looking down from pitch 4 into the paradise that is the Potrero! Feeling the heat.

Its been quite the week since my last update, as fate would have it i had a salsa taste test in the weekly market before giving you guys the update last week.  Unfortunately, the salsa totally destroyed my insides and put me down for a couple days, which was fine because it has turned really hot really fast down here. It seems it isn’t a full Mexican experience without a bit of stomach flu anyway right?

Well either way i am not up for sketchy salsa taste testing for a bit.  I was sitting here writing my last update and thinking man that salsa really has an afterburn…… little did i know, that afterburn would last 3 days and man did it burn   So in reflection here is a tip for the mexi market that i am now going to follow: take a pass and dont accept the super hot sauce on a sketchy corn chip and save yourself some down time instead of just rolling the dice and seeing what your stomach can handle down here

So, after i overcame the salsa fiasco i was back to cranking, or at least trying too, we went to a crag called Culo del Gato this weekend, which means the “Cats Ass”, which means in further translation, a lesser traveled, wicked crag to climb at. The best part about it is that it stays in the shade all day, which was very important this weekend because Saturday was 20 degrees as an overnight night low. The route that i am now working there is called Crawling King Snake, it is really damn hard(5.13d) and is unfinished business from a previous trip.

The route pretty much had its way with me again and severely beat me down for Saturday and Sunday, I spent alot of time just figuring out what i did on the route 4 years ago, and when i finally gave up trying to remember and instead,  just climbed it, the sequences came back and it slowly started coming together.

This route has several different styles of hard climbing all incorperated into one fantastic climb. It consists of a v9 steep boulder problem with one of the fattest pinches i have ever grabbed followd by a hard dyno of like 6ft mid way up route and then to top it off, a crazy technical overhanging corner finish with really bizarre moves on awful feet. I am looking forward to putting some more tries into it along with all the other projects i have started up, there are still lots of routes to do here, just logistics for some of them kinda suck. They are either in the sun all day or need a car to get to, or part of a multi pitch. Some might say this adds charachter to a hard route, but I will only agree with that after i send them

Now maybe some of you are wondering why does the title of this update have to do with feet, its because yesterday was a active rest day, meaning an easy 7 pitch climb called treasure of the seirra madre, just to get the blood going and stretch out, it was in the sun all day and blistering hot. This route, like all routes in the potrero are all on your feet… i almost fell off the hardest pitch (5.10c) on toprope no less, and no it wasnt even a hard 10c,  my feet just hurt so bad that i was campusing a slab. My feet are demanding some serious tender loving care right now,  so i am going to make a mexi tub out of something in the market for a foot bath and wear sandals for a couple days.

Sore feet, hands and whole body for that matter aside, the place i am staying at  is probably the coolest property on earth and a great place to do anything. Whether its climbing or  just resting while enjoying the peace and quite in the hot sun, this place delivers it all. The friends i am staying here with are some of the nicest and most amazing I have, its more like they are my core family then just good friends, they are the main reason i have come down here and will continue to come back here again and again, the amazing meals we all make every night  together and good times we have make every day down here fantastic.

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