TopRope.com: Sojurns: El Potrero Chico

Jason Blackwell leads the fifth pitch on Snot Girls.
Four pitches of Space Boyz Friday afternoon. Never having taken a lead fall on a slab, I was more scared leading on these two routes than I was the following day on the spire. Time and again people have reassured me that I am safer on a multi-pitch climb than some 30 foot climb where I am a lot more likely to hit the deck. Ok, that makes sense, but how come I just saw myself bouncing down the face, getting spat away from the wall only to make a new hole in the pavilion's tin roof? The thing about the slabs we climbed was that they were so positive, and this should have reassured me as well.

After time, I was a throwing my foot high with a lot more confidence, but I was not just running up the shit, even on toprope, I would start thinking, damn, this is pretty run out, Dave has balls. My pitch is going to be at least this hard or harder. One develops a respect for his partner, always maximizing the other’s achievement and minimizing his one when in a swapping pitches situation. I know that I am not a pussy and I will push myself, but whatever self-preservation notion was kicking around in the back of my brain was making me well aware that it was there. It doesn’t know about quick draws, ropes or stoned partners. It simply screams at times "You are going to die! you stupid mother fucker, you are going to plummet to the earth and put another hole in the roof of that god-damned pavilion!"

Soon, I tell myself, soon I will be immune to these heights.

Saturday night: the center attention and the universe of revolving joints and bong hits was my illustrious climbing partner, Dave. Always throwing in his Phillopian philosophy and filling the room with laughter, he offers everyone his opinion from who needs a good ass whipping, to belaying a pussy climber. I went and joined the party with my new friends Terrence or "T-Rence" and Marvin.

One may have not known that Dave had finished a two-hour mota sesh, unless you asked him a question and it took him a minute or two for him to realize that you were talking to him, and another 30 seconds to respond. Apparently, he also attacked himself in his sheepish stupor. In the morning, he reported that his pants were unzipped and his gums were bleeding. It most certainly could have been a chupa cabra, having spotted Dave’s supple form from his perch 2,000 feet up atop the Central pillar.

Well it came on Saturday, the spires, Moderate climbing, but there were actual hand holds I could sink my fingertips into. One little cruxy area where I could not see my next bolt, which formulated our new theory, if you can’t see the next bolt, it is because the hand holds are good. I was getting close to the top and I could hear David yelling some shit.

It sounded like he said, "you only have two feet of rope left" no fucking way "what?" "You have 20 feet of rope left" "Well I am almost there". It's cool, and up into the keyhole. It is windy, but it sure is pretty about 9:30 and a beautiful sunrise blazing through the valley. Dave followed and left a trail of vaginal fluid, sliming the holds for the dorks climbing up on our asses. Dave shot up the top of the spire, "Damn this shit is exposed" "cool".

A month had split the trips, six hours down on another four day weekend, first was thanks giving, now we were hauling ass on 85, firewall the throttle and shitgrin the turbine, we pulled in shortly after ’98 was rung in, and ring this bitch, "new year's sucks", and it always will, no need for balls dropping or dick (Clark that is). 12:30 at Homero's and for the most part: Party adjourned, get some shuteye on the rockbed, wake and climb. There are about three or four climbs close to Joe’s garage that are sweet warm-ups on a sunny new year's day. Later, we pulled down three or four routes on the super mini, a fun wall, good to hit late in the day when you are unsure of how many climbs you have left in you.

El Potrero: If you can't see the next bolt, it's because the hand holds are good.
I got a helmet from my brother from Christmas, but falling rocks were not the problem this trip. I witnessed more climbers get shitbricked by that loving feeling. Marvin had a twinkle in his eye for a certain Dallas girl, leaving Terence to join up with me and "can man" to buy the stairway to nowhere. Jan was afflicted by a full blown case of what Marvin had, leaving her incapable of climbing once with us. It is hard enough finding a good climbing partner, let alone one that wants to swap those precious bodily fluids. One end of the spectrum you gement and pet names, "you can do it, Babe!" and "off belay" -"Thank You!" On the other end, are the condescending bits of advice or barrages of beta which refuse to heed the "shut-the-fuck-ups" which echo down the valley. I really don’t have a problem with the former if done in moderation, but the latter makes me wish the two were in therapy, or just dead. The more I see it, the more I know that it is mostly a bum steer. Shitcan that noise, it works for a few people; it is a pipe dream for others.

Speaking of pipe dream, we got to the top of stairway to nowhere and signed the paper in the summit can and "can man" and T-rence had a pipe dream of their own, the sixth pitch; it’s two feet long and eight miles high. Stoned and obsolete, waterbottle in hand, Dave was asking me if he gave it back to me, and my paranoia ran rampant as I wondered if Dave’s five year old rope had green guts like the fuzzy caterpillar it resembled. It held, but we swore we would burn that fucker, leaving only memories of the purple rope and a toxic cloud in the ozone. This never happened of course, old purple is going to divide and conquer, no one has seen the last.

Jason was primed up for climbing, and the ride down went without a hitch despite having three grown men sitting in the cab of my mid size dodge. The place had cleared out pretty well since new years, and morning brought us back to the spires, which Jason lead up, and Sirin ran up and down pangea on the other side. It was past noon already and we ran into a group from Dallas who let us know that they intended on banging out 10 pitched of space boys the next day, Jason and I were like, "Oh yeah, so are we". 5:30 is early to rise, but not early enough as these boys beat us to the crag the following morning. C'est la vie, we woke Sirin and part of the household and dragged his sluggish as to the base of snot girls. You’ve seen those trendy bumper stickers that say girls kick ass, well, they should say "snot girls kicks ass". It is so much fucking fun climbing that bad boy, even with three people we were having a blast. The most vertical pitch, #4 is a great jug haul 9 climbing which make this climb a sheer pleasure. Coming up on the palm tree is pretty wild because it looks like such an odd projection from below.

Space boys is still waiting for me, but there are many trips ahead blocking out weekends all over my calender. And as it turns out, I am glad that I did not wait any longer to get to Mexico. If I waited until I was a good climber, well we all knew that that was not going to happen too soon.

El Potrero Chico three times in as many months