It was that familiar feeling you get when you finish a big climb—that immense wash of relief that climbers all know, when you finally touch down from that last rappel, and you are once again planted on solid ground. It’s a bittersweet transition from the transcendental vertical realm to the horizontal plane of the ordinary. Guerreras was finished at last, we were safe, and months of hard work had come to a close. After so many doubts and fears, the vision was complete, and every bolt was tight. But most of all, deep fatigue was setting in because we could finally let our guard down.
Note: this piece is an excerpt from Volume 24. Link at the end of the article to get a copy / subscribe
Photos by the author
It was midday, spring was upon us, and the intensity of the Mexican sun left us with a strong desire to siesta. All we wanted after four days on the wall was to lie down under the shady old tree that signified the start of the original La Gloria route, Rezando.
After doing just that, I turned to Tony and asked in a moment of heat-induced confusion, “Do you smell smoke?”
As the words left my mouth, I looked up to see a gigantic plume of white and orange curl over the summit of La Gloria. Without a word, Tony popped up from his comfortable napping position, looked around the corner, and came back wide-eyed to say, “We need to get out of here, now. There’s a wildfire coming directly for us.”
The route, Guerreras, was a product of my ongoing love affair with the outrageously beautiful mountain named La Gloria in Northern Mexico’s Sierra Madre Oriental. While exploring the north side of the mountain for potential lines, I met a family who had inhabited Canon del Alamo since 1610. La Gloria has been the backdrop to many generations of hardy farming folk, and naturally, equally rugged mythology flourished around the massif. They told me that it was an ancient sanctuary and that it was a place only for warriors and light seekers. The name Rezando means “to pray,” and Guerreras means “warriors” in the feminine. They did not believe me that I had stood on the summit until I showed them pictures looking down on their farm. I was then met with a look of surprise that I have not seen since.
In a place that has become world renowned for single-pitch sport climbing on dreamy tufas, there also lies wild potential for high-elevation, multipitch sport routes on primo limestone. Next to the otherworldly, three-dimensional climbing lies major adventure times on real mountains. El Salto is much more than its reputation would suggest.
At the dawn of 2020, Dave Henkel and I finally completed tireless months of bolting the first route, ground up, on this lofty pyramid and stood on the summit for the first time. And in January of the following year, Michael Perry and I freed the climb. When I first laid eyes on La Gloria, it was very obvious that this high-desert peak would one day be host to a multitude of futuristic hard lines, but first and foremost, our dream was to pick the obvious cherry line to the top, the “Beckey Line,” as it were. Some of these once-donkey-trail roads that reach high places in the range were only paved, or made accessible by vehicle, relatively recently. It really felt like a genuine Fred Beckey experience. To show up to a roadside peak of that stature and be able to trace the obvious line is an exceedingly rare opportunity in our modern era. Most adventure climbers today tend to think that is something that only Fred and his contemporaries were able to experience during the “golden age” of climbing. But alas, I found La Gloria with all of the mysteries intact in 2019. There would only be one first rock climb on La Gloria, and this was it. The central pillar splitting the stunning pinnacle of blue, orange, and gray paint-stroke stone was the obvious choice.
Although Dave decided to stay home in Whistler, BC, for the snowboard season and not return to Mexico the following season for the free ascent, he was absolutely overjoyed to hear that Michael and I persevered to reap the true reward of all our hard work.
Both of us were in total agreement that, if anybody, Michael was the man for the job. Perry is not only a nurse in Austin, Texas, but is also a bone-crushing climber who grew up doing competitions with Adam Ondra and the like. The guy knows his limestone, as he has extensive experience climbing and bolting in Mexico, among many other world-class sport destinations. For him to say that this was one of the top-three coolest things he has done in climbing was the very best compliment he could have given Dave and me.
Afterward, I rode one of the highest highs of my life. To see a project of that scale come to life with my imagination and grit and, most importantly, have another willing soul to see it through with was one of the richest experiences I could imagine. This was the meaning of the Brotherhood of the Rope, and our bond as dreamers turned us from merely friends to genuine hermanos through the process. Then to show back up with only a rack of quickdraws and a seventy-meter rope to ascend an alpine peak of perfect rock was almost too good to be true. The creative process of turning a mental vision into a physical experience was addictive and profoundly rewarding. I wanted more. Rezando was a major challenge, but all of those futuristic hard lines were still there staring me in the face, and I knew I had more to give…….
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Zach Clanton is a creative behind the keyboard, camera, and camming device with a heart that will forever reside in Alaska. Part migratory bird, part bear by nature, he follows the hummingbirds to the Chihuahuan Desert each autumn and awakens each spring, refreshed and hungry, in the great northern rainforest. More of his work can be seen online at zachclanton.com or on various rocks across the Americas.