Hueco Tanks

After spending the last few months climbing primarily on ropes, we were looking forward to the simplicity of bouldering, and were very excited for the warmer temperatures the forecasts promised at Hueco Tanks.  We had planned to get to El Paso in time to meet up and climb with Deyo and Kevin (our visiting friends from Seattle and Albuquerque) on their first day in town, but as we found on our endless drive across Texas our extra day in Asheville had made that ETA unrealistically tight and we rolled into El Paso fairly late at night. 

Our introduction to the complicated system of park entry, visitor passes, camping, and sustainability at Hueco Tanks started the next morning.  Hueco Tanks is made up of several granite-like mountains and is famous for round "huecos" (pockets or cavities in the rock that range from a couple inches across to the size of swimming pools) that both make awesome climbing holds and hold rainwater for long time periods in the otherwise arid desert.  There are a number of Native American rock paintings and other cultural artifacts at this park and there are rare critters that live in the water-filled huecos, so in an effort to preserve these natural and cultural artifacts the park limits the number of people allowed in every day.  We had heard a lot about the park restrictions and preservation efforts at Hueco before we arrived and were a little confused by the system, but we got up early, were the first people at the park gate, and easily picked up our day passes for our first day of bouldering in a long time.

Morning in the park

We caught up with Deyo and Kevin at their campsite in the park and then headed to North Mountain, the only bouldering area in Hueco that climbers can access without a guide.  We loved the crazy rock formations and the bomber rock, and though Deyo and Kevin were only able to be away from their jobs for a week we tried a lot of awesome lines during that time.  Our first few days were definitely a learning process.  We weren't used to using as many toe hooks, heel-toe cams, knee bars, and feet-first climbing techniques as the problems at Hueco require.  It took us a few sessions to work out the style, but once we did it was incredibly fun to unleash all of these three-dimensional techniques.

The group, hanging out

Hueco is notorious for its sexual and raunchy route names, and we found some R-rated projects fairly quickly.    Chelsea and Deyo were excited to get their Daily Dick Dose (V7), a classic Hueco roof with small edges, while Kevin worked on getting Pumped Full of Semen (V9).  We also spent some time trying high-quality, PG-rated problems throughout the week including Girls of Texas (V5), Free Willy, Baby Martini (V6) and Big Iron (V7) in the Martini Roof, Chblanke and Choir Boys (V-craziness), and Lobster Claw (V5).

Seth on a highball (V2)

Chelsea on Daily Dick Dose (V7)

  

Chelsea on Baby Martini (V6)

 

Kevin on Baby Martini

 

In addition to the park access restrictions for climbers, the Hueco Tanks park gate is also closed from 6pm to 8am this time of year, which means that we had a strict curfew for our nights at the park campground.  With the four of us (Chelsea, Seth, Kevin, and Deyo) sharing a campsite, though, we found a pretty good daily rhythm.  We would wake up early, pick up our day passes when the office opened to ensure our park access, and then head back to camp and make breakfast while we waited for the desert to warm up.  We'd climb until 4 or 5 in the afternoon before heading back to the car.  Dinner was either at Pasitos, the small taco-truck style Mexican restaurant near the park entrance, or cooked family-style at camp.  The sun went down right around 5:30, so we spent a lot of time hanging out and playing cards before heading to bed and repeating everything the next day.

Kevin had to head back to Albuquerque on our first rainy day in the desert.  Deyo had one more day before her flight back to Seattle, so we headed into El Paso and took advantage of the best rest-day activities the town has to offer: a couple hours using Starbucks internet and an afternoon at the movie theater.  This rest day served us incredibly well.  On Deyo's last day at Hueco, both she and Chelsea finished Daily Dick Dose, and Seth also finished the V4 variation of Paleozoic, his first Hueco project - triple sends!  We finished the day at Hershey Symphony, which is sold as one of the best highball V1s in the US, before driving Deyo to the airport and making plans to get together once we get back to Seattle for the middle of winter.

 

Seth on Paleozoic, V4 version

 

Deyo on Daily Dick Dose (V7)

 

 

Hueco in the evening

  

Even after Deyo left, we weren't alone for long.  Our friend Mike Foley, who we'd spent a lot of time hanging with in the Red, got in touch to let us know that he'd been rained out of Chattanooga and was heading to Hueco as well.  We spent the rest of our time in Texas climbing with Mike.  It was great to have company, and though we all climb at super different levels our climbing days worked very smoothly - plus we got some ridiculous cardio in while hiking from boulder to boulder.

 

Chelsea had one of her best days of bouldering performance ever on the first day we climbed with Mike.  We started at the famous Fern Roof where she had been working Mexican Chicken (V6) the day before - until it got so windy that the pads would blow across the North Mountain meadow as soon as we stepped off of them.  Chelsea and Mike made quick work of the route in the calm morning air.  We then headed around the corner to Barefoot on Sacred Ground, a famous V12 that Mike wanted to repeat.  Barefoot is right next to See Spot Run, another V6 highball.  Mike put in some solid work on Barefoot, Seth worked out a crazy knee bar start on See Spot Run (but decided to stop before he totally bruised his leg), and Chelsea worked through her second scary top out of the day to finish the route.  Next we started looking for Bloodline (V7), a newer Hueco line that is pretty well hidden from the rest of the mountain.  Luckily a friendly UK climber we'd kept bumping into showed us where to find the problem so we didn't have too much trouble.  Bloodline is a very aesthetic problem - a water carved feature in a narrow canyon with a tufa about 3/4 of the way up the route.  The climb is pretty technical; Mike said that it requires the right "order of operations," meaning that movements needed to happen at the right place and time.  Mike quickly figured out the beta and sent, and after some valiant efforts from both Seth and Chelsea, Chelsea was able to finish her third hard (for her) climb of the day.

 

Chels topping out Mexican Chicken (V6)

 

Mike on Barefoot on Sacred Ground (V12)

 

Chelsea on Bloodline (V7)

 

Seth did work the next day, which we spent on the other side of North Mountain.  We started at the Warm Up boulders and then made our way uphill to T-Bone Shuffle, a classic and committing V4.  Seth made quick work of the climb using drop-knee beta that his height makes impressively casual, and it is one of his favorite Hueco boulders.  We spent the middle of the day trying Mopboys and watching Mike work some hard roof problems in the same area.  At the end of the day Seth tried another V4 in the Warm Up area.  He found it to be a really fun line with some extreme toe hooking and a large cross move that played well to his strengths.

 

Seth on T-Bone Shuffle (V4)

 

Ping! Downward bound on the V4 in the Warm Up area

 

We all decided to take a rest day the following day.  We headed to our usual Starbucks (with Mike it felt like a return to Kentucky rest days), and then spent a surprisingly long time trolling one of the El Paso malls. After our options for entertainment in the mall were exhausted we said goodbye to Mike and headed back to our campsite to brave the cold and rest up for our last day in Hueco.

 

We needed to get to Albuquerque by that evening, so we spent our short day trying the climbs we were most psyched on.  Seth finished his toe hook V4 his first try of the day, and Chelsea finished Stegosaur (V8), a unique lowball with a sweet 180 transition from the feet-first start (she'd been wanting to try it since our second or third day in Hueco).  After we got our sends in, we packed up the car, picked up our last victory burritos from the Mexican market, and headed north to visit Seth's family and to get ready to fly home for the holidays.

 

Overall, Hueco is an amazing place. We loved the climbing, the reasonable approaches, and the hot showers provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.  We weren't big fans of the 6pm - 8am campground curfew imposed by the park hours, which in combination with the early sunset got pretty boring and cold.  That being said, we forgot all about this as soon as we picked up our park passes in the morning and headed out to climb amazing rock all day.  We didn't have reservations for this trip, but we didn't have any trouble climbing the days we wanted to - though we'd like to have reservations and the option to stay outside the park with assured entry in the future.

  

We'll miss you Hueco Tanks!