Sunday, February 27, 2011

Rock Romance in Hueco Tanks, Texas

Brought to you by guest blogger Leici Hendrix!

It all started with Meatless Monday, our weekly get-together with Joe and Arun. Over delicious vegetarian food, we planned our Valentine’s Day adventure to Hueco Tanks in El Paso, Texas. Hueco Tanks is a world-famous bouldering area known for its unique hollowed out features that hold water during the dry season.

We decided to take Joe’s Honda Passport on its sunset voyage and piled into the car for an all-nighter. We arrived at the Hueco Rock Ranch early Friday morning, ready for a day on North Mountain. Hueco Tanks is an access sensitive area—there are restrictions on how many people can be in an area at any given time. Reservations or guided tours are required, so it can be difficult to navigate on your first visit. After watching an informative video about the history of the park, we were off to Warm Up Boulder.

A few warm-up problems later, we decided to head over to the Potatoes at the top of the chains and ended up at the Grenade boulder to work the classic V2 “Nobody here gets out alive.” This was one of my favorite problems of the trip. The opening moves require intense heel-hooking action on perfect rock.

Leici spots Arun on a big move

We ended our day with a trip to the sunny New Meadow. There were plenty of quality moderates to be found. Joe and Ben even found a project, Lobster Claw (V5), that they’ll return to one day.

Joe traverses a quality V1

We left in search of good Mexican food and margaritas. Unfortunately, we found bad Mexican food and margaritas that were actually just shots of tequila. Lack of sleep caught up with us and we eagerly crawled into our beds at the Rock Ranch.

The next morning, we woke up to warmer weather and headed out to The Morgue on North Mountain. T-Bone Shuffle (V4) caught Joe’s eye. After his attempt at an onsight, Ben and Joe took turns working the classic line.

Ben working the crux

I’d heard good things about the Gymnasium, so we hiked to the top of the chains and squeezed Joe’s new Mondo through a small slot in the rock. The Gym is chock full of highball, hueco-covered warm-ups. We climbed leisurely and soaked up the sun for a few hours.

View of the Gymnasium

Lunch in the sun fueled our search for what most consider one of the best boulder problems in Hueco Tanks—Ghetto Simulator (V2). As Joe said, it was a hike “for a boulderer.”

It’s more like a route

We decided to call it a day and hiked back to the car. Arun volunteered to make yummy Indian food for dinner, so Joe cracked a bottle of wine and we relaxed at the ranch. As Arun was finishing up dinner, Joe decided to force the pressure cooker open because he was too hungry to wait. At least, that’s my version of the story. Lentils and veggies exploded all over the kitchen, covering everyone and everything in sight. Fortunately, Arun forgave Joe (thanks to the chocolate, heart-shaped cake that Joe presented to her earlier in the evening) and there was enough food left in the pot to have an awesome dinner.

Arun and Joe in happier times

A guided tour in East Mountain was on the agenda for Sunday. Our guide, Cory, led us to Kid’s Stuff, where we played around on easy warm-ups with fun heel hooks and big huecos.

Me, being awesome

Cory led us over to Dragon’s Den, where we got on all of the classics—Ostracizer (V3), Hobbit in a Blender (V5), Satan, Satan, Satan (V1), and Dragonfly (V5).

Leici on Ostracizer

Joe’s proud send of Hobbit in a Blender

Ben’s last minute send on Dragonfly

East Mountain is also full of pictographs from Native American tribes that inhabited the area around Hueco Tanks. Cory took us to see a few of the drawings, along with Hueco Tank’s only year-round water source.

A well-preserved pictograph in East Mountain

Before leaving Hueco Tanks, we headed over to Warm-Up Roof and climbed a few more problems. Exhausted, we drove back to the ranch and packed up to head to Albuquerque. On our way out, we finally found amazing (and cheap!!) Mexican food at a tiny little place inside a meat market.

Hilarious group photo


Thanks to Arun and Joe for fun times and an awesome weekend of bouldering in Texas!


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Ode to my Passport


I know, I know, its just a conglomeration of steel and plastic, but I've been driving the Honda Passport since I was 16! That's...42% of my life! All in all, I have 195,000 miles on the SUV and its taken me to and through 26 states.

I drove an '88 Civic Hatchback for the first 8 months of my driving life - tinted the windows, added a chrome exhaust pipe, and squeezed in a 4.5 foot wide subwoofer. It was fun too and, dare say, I caused a lot of trouble in it after soccer practices "getting pizza" when I was really getting a cart of eggs. Nuph said.

Then my folks wanted me in a "safer" car with airbags and the such, so they handed me down the 95.5 Passport. It didn't have the high schooler zip I sought after, but it only took me a nanosecond to realize I could fly up icy dirt roads at 60 mph and skid around steep corners on my way to the trailhead for an Adventure Club outing. Maybe making the 14-year-old freshmans nearly piss their pants in the back seat made me evil, but I enjoyed it.

Let me just preface and say I've never been in a moving vehicle accident with that car. It's been rock solid and so has my driving record. Except for when I ripped off someone's bumper with the 12-foot long Uhaul trying to move my crap from Seattle to Boulder. But that was the Uhaul's fault, not mine. And I've only hit non-moving obstacles, like trees, rocks, and parked minivans. Also neither the Passport's nor my fault.

So why this memoir? The repair bills sky-rocketed to keep it going and I had just about driven it to the ground. So I traded it in, but it seems sacrilegious to talk about the new car on the block. Only time will tell if it will provide as many memories as the Passport.

I won't bore you with a 12-year narrative, but here are a few photo-documented highlights:

My first big road trip - Erich and I took a post-high school graduation trip driving down the Pacific coastline from WA to SoCal, skimboarding and camping along the way:

Just one of the gnarly approaches required for reaching trailheads in the Cascades - thank you Passport for kicking ass:

Courtney and I camping out at the Gorge for the first Sasquatch Festival in 2002:

Erich joined me the next year when I drove the Passport from Seattle to New York in one 45 hour push. This is what I remember from the trip:

Steve and I looking grungy after two weeks of climbing through Wyoming on my return voyage from my sophomore year at Cornell:

Summer of 04 I hit the 100k mark on a trip to Cannon Beach, OR, my favorite camping spot. My all-time road trip partner, Erich, was appropriately there to enjoy this moment:
Final cross-country road trip from NY to WA with Gerry, where we met up with Vijay on his trip back east for a few days of climbing at City of Rocks, ID:

I soloed the drive to the Bugaboos trailhead to meet Kyle, Brian, and Jeff for a week of climbing. The chicken wire is porcupine protection:
Mt. Shasta on my move from Seattle to Colorado in 2009. I stopped in Malibu to pick up Arun "on the way" and got an average of 12 mpg with that Uhaul in tow:

On a romantic Valentines Day trip with Arun to Wyoming when the temps were subzero:
Hat's off pal, you'll be missed

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

But kiwis don't fly

Uno: My sister had a baby girl! Samantha Noelle Rush: 6 lbs 12 ounces and healthy:

Dos: American Alpine Journal posted a report by Blake Herrington on our route Flight of the Kiwi from August 2010 found here:


Tres: Its been a fun mix of ice and rock climbing in the last month - here are a few highlights:

Arun's first ice climb at Ouray!
Jason leading Cabin Fever in Cody, WYJason on the beautiful ice of Wyoming Wave above Cabin Fever
Chris and Doug heading up the final rambling pitches of Sendero to join the party, Cody
Echo Cliffs, Santa Monica Mountains
SoCal Bouldering
Serpentine on Weeping Wall at Tahquitz and Suicide - slabalicious!