided to get up early the next morning and make the long drive east to El Potrero Chico.  We made it to Mark's place in Hidalgo a little after dark and then spent ten minutes pulling an Austin Powers trying to get into an admittedly pretty big parking spot.  Apparently I forget how to reverse into a parking spot after driving for 12 hours.

The next day Matt and climbed on El Sendero Luminoso.  We'd been wanting to climb the route for years and Adam had already climbed it.  The route had pitch after pitch of good climbing on clean rock. It's definitely a classic for good reason.  We met Adam in the canyon and decided after some dinner to climb Time Wave Zero which is a route we all wanted to climb.  It was dark when we started but thought that was a good thing since it gets a lot of sun and would be hot during the day.  With only a few hard pitches we thought we'd bring a bunch of draws and simul climb as a group of 3 for the majority of the route.  Adam linked the first third,  I took us up the next third, and Matt took us to the base of the crux pitch.  At that point it started raining and only because of Adam did we continue.  Matt and I were ready to call it a day but Adam took over the sharp end and took us to the top.  We'd forgotten Adam's chalk bag and belay device at the car so we ended up lowering him every pitch then Matt and I would simul rap. 

We wanted to go check out El Salto but the region was dealing with a gas shortage and so we stuck around Potrero for a couple days and got a little cragging in.  We drove back though the boarder near Laredo and paralleled the boarder all the way back to El Paso.  Adam got dropped off in Truth or Consequences to climb some more and Matt and I continued home.