We are waiting out a dust storm (with winds up to 60 mph) in El Paso at a Microtel. We have two more climbing days before we head north to Colorado. We’ve been solo for the last week, as Paul, April, and Silas returned to Tucson. The weather has been decent, albeit a bit warm, and we’ve gotten in some good climbing. Tuesday we started at ground level on North Mountain, sampling climbs on and around the Warm-Up boulder. I made decent progress on Winking J (V8), but given the slopers and warmer temps, I didn’t send, but managed to do the hardest moves, which inspired a bit of confidence. Once the temperatures heated up more, we headed to the Martini Roof, where I managed to pull off Martini Hotbox (V9). It’s really amazing what a hard send does for one’s general demeanor–such a weight lifted from the shoulders.

Wednesday we (finally) did a rock art tour. It was a shorter tour, so we didn’t get to see any of the classic masks like Starry Eyed Man or the Tlaloc, but we did see a few masks and other interesting pictographs. I appreciated our guide, who viewed all of the pictographs and petroglyphs, regardless of their source, as part of the story of Hueco Tanks (this included the carvings from the early white settlers, buffalo soldiers, and Texas Rangers). He didn’t discount the religious importance of the Native American art, but he also didn’t discount other markings as mere graffiti (well, except, perhaps for the stuff done recently, over other historical markings). After the tour, we suffered through the heat and headed back up to Martini Roof. We both worked on Baby Martini (V6), but the long line of huecos really bothered my fingers, so I finished up by doing Schadenfraud (V5). We’ll finish up the trip by climbing along the front side of North Mountain tomorrow and doing a tour with Paul and April to the East Spur on Saturday.

Posted on 29 April 2010