A week ago I was sleeping in my
car, the windows fogged and dripping, the crashpads outside gathering frost as
the sun slowly crept over West Mountain. I made eggs and coffee, ate the eggs
quickly and drank the coffee while I packed up. I had camped on a small plot of
land, whose caretaker-Gp-had allowed me to park my car for free. He called it
Bangland, after its owner. Bangland is a place to remind you of the deserts
strangeness, of Hueco’s sketchiness. Night after night, one neighbor or
another—all like a mile away—had vicious techno parties with toothy beats
bumping all night through the still air like the daily automatic gunfire
echoing over from Fort Bliss. 
I
packed lunch, bled the line for my stove and hurried over to the office to meet
Gp for a volunteer tour. It was as, Gp kept saying, my tour. I could go
anywhere I wanted. With all the backcountry boulders available to choose from,
this was not an easy decision. Acme Roof? The Feather? or some other obscurity
lost in West Mountain? I’ve never had to make the decision before; it’s usually
made collectively. Democracy on tour in the Hueco Backcountry.
Of
all the places to go, of all the great climbs out there, I decided to go to
Full Service. This problems name fits perfectly and is as good as people say as
long as you can climb it. Full Service is almost endlessly frustrating. Its
moves aren’t the hardest, but there are a lot of them, and it routinely spits
climbers off the top, a difficult thing to recover from, both mentally and
physically. This had happened to me last year, so I wanted to finish the thing
off.
I
fell from the top twice, once taking a scary trajectory. But I waited around,
talked to Gp. Rested. Then, once I had relearned all the moves and remembered
all the beta, I cruised to the top, smooth as glass.
Then I decided to try another power
endurance testpiece—Crouching on the Mahogany, only to pump out at the crux
time after time. You always need something to return to.
I left Hueco at about Three PM to
make the eight-hour drive home to Flagstaff. I stopped at El Pasito and bought
some burritos for the road. Driving north, eating carnitas, the sun setting in
that brilliant desert way, I thought about my trip.
I’ve never had such a successful
trip in my life. I climbed four days and finished a classic double digit
problem a day. I wanted to climb The Full Monty the most out of everything I’d
drawn onto my ticklist and on my first day I did it in less than an hour with
no spectators and one pad—my favorite time to climb hard. That same day I also
flashed Bush League, a newer 8 on a boulder facing Windy Ass, and climbed Sex
After Death first try.
On day two it started drizzling as
soon as I got into the park so I took shelter under The Martini Cave. I worked
on Left Martini and then crawled through the hole and worked out the moves on
Tequila Sunrise, a newer problem that is surprising good with a sweet drive-by
and a cool slam dunk jump. I was immediately more excited to climb Tequila
Sunrise than Left Martini. I finished my second day working out the moves on
Alma Blanca with Max Moore. This problem invaded my mind like a fever. All I
could think of the next day, my only rest day, was Alma Blanca.
I woke at 5:45 on Sunday to get in
line for north and waited until 10 to get in the park. As soon as I parked it
started to drizzle, but no matter. I went up to Alma Blanca and the clouds
parted and the rain stopped. I chased the shadows of the clouds to give send
attempts without the sun glaring me in the eyes. After about an hour I sent
Alma Blanca, packed up and went down to Tequila Sunrise, which took me about
five tries. I was done. I’d climbed well, so I packed up and went back to
Bangland where decided what to try the next day with Gp: Full Service.
