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El Potrero Chico December 2023, 101 pitches in 9 days
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El Potrero Chico December 2023 This is a long read but TDLR: went to EPC and had an amazing time. Late November/early December I was trying to figure out what to do with the upcoming week and a half I would have off from work at the end of December for Christmas and the new year. I was thinking about going down to Utah, snowboarding for a few days and climbing for a few days but the weather looked a bit too bleak for climbing and sleeping in my car seemed awfully cold. In all the facebook groups I was a part of I kept seeing posts of people talking about heading to EPC… and “what the hell is EPC?” I kept asking myself. Then one night when I was scrolling on facebook past when I should have been asleep, and a recommended group popped up: “Potrero Chico Rock Climbing” with a picture of the towering limestone walls and the entrance arch to the park by starlight. I immediately joined the group and started scrolling through and looking through some of the pictures. Sport multipitch heaven! I knew instantly that this was where I wanted to spend my week and a half off at the end of December. I started browsing mountain project and immediately knew I had to climb Time Wave Zero, Yankee Clipper was another one that caught my attention, I began adding routes to my to-do list and it quickly grew.  The entrance to the park On Initially Finding a Partner, Accommodation, and a Taxi I was a bit worried about finding a partner since I didn’t know anyone who was going. How was I going to convince a stranger to climb a 23 pitch climb with me that also had a 12a pitch when I had only really climbed up to 10d at that point. It would be tough, or so I thought. I made a post on the facebook group introducing myself and connected with a handful of people (one of which I ultimately ended up doing TWZ with). This gave me the confidence to book the flight. Within 24 hours of discovering the place, I had my plane tickets booked. When I told my parents I was going to a small, non-touristy (outside of climbing) town in Mexico alone (I don’t speak a word of Spanish), they were a little concerned.  Beautiful sunset from Rancho, had everyone on Instagram asking where I was… I stayed at Ranch Sendero in the hostel style accommodation and for 20 USD a night, I was more than satisfied with the bed I was sleeping on. Their website said they were full but I messaged them on facebook and it turns out that they still had room so I booked a bed. For finding a taxi, I just made a post on facebook saying when my flight was arriving and that I needed a taxi, I ended up going through Leo’s Tacos (great guy and he makes great food!) but you will have your choice of drivers as they will all comment “taxi” under your post. On Money I took a shitty conversion rate at the airport since I had no idea what I was getting into and wanted some cash, I would recommend taking a bit of cash at the shitty conversion rate if you want to be safe. Otherwise, you can ask your taxi to stop at the Hildago police station and there is an ATM there. To get the best deal, decline the ATM’s conversion rate when it asks. From my understanding this will then use your bank’s conversion rate and give you the best deal on cash. Some places (the hostel) take card but I would not count on it so expect to need Mexican pesos. On Gear I brought:
That’s the gist of it, when going solo it’s good to have all the gear you need so that a partner will just need a harness, shoes, a helmet, and personal safety stuff. Usually, the people I met also had gear but not everyone so I would recommend brining all you think you’ll need. I flew with everything carryon and had no issues coming from the US but milage may vary. LEAVE THE TRAD RACK AT HOME. Everything is bolted here, even cracks. Like it or not that is just the local ethics. Whether or not those ethics should be what they are is another debate but as it currently stands pretty much everything worth doing is sport. The exception are the ridge traverses but those are all pretty much X rated and I would not do those unless you want to kill yourself or many innocent other climbers on the popular routes below all of the ridges when you inevitably pull a refrigerator size block of loose rock off and sent it careening down. So don’t bother with the trad gear. On that note, I almost guarantee anyone trying to sell trad gear on the FB page is a scammer since pretty much no one brings their rack down except maybe some van lifers or route developers. The guidebook can be bought at most of the hostels I believe. I bought mine at rancho, it was a bit pricy, but I wanted one. You can bum one off of any number of other climbers in the kitchen or your dorm or just use mountain project and be fine too if you really don’t feel like dropping the money to buy a book. It’s a cool (and practical) souvenir though so I would recommend buying one. The Trip I knew I was cooked when I was waiting to board my flight in the US and they were only making announcements in Spanish, maybe this whole thing had been a mistake… It ultimately ended up being ok. I took a red-eye flight to Guadalajara, a long layover, then a flight to Monterrey. Met up with the taxi driver at the airport and just under an hour later, I was at the hostel probably at about noon. As the front desk receptionist was showing me to my room, she asked a passing guy what he was up to, and he said he was on his way to the kitchen to try and find a partner. “What a coincidence! I needed a partner” I told him that I would meet him in the kitchen in 10 minutes after I put my stuff down and would go climb with him. Arnie had been at EPC since early December and was 20 (plus or minus a year or so) and full of energy, just what I was looking for in a partner. Day 1, On Park Entrance Fees By some stroke of luck, I had already found a partner literally 5 minutes after getting out of the taxi. After our introductions (I forgot his name a few times and he forgot mine too) we geared up and were on our way to the park. When you pass through the gate someone from the SAR team will come up and ask for your number, if you don’t have one you go in to the office, fill out some papers with name, phone number, emergency contact, the usual stuff, hand them 250 pesos (I think it was that much, plus or minus a bit) and they give you a sweet bottle opener with a number on it, for the rest of your stay tell them that number when you enter the park (I would recommend learning the number in Spanish). After I had done that, we headed over to “Timon y Pumba” a 10a. we were gonna do one pitch but ended up doing both (2 pitches down). Now Arnie knew I was at least able to build a sport anchor and belay from above. He then mentioned how he hadn’t gotten to climb the spires yet, also a sick feature that I wanted to climb so we decide to climb “Uber Machismo,” a 2 pitch 11a that had an alleged “hand crack” that I’m pretty sure was just a quartz deposit so it felt like something was biting your hand, miserable. The views from the climb were sweet and this gave me a gauge for where I stood. 11a was tough but I could definitely climb it here (4 pitches down). That night I went to the grocery store with Arnie, made dinner, met a few more people in my dorm, and went to bed. A great first day, I couldn’t believe that I had already found a partner. The only bad thing was that he had already done TWZ and did not want to do it again.  The spires as seen from the ground  Arnie following on P2 of “Uber Machismo” This is long so i am gonna post the rest as 2 more comments under this thread. |
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Day 2 We warmed up on “No Remorse” a 10d on outrage wall (5 pitches), then headed up to the surfbowl. I tried “Blue Fin” a perma-drawed 12a with some tufas then did a 10d “Johnny Utah” (7). After that we climbed 2 bolted cracks, “Dead man walking” and “Ostio.” Both 5.9 and both were great fun (9). Then I climbed the first 2 pitches of TWZ just to check out the 11b pitch and I was able to do all the moves after hanging around for a bit. I highly recommend that anyone who isn’t a confident 11 leader do this so that they don’t get shut down on pitch 2 which is the highest grade besides the 12a pitch 21 pitches up. I found this pitch not really as aidable as the 12a, you have to be able to pull some 11 moves for sure. If you have a cheater draw you may be able to bypass it though. (11 pitches down by now!)  Descending from the surfbowl/TWZ Day 3 I was ready to do something big. And now that Arine and I were a bit more comfortable climbing together we decided to send “Yankee Clipper” a sweet 15 pitch climb with a 12a at the very end, otherwise all 5.10b and below. It was cloudy so unfortunately we didn’t get much of a view of the surrounding scenery.  Arnie climbing in the clouds But the climb was great, the last 2 pitches step around a curve on a small ledge and all of the sudden you experience full exposure as there’s a 1000 plus foot drop off below you. Arnie led the first few bolts of the 12a pitch (crux) and then I jugged up and made the reachy move to the arête at which point it became more like 5.8 and we topped out (26 pitches down).  Fossils seen at the top of “Yankee Clipper.” This all used to be at the bottom of the sea Now began the first of my many series of rappels. We did 15 rappels. TIE YOUR STOPPER KNOTS Every bolt on all of the anchors of the last 8 rappels was pretty much only finger tight. We tightened them as much as we could and sent it and luckily all the hangers stayed in place. I did leave a MP comment telling the next party up to bring a wrench so hopefully that got done. Overall this was a great climb and is worth doing even if you only climb 5.10 because the 12a pitch is the very last one.  Me on the second of 15 rappels. Route wraps skiiers right and the rest of the raps are not as exposed Day 4 Arnie’s feet were destroyed after a full day in too tight shoes on Yankee clipper so he took a rest day. I met up with Caleb the night of day 3, a climber from Colorado I had connected with on FB who was also staying at rancho. We both wanted to do “Estrellita,” a popular 11 pitch 11a (with an easier bypass option). Since we never climbed together, we gave each other a brief multipitch quiz and both passed each other’s initial sus-out because the next morning we were roping up at the base of “Estrellita.” Caleb took the first lead and we swung. I onsighted the (short) 11a pitch, a first for me in that grade! Then we unroped for the 3rd class, coiled the rope and started scrambling. All of the sudden we started seeing bolts, we had entered the 5.7 pitch after the 3rd class without even realizing. We kept going until we hit the chains at the base of a 5.10 pith and re-roped up. The 5.7 pitches felt more like 5.4 or as I like to call it 5.chill.  Caleb topping out one of the later “Estrellita” pitches We crushed our planned time and did the route in only like four hours up and down (now at 37 pitches). Since it was still so early, we decided to do “pitch black,” a six pitch route just a few gullies over.  Me chilling somewhere up Estrellita I believe. TWZ tops out at the peak and is on the back side of the formation behind me and Yankee clipper goes up the wall in the sun and wraps to the front side and does up the ridge a bit On Crowds and Popular Routes This was the only time I experienced a crowded multipitch route, when we showed up at the base, there was another party racking up, 2 more climbing and 1 rappelling. Maybe I was just lucky because there was also a fiasco where 5 parties (I believe) somehow managed to get stuck between 2 anchors on a climb and no party could move up or down, not entirely sure how that happened but it sounded miserable. A guy at rancho was in one of the parties and was saying that it was a clusterfuck. I don’t remember the details but you don’t want this to happen to you… To avoid that I recommend getting an early start, especially on popular routes, when I did TWZ we left rancho at 530 and got to the base a bit after 6, at 7 a second party showed up. For Estrellita, we had just started the first pitch probably at around 830 when a second party showed up so it doesn’t always need to be super early but just beware. The weekend surrounding Christmas it got significantly more crowded so maybe try to do the super popular routes a bit before or after. There are tons and tons of routes, talk to the other climbers in your hostel and someone will no doubt have a cool recommendation that you have not heard of. I’d recommend checking out “when your lost in the wild” it’s a sick 11 pitch climb on the front side of the park, it is a bit of a hike but since it is newer it has less traffic, but also more choss. Back to Day 4 As we were standing at the base of pitch black waiting to start, a softball sized rock came whizzing down probably 7 feet away from me. I think my helmet would have done little more than shatter if that rock had landed on me. We planned to link pitches and hopefully climb through some of the other parties. At first the party above us wasn’t a fan of this but then they OK’d me to keep climbing while they chilled at the anchor. On pitch 3 there is a traverse at the end that uses some wire as a handrail, I didn’t clip a bolt at the start of that and this created a potential pendulum for Caleb. Not great. By this point the leader who had let us pass was on our ass and I felt bad since I had assured him we would be fast and out of their way and here we where jammed up. Caleb pulled the move and made it to the anchors shortly after luckily without falling and after that we were on our way back up the route.  Looking down from the top of “Pitch Black” Suddenly there were a few shouts of “ROOOCK” as some small rocks came flying past us. We thought it was just one but after a few more we realized that the party 2 above us who were now rappelling had decided to trundle rocks… Caleb shouted furiously up at them asking if they wanted to get someone killed. Luckily they stopped after that. PLEASE BE MINDFUL OF OTHERS WHEN YOU KNOCK ROCKS OFF AND DO NOT INTENTIONALLY TRUNDLE ROCKS UNLESS YOU KNOW THERE IS NO ONE IN THE FALL ZONE, THAT INCLUDES THE APPROACH GULLY. The rest of the climb was fun, we passed some death blocks marked with spraypainted skulls on them and rappelled down (43 pitches climbed). That night I celebrated Christmas at Leos Tacos with a bunch of other climbers. Leo cooked up a bunch of food buffet style, had drinks, a fire, a mechanical bull and even a pole people climbed. Overall amazing Christmas experience.  Unknown climber races to the top of the pole as fast as possible in an attempt to win a T-shirt |
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Day 5 The limestone had done a number on my hands, so I planned on taking a rest day. But group of girls from New York in my dorm were gonna crag so instead of resting, I decided to join them… I climbed “Lamb Nuts” and “Mas Panza Que Pelo” as well as linking all 3 pitches of “The Raven” into one mega pitch at the suggestion of Bob, a friend of Caleb’s who seemingly had all the beta. I highly recommend climbing the raven this way if you climb it. (49 pitches). At this point my time was beginning to run out and I still hadn’t found a partner to do TWZ with, Arnie had done it already and didn’t want to do it again and Caleb initially didn’t feel he was quite up to the task, I asked around rancho and got some potential yesses but at that pace, climbing with someone new, I wouldn’t get to climb it probably until my last day. Day 6 I talked Caleb into checking out the first 2 pitches with me, If the 11b wasn’t too bad for him to follow, he agreed to take a rest day the rest of day 6 and climb TWZ with me on day 7, my fingers were crossed. We hiked up with our gear and extra water, did the first 2 pitches and he felt solid (51 pitches). Perfect, I had found someone to climb TWZ with! We stashed all our gear in the cave by the surfbowl and hiked back down to chill and plan out the climb. I’m glad we stashed gear since it made the approach the following morning significantly easier but do this at your own risk. Bob gave us incredible pitch linking beta and below is how I would recommend climbing TWZ if you are comfortable with some runout. I didn’t skip too many bolts but skipped them when I felt safe. We did the actual climb slightly differently but in retrospect, this is how I would climb it if I did it again: AN UNCUT 70M ROPE IS REQUIRED 1-2 3-4 5-7 3rd class, unrope 8-10 11-12 13-14 15-16 17-19 20 21-22 23 unrope Warning: pitch 18 is the permadrawed traverse pitch, I double extended, skipped draws, and chained draws together to make long draws, if you are not comfortable with runout and some rope drag I would maybe pitch this section out, you could also potentially to 17-18 and 19-20 but I would confirm with another source that 19-20 will link since I did not do it that way. I had like 15 or so feet left after linking all three no simulling needed. Day 7 Time Wave Zero We woke up a little before 5, scarfed down some breakfast, and started our approach. We made it to the base, grabbed our gear, racked up, and started climbing at 6:10. The first pitch was cruiser and for me the crux of the 11b pitch ended up being fine since I had practiced it 2 times before. The actual crux for me was a step out left move a bit below the crux because I couldn’t see my feet in the dark. I hung once but got the move and we were on our way. Caleb took the lead on 3 + 4 as he was off out of sight a party appeared at the base of the climb and asked if it was TWZ, I told them it was and asked if they were gonna be fast, they said no. “What a relief, they weren’t planning on passing us” I thought. I blasted through 5 + 6 + 7 and we were at the 3rd class. We took a quick snack and water break then I hopped on lead for 9 + 10. Both pitches were very fun. I remember there being a few crack moves and a roof move on pitch 10. Caleb took 11 + 12 and by noon, Caleb clipped into the anchor atop pitch 14 and I was up soon after.  Me catching a break somewhere up on the wall, don’t remember what pitch this was I took the lead on 15 and 16 and made it up no problem. At this point my memory is a little hazy but I believe this is how we did the rest of the climb. We were both tired and we chatted about switching up our initial lead breakdown. I took the pitch 17, 18, and 19 link and it was a blast, I did run out of alpines and doubles so I resorted to daisy chaining 2-4 quickdraws together to combat rope drag. I got to the anchors atop pitch 18 and yelled down to see how much rope I had left. I don’t remember how much Caleb said but I made it to the top of pitch 19 with about 15 feet of rope to spare. The 10d that followed was a fun pocket pitch and before I knew it I was on to the 12a pitch. I free climbed it up to the roof and tried to do it free once before pulling on draws and clipping my improvised ladder to the bolts. I also left my bag clipped to a bolt below to be brought up later. The next move was reachy. I attempted to make it with a draw that was already clipped into the rope (not a smart move since I introduces a lot of unneeded slack into the system) suddenly I was in the air… “FAALLLING” I jugged back up, clipped the bolt second try and made one or two reachy 11 moves to get to the next bolt and I was through it. Not as hard as I thought. The extra bag I left for Caleb ended up making it a lot harder for him to climb and he ended up jugging on a trax and gri gri. He started up on the next pitch but wasn’t feeling the runout so he put me on belay off a bolt at a ledge and I went up the rest of the pitch. Here is where I made my mistake. I reached the end of pitch 22 and decided to double extend the rope at one of the anchors and do the 5.3 ridge scramble still on belay, this made rope drag awful and there was no 2 bolt anchor past the one at the end of pitch 22 so I ended up belaying Caleb off a single bolt, what a fiasco. In retrospect, belaying off of the top of the P22 anchors then unroping for the 5.3 pitch is the way to do it. We topped out at 2:30, just over 8 hours up. Not great but not bad all things considered.  Me climbing down to the top of P22 to set up the rap as seen from the top. Scary 5.3 We enjoyed the views from the summit for about an hour then began our descent. We decided to simul rap, neither of us had done it very many times before and it was definitely a bit hectic, I think I enjoy just doing single raps where both people have their systems dialed more. ONCE AGAIN, TIE YOUR STOPPER KNOTS We ran into the other party on the traverse pitch rapping. They had made it up to pitch 20 before bailing and apparently had just gotten to EPC the night before, the wife had led every pitch to the top of 19 before deciding it was too much, what a beast. By 5:30 we were back at the ground exhausted and annoyed with each other after faffing around simul rapping and fighting all the spikey plants on rappel. We linked up with a few others who helped us carry our stuff down and got dinner. A day well spent and the main goal of my trip accomplished both Caleb and I were psyched. It wasn’t until this night that the thought of counting my overall pitched crossed my mind when Caleb brought it up to me. I through about all I had climbed up until now and realized I was at 74 pitches, just 26 more to reach 100 but I only had 2 days to do that. Day 8 Caleb wanted to take a break but I had work to do if I wanted to climb 26 pitches, luckily Arnie wanted to climb again, we decided to do “Super Nova” and its extension “Lucy Goosey” for 16 pitches. With the exception of the first pitch, “Super Nova” was pretty cruiser. The first 4 pitches of “Lucy Goosey” were good but then it went downhill. IT SEEMS LIKE THERE IS A NEW ALTERNATIVE UP THE WALL CLIMBERS LEFT THAT AVOIDS ALL THE SCRAMBLING. Good to know this as we both looked at the pristine rock and wondered why there were not routes up it yet at the time we climbed. We took some fixed lines and scrambled to some poor 5.7. Somewhere in the mix Arnie heard a rattlesnake and we both went running. The “1st class” pitch 7 was an erosion-fest and the last pitch was one odd move. We made it to the summit and watched the sunset briefly but we needed to move, The top four pitches had been jank and I did not want to do them without a headlamp since I had left mine in my bag at the bottom of the route.  The “1st class” pitch We pulled rocks off when pulling our rope rapping the top pitch and couldn’t really move so luckily, they didn’t hit us. We timidly but quickly navigated the other 3 pitches back to the fixed line. By this point it was dark and luckily we had 1 headlamp so we stacked our rappels and Arnie went first with the lamp to find the next anchor. Doing 12 raps in the dark wasn’t as bad as I thought it would have been but I am very glad that we had one headlamp. All in all, a solid day that left me at 90 pitches.  Sunset as we came down from Lucy Goosey Day 9 My last full day and only 10 pitches to go. The partner I thought I had ended up bailing and I was scrambling around for a partner. Once again Arine agreed to climb with me, and we went out and did “When You’re Lost in the Wild.” WYLITW was an excellent climb and is on the front side of the range facing town, so it was shaded. It was a bit of a hike but really nothing of note. I onsighted the whole thing, leading the 5.11 pitch and the quality of the pitches was great. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to escape the crowds and climb something shaded on a sunny day. And since it was 11 pitches, I climbed a total of 101 pitches in my time at EPC. Day 10 Caught my taxi and flight back to the US, sad to leave. Overall I had an absolutely amazing time and am 100% planning on going back to climb more there. If you want to get good at multipitch sport, there is probably no better place in the world for that! If you have any questions, let me know and I will do my best to answer them. |
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Great report! Impressive how much climbing you were able to do without any rest days, especially at or above your general max. Good stuff |
