long routes and good times in the Potrero

Apologies to all of you faithful followers who have been disappointed by a lack of new posts in recent days...

Rich climbed Voodoo Trance (5.11b) 9 pitches and Time Wave Zero (5.12a) 23 pitches, with a new found friend and climbing partner, Jack Cramer.  

 Rich and Jack on pitch 7 of Voodoo Trance

 A buzzard suns itslef on the summit of El Toro (adjacent summit to TWZ)

 Rich and Jack on the Time Wave Zero summit after 23 pitches of climbing

A view of the TWZ summit from the 3rd class ledge, 800 feet off the ground.  

(It is another 1500 feet from where this picture was taken to the summit)

We have also been filling our days with climbing beautiful with a bunch of great folks in the potrero.  

Here are some photos to describe what we have been up to, much better than words would have been able to...

Jack on Don Quixote 5.11d with all the grandness the Potrero has to offer in the background

Peter laying back hard on All Cracked Up and No Place To Go (5.11a)

Scott transitioning into the final crack of Texas Tumble (5.10d)

Jack going "suns out guns out" on Planet Markler (5.11b)

a very pretty picture...

Our second interaction with local wildlife on the trip.  This centipede was barely alive due to cold temps.  And based on the fact that it measured about 8 inches in length, we were happy to find it so sedated.  

That's it for now...I don't want to inundate anyone with too much stimuli, so I will fill in the gaps of more recent escapades shortly...

until next time...

so much climbing...so little blogging...

Sorry for the delay folks...We have had some really nice weather recently and this has resulted in a lot of climbing...
We spent a day climbing at the spires with our new found friends Mitch and Jesse (also from NY!).  We climbed opposing spires and were able to grab some great photos of one another.

Rich climbing through the window feature on Through the Looking Glass (5.10a)

Nyssa has now climbed up into the aforementioned window and is enjoying the fantastic view 

Rich belaying Nyssa on the second pitch of Aruja Celo Rey (510b)

Rich enjoying the summit of the spire....

Nyssa perched on top of the world

Mitch trying to embrace the grandness of the Potrero

Jesse enjoying a moment of zen on the summit of the downhill spire

After a day of climbing in the sun on the spires, Nyssa and I retreated to the shade of Los Lobos Canyon and enjoyed some excellent climbing on Will the Wolf Survive (5.10b).

Nyssa and Rich on the knife-blade ridge summit 

Enjoying some exposure, living foot loose and fancy free...

all chilled out and no place else to go...

Apologies for the delay on keeping up on our posts.  We have been struggling with some very strange weather for Mexico that has left both the locals and climbers flabbergasted by cold temps, cloudy skies and freezing water pipes...

Let's start from the beginning, when the sun still shined and the temperatures drove us to shady parts of the canyon to avoid the heat...

We spent the day Monday in the upper part of the Estrellas canyon at the Club Mex Wall.  It was the first day of trying 5.12s and it was a very enjoyable, exciting and strenuous day.  We rubbed our fingertips raw on the technical, steep crimps of Fear of Flying 5.12a.  While none of us sent the line, we all got to do some great climbing, as well as log some excellent flight time!

 Rich on his first try at Fear of Flying...

overcoming that fear... 

 Nyssa trying to make the really small holds a bit more user-friendly with the sassy high step...

 Peter enjoying the one almost good hold on the route...

only to then enjoy some flight time as well...

On Tuesday, we explored a new area to us, The Dihedrals.  At this area you find features appropriate to the name, but certainly unexpected for Mexican limestone.  

This corner is a classic at any destination and was strangely reminiscent of ADK crack climbing.  Dead Man Walking with its secure jams and strenuous movement for 130 ft, made us think we had travelled back to the Beer Walls in Keene Valley...but then we remembered that we were clipping bolts...ruh-roh...

 and then the temps dropped...

 man, dog and plant all bundled up with as many layers as possible...

Yesterday, we took an exciting trip through the desert, really taking advantage of the superb Mexican infrastructure, to end up at an incredibly unlikely hot spring/spa.  We washed away our sorrows in a beautiful, subterranean pool with vaulted ceilings as the temperatures outside hovered around 30 degrees.

check it out at http://www.termasdesanjoaquin.com.mx/

There was so much steam in the room, we really couldn't take our own pictures.  But since the steaminess was so nice on such a cold day, we really couldn't complain...