Devon Rock Climbing in Mexico
Devon’s emails from Mexico 2013 & 2014
Subject:
safe in mexico
Date:
December 9, 2013 9:45:28 AM EST
Got in late last night, foggy sorta of eerie landing in Monterrey, Cleared customs and met Ed he has not changed at all from last year, still deaf, same slight cough, same stories and same level of infectious psych. Set up my new tent in the dark always exciting, I will need to re stake it but other than that it looks suprising tent like.
Eating breakfast and trying to figure out who to climb with the weather is a little chilly and foggy.
Love
Devon
Date:
December 20, 2013 1:01:46 PM EST
So I have been in Mexico for 12 days now. I feel settled in and am at home, the campground I am staying at is called La Posada. It is a warm and inviting place, everyone there is a climber except for the occasion Mexican in for camping for the weekend. Everyone is psyched for everyone else. It is pretty much like summer camp for rock climbers but in the winter. Some of the campers are here for a week, some a month and some the season. Right now is the busy time of year. So the camp ground is getting a little crowded, during dinner time the kitchen is packed and the level of intensity that climbers cook with is almost as hardcore as the amount of effort put forth into the climbing. There are maybe six four burner stove top units and all of them are in use and the frying pans are a hot commodity. After the initial flurry of activity it mellows out into games and climbers shooting the shit making plans for the next days accents. Drinking cagumas (32 ounce Mexican beers) or Tequila. I have played a lot of games of bat gamin and one pretty memorable game of Cards Against Humanity.
I climbed Time Wave Zero yesterday, a 23 pitch route it was amazing. Long, strenuous, exhausting, beautiful, life affirming and a slew of other adjectives that will not do it justice. We climbed it on a hot sunny day in fact probably the hottest day we have had since I have been down here but we had to go before Fred goes home on Saturday. The heat was a bit of an ass kicker. We left the camp at 545, hiked up to the climb by 630 and started climbing maybe 15 minutes later with the very first of the dawn light. The mountains look fresher and newer in the morning light. The first pitch was an easy 5.7 but the second is the second hardest pitch of the route. But after that you have 10 cruiser pitches of moderate climbing. Then there is a big GLORIOUSLY shaded ledge. We chilled there for maybe a half hour eating a bunch of bars and some fruit and left one pack and a lot of clothes behind for the push towards the summit.
There are a handful more easy pitches but the intensity of the climbing definitely ramps up. But we linked almost all the pitches so Fred my climbing partner for the last week would lead two pitches, I would follow those two and then lead the next two. So you cut giant 400 foot swaths out of the 2300 foot climb. By the end of your 400 foot section your feet are almost burning from how warm the sun and the rock is. We climbed quickly and efficiently though almost 1800 feet of climbing but are bodies started to show their exhaustion. So we slowed some loosing precious hours of daylight. Then comes the crux of the route a 10d into a 12a on pitch 20 and 21 respectively. The 10 is manageable the 12 I used a slew of dirty climbing tricks, pulling on quick draws, then extending them to step on climbing slings and it was still hard. I have no idea if I could climb it if I was not exhausted and a bit sun fried but I barely made it up using a very ugly style of climbing. Then the summit the mountains really open up and you can see a very long ways. It was truly amazing. But there were still 23 pitches of rappels to tackle before, food and as much water as you can drink and a margarita. I also had misguided notions about wanting to jump in the pool at the camp ground.
We started rappelling at 530 and were done by 830 then 45 minutes of hiking back to camp. Fortunately for us, one of our friends had hiked up and dropped off more water and a beer at the base of climb. It was one of the best beers I have ever had.
I sit here writing this in the comfort of a cushy chair, feet on the table and an ice coffee at had. I seldom feel I have ever more earned a rest day. My body aches in a variety of interesting places, my fingertips and hands most all. As much from hauling that much rope as from climbing. Aside from being sore today I feel like I am getting stronger. I have started to exist in world of climbing days and rest days with a blatant oblivion to days of the month. You usually know when it is a Tuesday or a Friday as they are market days in town.
More From Mexico Later
Love,
Devon
Date:
December 23, 2013 4:43:59 PM EST
To:
"Cathy Eaton" <[email protected]>
I have not made your climb yet, but there have been lots of climbs or multiple pitch sections of climbs you could do. The style of climbing here tends to be foot intensive. That is great about Dan. I think he will like it. Push ups might help I dont know, try some if they don't bother it then they at least are not hurting. I am glad you guys got to see colin and nicole and stephen and carolyn.
Been climbing with lots of fun people. I am on a rest day today, going to climb hard things tomorrow I think. My body feels pretty good which is nice. I think the being strict about two days on one day off is deffinately helping. Plus I tend to alternate multipitch days and going out and climbing single pitches.
A couple of the people I have liked best had to go which is sad. But such is the nature of the beast.
I am gonna cook a bunch of spaghetti tonight
Love
devon
Merry Christmas
So let me start by saying that climbing camps are strange places. Strange places as you would guess attract strange people. They attract a subset of people who are amazingly psyched about one particular thing. People who sacrifice the rest of their lives towards this one particular thing. This thing is arbitrary and has a variety of genres and styles but a set of well-established rules. So within this subset there are people who are excited for a variety of styles; climbing hard, climbing lots, climbing cool rock, climbing tall things and any other adjective one could put before or after climbing. With that ambiguous explanation I am not going to talk about rock climbing much but my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shenanigans.
So I am around 90 pitches depending on if we allow routes you climb in the same day to count towards your pitch count. Apparently there are rules. Hell I climb with a guy who has multiply pie charts counting his pitch count, partners climbed with routes lead vs top roped etc. Which means I have been in Mexico since December 8th and have climbed two days one day off since the ninth except today, which is Christmas day and it rained so I rested a day early. On Christmas Eve, the day started reasonably normally, being that it was Tuesday we shot into town , 7 people in one pick up truck towards the Tuesday market. This is the bigger open-air market of the week. We went in search or produce and Christmas hats. I personally was also looking for clothespins. All of these things were acquired with in about ten minutes, its an eclectic market. Since we were already in town we went and got coffee from the one coffee shop in town.
We drove back into camp and set out to climb, we went to climb single pitch. So we only got on a couple routes, all hard. Except for the one warm up. One my newly acquired friends was on a mostly rest day so he climbed a bit but mostly for the purpose of getting above climbers to shoot photos. Another obscure area of climbing to be excited about. It takes a lot of dedication to want to climb a route rap down and chill in your harness for an hour to shoot photos of people you have only known for a couple weeks or a couple days. So we climbed all day and I managed to wreck my self on a day where I only climbed 4 routes. The day finished, at a place called the surf bowl. Which was conveniently located next to the start of a 23 pitch route another two friends were climbing that day. We left them a big beer, a juice and some water. Then hiked down and frantically cooked dinner. Tacos with meat, beans veggies and eggs. We made enough to have food for said friends who were climbing Time Wave Zero. After dinner and once our friends got down from their 12 hour adventure we headed back into town. Stopping for margaritas, yes Mexico has little stores that sell margaritas to cars practically everywhere. Why America considers it a third world country is beyond me.
Then we went back a holiday party at the aforementioned coffee shop. Where several buzzed climbers entered the nice Christian missionary run climber coffee shop holding bucket loads of booze and a healthy case of the giggles. During the coarse of our relatively brief stay several strange and eventful things happened. I became the 4th person in camp to get a Mohawk, 10 people watched and three different people cut my hair. My friend Philippe did one armed pull ups with each arm after climbing 23 pitches and we ate cookies. The cookies were pretty epic (home made thin mints.) Next we headed back to camp or so I thought, however my navigating abilities sitting in the back of a pick up truck suggested that we were heading the wrong way. But I figured no, Erik was driving and he doesn’t drink so maybe I was tipsier then I thought. But I was right we headed towards the center of town. Where some impromptu dancing by the make shift Christmas tree. But I spied my objected a three tiered dry fountain. We made a three person three margarita attempted assent of this dry fountain. Needless to say we laughed a lot but decided the final mantel was too sketchy.
Then back to camp were I spun fire on someone else’s Poi around a camp fire and went to bed. The next morning was Christmas and it was raining, so our plan to take a goofy Christmas photo on the spires wearing Christmas hats was nixed and instead we drove to Monterrey to watch the Hobbit. Which for me felt very appropriate for Christmas. So in summary on Christmas eve, I got on an 11 d, a 12a failed to get up a fountain, spun fire, drank margaritas and laughed enough that I think my abs were more sore from that than from climbing. Today is the 26th and is the second day of rain, the natives are restless and people are crowding the coffee shop. Last night there was some chair and table bouldering, which is a phenomenon I can’t really explain but is surprisingly difficult.
Merry Christmas
Love
Devon
Subject:
Happy New Years
Date:
December 31, 2013 1:59:00 PM EST
I hope everyone gets to do something fun for New Years. I don't know what the plans are down here but I can bet they will involve Tequila and not Champaign. My pitch count for the month is 107. It has been rainy on and off for a week or so. Which has been a bit of a bummer. It is that kind of cold bone chilling rain. But we have also gotten a lot of good climbing days in-between. I think I have only taken 2 or 3 rest days I didn't want. But were probably good for my body anyway. I am up to 27500 words on the novel I am working one so I think I've written 7500ish words down here and done a rough edit of the rest of the writing.
I have made a bunch of cool new friends and will be sad that some of them are leaving pretty soon. But such is the nature of the beast. Camp has been a zoo, between the huge influx of climbers here for the holiday and a few rainy days in a row. The kitchen often has every seat full, and every burner in use at meal times. I will be excited to see the crowds diminish back to the level where I knew everyone's name in camp and knew what most people were climbing the next day. But there is something to be said for impromptu fiestas once everyone is done frantically cooking an eating. The tables of the kitchen end up littered with canguamas (32 ounce Mexican beers) and bottles of tequila. Some blaring Mexican music and if the natives get to restive or too over served sometimes there is dancing.
I ran into some climbers I met last year who are renting a casita up past the climbing. I was pumped to see them again, and discover the strange source of the loud cow horn sound that was heard through out the canyon and periodic explosions. Apparently the aforementioned friends had been using didgeridoos to sound their barbaric yawp over the Potrero and if that didn't work, you can't not buy fireworks from the man selling you beer and those are pretty good for making noise too. This will only mean something to Pete but the climbers we know are the wild foursome from Kentucky who always climbed as a unit and climbed ubber strong there ring leader still has a wild laugh and a pirate hat. I am blanking on there names at the moment. I have faith they will come back as soon as I leave the coffee shop.
My wrists have been doing pretty good with the exception of a couple bad days where rain and overuse compounded a bit. But considering the abuse I put on them they are doing great. I have climbed a couple 12a's but not cleanly I think I will get a least one of them if I give it another try. I feel like I have gotten stronger and maybe a little lighter. I hope to send a bunch a 12s in the new year and maybe find a 13 to try and get shut down on and climb more pitches next month than this month, which might be a tall order but we will see.
Peace and Love in the New Year
Devon
Subject:
Letters from camp
Date:
January 12, 2014 10:04:43 AM EST
So time is funny and I may have lost track of it for a bit. But I think my pitch count is 138. I have climbed 5 or 6 12s, I think I am getting stronger. I also caught a ride to El Salto (a crag about two and a half hours a way) and climbed in a new cool three-dimensional style on tufas and stalactites. Learning to rest on that kind of steep featured terrain is a whole new ball game. There were two routes I climbed where the rests meant that you wrapped your legs around a stalactite or a tufa and just squeezed, keeping the weight of your arms by holding on tighter with feet and thighs.
El Salto is amazing or perhaps awe-inspiring is a better word choice. Literally inspiring of awe, both the crazy featured walls and beautiful terrain. You drive down and camp by a small river and to get to the crags you have to cross the river between 4 and 7 times. For one crag this includes a crossing by one of the best waterfalls I have ever seen. It is surprisingly warm water, by this I mean it was warmer than the air, however, the day we were there were cold. Like winter camping cold, ice on your tent, frantic fire starting at camp and at one of the crags cold. But sometimes you need to take a vacation from your vacation, and it was awesome I feel very fortunate to have to gotten to go. I will be on the look out for new friends with cars and do my best on selling them on going back before I too have to head home from summer camp.
There is enough rock there that could keep an army of bolters occupied for the rest of there lives but as of yet there is not actually that much rock climbing there. Which means the warm ups are 11 c so needless to say the two days there kicked my ass making me sore in new and strange ways, but when you are sore it means you are getting stronger.
Upon returning home, to other camping (its strange that I very easily call it home) I took my first two voluntary rest days in a row and my body was as thrashed as it has ever been. Including the days after climbing Time Wave Zero (the 23 pitch route I climbed a few weeks back.) Camp has settled down and is at much more enjoyable amount of people and it feels homey again.
On the down side I have now seen two groups of people that I got close to in a super short period of time go home. It is sad when the other campers have to go home. I keep telling them they should quit there jobs too but . . . Perhaps that is not such good life advice, but when it comes time for my new friends to pack it is the only suggestion I can come up with. I miss you guys!
I have not got as much writing done as I should but only feel vaguely guilty about it. When a week feels like you got a month of living done in it, I figure you lived that week very well. So all in all I am still having a blast. The weather is warm and I need to make eggs so I can go rock climbing.
Love Devon
Ps I spent a day very hung over on new years day voluntarily taking Christmas photos, which is definitely a first for me, ask me about them when I get back they are pretty amazing.
PPs my apoligies and condolences if you were here for most of thess events and I still emailed you, I promise my future letters will be equally droll and boring.
Date:
January 12, 2014 10:21:28 AM EST
So apparently I need to send a second transcript to UTA Texas at Arlington I sent one to the head of the MFA program but they also need one for the college at large. Could you please send the transcript you guys have to this address. If it could get sent out asap that would be great. I only heard back from them a couple days ago and missed a few days of internet connectivity. Thanks
Office of Graduate Studies UTA Box 19167 701 S Nedderman Dr Davis Hall, Room 333 Arlington, Texas 76019 USA
January 17th
I have been in Mexico for a month and 10 days give or take looking at an actual calendar and counting, and as I have had pointed out during numerous games of batgammin I am no great shakes at counting so call it 40 days give or take. My pitch count is around 150, it has sort of slowed down due to a couple factors. Firstly leisurely breakfast in the sunshine, in some countries I am told dinner can be a three hour affair, but here at camp when the weather is nice we all sit out side enjoying the glorious view and eat a very hearty and slow breakfast, which is really nice. I think the civilized world should embrace such slothful and leisurely habits.
As one would expect we discuss, climbing, eating, Alex Honnald, things relating to crude humor, pterodactyl noises and other oddments. Go figure. The other reason my climbing frenzy has slowed is that I injured my ankle 5 days ago and had to take two days off and only top roped things on my last two outings and didn’t climb after it started hurting again. But it is doing pretty good, still at one and a half its normal size and turning a pretty shade of purple. I hurt it walking from my tent, not during the uncountable actually sort of dangerous things I have done, lots of rock climbing falls, scree fields, river crossing and mud. Not to mention the cattle guards which I always have a healthy fear of crossing. But such is the nature of as my father would say being an Idjet and a klutz. On this trip I have bruised my kidney, sprained my ankle and had a lingering cough/cold for twoish weeks and still climbed my face off and had a great time. My body is perhaps a little irked with me but that is to be expected.
After 40 odd days, I feel stronger, and my climbing endurance is pretty amazing at least for me anyway, linking two pitches of hardish climbing trailing two ropes first thing in the morning is casual which is satisfying. I don’t know if I have gotten any better at climbing but I certainly feel fitter. This is probably the strongest I have ever been climbing wise, maybe a shade less burly than just before I hurt my wrist but who knows. Time does funny things to the memory. Once my ankle gets a bit better I have a bunch of harder routes I am excited about, the closest I have ever had to having “projects” meaning maybe I will give them a 2nd or 3rd go in hopes of getting them clean. But who knows there are still a lot of walls I have never been to and so many routes I have never even touched.
As of today the last of the group of people I have climbed with most is leaving. Using peer pressure, bribes of juice or margaritas and any other dirty tricks I could think of I could not convince them to stay. I am sad to see them go, but there are still plenty of nice people at camp and I will make new friends. I hoping to find someone psyched about multi-pitch as I have been climbing a lot of single pitch lately and I want to tick of a bunch more long routes. I am not sure if I will rest today or go top rope a couple things. Tomorrow is supposed to be very hot so a day by the pool would be really nice. As usual life is very hard here, between the friendly people, sunshine, delicious food, rock climbing as many days as your body can handle it and general climbing camp shenanigans.
But I will admit the list of things from home and civilization that I miss is growing longer, as one would expect, I miss good dark beer/IPAs and whiskey at the top of the list, but not sleeping on the ground would be nice, a bath, Indian food, sushi and a whole bevy of other culinary delights come to mind.
I love you guys and hope you are all well,
Devon
Date:
January 24, 2014 5:26:56 PM EST
So I booked a flight from Monterrey to Oaxaca Mexico from the 31 to the 9th. In theory will do a day or two of wondering around Oaxaca and then hike in the Cloud forest. I am going with a guy I met at camp named Bryan. Then we will shoot down to the beach maybe puerto vayerta (the spelling is wrong to lazy too look it up right now) I am pretty excited, my body could use the rest.
I climbed the climb I was telling you about the other day. I climbed it with two nice Quebeca Girls Aiyme and Helene, one of whom only climbs about 5.9 so she sheanaganed her way through the first pitch the 11 doing about 85 percent of the moves and pulling on the fixed rope I droped for her to get through the hardest bits. The rest of route is all under 5.9 its low angle slab climbing, maybe 85 degrees. A lot of edges, and hand foot matches, one of the girls described the route as a midget climbing an over sized ladder. Nice cactus garden at the summit with a nice view.
It was a lot of fun.
Much love
Devon
Subject:
Oaxaca
Date:
January 31, 2014 11:33:37 AM EST
Safely in Oaxaca ... Lunch then maybe some ruins
Love
Devon
On Jan 29, 2014, at 4:01 PM, Devon Murphy <[email protected]> wrote:
In ten days I will have been in Mexico for two months, by then my pitch count should hit around 4 vertical miles worth of climbing. I leave the Potrero for nine days on the 31st I am headed to Oaxaca for some hiking, beaching and much needed resting. Then I come back and have ten more days of climbing, I have aspirations of climbing 8-9 days on and destroying myself in time for my return to civilization. I have a couple more multipitchs I’d like to do but I also have aspirations of upping the grade of my climbing, so I might have to do some much dreaded projecting. But who knows what will happen. As I have been delighted to repeatedly find out have no earthly idea what is in store for me.
I feel like I have been here for almost a years worth of living, I have made a lot of new and wonderful friends, who hopefully I will keep in touch with perhaps by sending obnoxious emails to. Living at a climbing camp is full or lots of literal and figurative highs. But there are also some lows, occasionally you wake up to an ice incrusted tent, and your body hurts and the only things you can find psych for are some good whiskey and a bath with a real bed to sleep in after. But by in large Mexico is treating me better than I could of hoped or imagined.
I had an Epic the other day. An epic is a climbing term for when shit goes horribly wrong (don’t worry Dad I didn’t do anything unsafe and fixed it). I climbed a six pitch route with a party of three (dope ninja) and we rapped a 70 meter wrap from the summit down two pitches to the other side of the ridge. When we pulled our two ropes it moved about eight feet and then got stuck, no trick I knew could get it unstuck. So with our measly ten feet of rope I got back on lead and climbed up two bolts and clipped into both and came off lead and put my self on rappel and on a Prussic. Then I proceeded to self-belay up the first pitch reasonably easily, it was 5.9 climbing. Then the climbing turns 11a and self belaying became much more difficult. This is where I could have been much smarter. I should have belayed both my seconds up to where I was and used my hard won pitch of rope to lead the next pitch. Or I should have switched to two prussic’s and set one up with a carabineer to act as a handle to ease my climbing of the rope. But I did neither of these smart simple things in hindsight, and proceeded to struggle more than was needed. I had been using my Smart to self belay and eventually the amount of rope out under me was two heavy and I could not pull it through an auto locking belay device. So I switched to a normal ATC, and from there I could no longer follow a route, so I jugged up about 35 feet of 5.11 d maybe unclimbed choss. At that point I realized I should have lead the second pitch but I couldn’t get to an anchor. So with the sunlight ticking away still making me very hot and sweaty but painfully aware that I would soon be very cold if I did not get my ass in gear. I eventually got back to a bolted and cleaned section of the wall and climbed the remaining 25 feet to the anchors. My rope was stuck in a measly finger length constriction that tapered, if it had been an inch left or right all would have been well. But I proceeded to rappel a pitch and pull both ropes. Leaving my two climbing partners stranded in the hot sun four pitches off the deck. Then I rappelled down too my very relieved but still incorrigibly high spirited friends Aymie and Helene who had been champion good sports during the whole fiasco. They had laughed and joked the whole time and made plans for shouting very loudly for rescue if I had not come through. The rest of the rappels went text book smooth and besides from some cramps in my biceps, abs and thrashed hands we were all fine.
I am not sure why I am including this in a letter from camp, maybe it is because anytime you can 100 percent safely rescue yourself from a crap situation you are proud of yourself and want to share, or maybe because as a dude in camp put it I got to rescue Damsels in Distress. But more likely I include it because it reminds me how much more there is too know and wonder if there are suggestions for what I could of done better or easier. But either way we got down safe and I drank my second most earned margarita of the trip, I think I enjoyed it more than the one after time wave.
Life continues to be good I hope you all are well and getting adventures of your own in. I will report back after my trip to the beach.
Tootles
Devon
Subject:
safe in mexico
Date:
December 9, 2013 9:45:28 AM EST
Got in late last night, foggy sorta of eerie landing in Monterrey, Cleared customs and met Ed he has not changed at all from last year, still deaf, same slight cough, same stories and same level of infectious psych. Set up my new tent in the dark always exciting, I will need to re stake it but other than that it looks suprising tent like.
Eating breakfast and trying to figure out who to climb with the weather is a little chilly and foggy.
Love
Devon
Date:
December 20, 2013 1:01:46 PM EST
So I have been in Mexico for 12 days now. I feel settled in and am at home, the campground I am staying at is called La Posada. It is a warm and inviting place, everyone there is a climber except for the occasion Mexican in for camping for the weekend. Everyone is psyched for everyone else. It is pretty much like summer camp for rock climbers but in the winter. Some of the campers are here for a week, some a month and some the season. Right now is the busy time of year. So the camp ground is getting a little crowded, during dinner time the kitchen is packed and the level of intensity that climbers cook with is almost as hardcore as the amount of effort put forth into the climbing. There are maybe six four burner stove top units and all of them are in use and the frying pans are a hot commodity. After the initial flurry of activity it mellows out into games and climbers shooting the shit making plans for the next days accents. Drinking cagumas (32 ounce Mexican beers) or Tequila. I have played a lot of games of bat gamin and one pretty memorable game of Cards Against Humanity.
I climbed Time Wave Zero yesterday, a 23 pitch route it was amazing. Long, strenuous, exhausting, beautiful, life affirming and a slew of other adjectives that will not do it justice. We climbed it on a hot sunny day in fact probably the hottest day we have had since I have been down here but we had to go before Fred goes home on Saturday. The heat was a bit of an ass kicker. We left the camp at 545, hiked up to the climb by 630 and started climbing maybe 15 minutes later with the very first of the dawn light. The mountains look fresher and newer in the morning light. The first pitch was an easy 5.7 but the second is the second hardest pitch of the route. But after that you have 10 cruiser pitches of moderate climbing. Then there is a big GLORIOUSLY shaded ledge. We chilled there for maybe a half hour eating a bunch of bars and some fruit and left one pack and a lot of clothes behind for the push towards the summit.
There are a handful more easy pitches but the intensity of the climbing definitely ramps up. But we linked almost all the pitches so Fred my climbing partner for the last week would lead two pitches, I would follow those two and then lead the next two. So you cut giant 400 foot swaths out of the 2300 foot climb. By the end of your 400 foot section your feet are almost burning from how warm the sun and the rock is. We climbed quickly and efficiently though almost 1800 feet of climbing but are bodies started to show their exhaustion. So we slowed some loosing precious hours of daylight. Then comes the crux of the route a 10d into a 12a on pitch 20 and 21 respectively. The 10 is manageable the 12 I used a slew of dirty climbing tricks, pulling on quick draws, then extending them to step on climbing slings and it was still hard. I have no idea if I could climb it if I was not exhausted and a bit sun fried but I barely made it up using a very ugly style of climbing. Then the summit the mountains really open up and you can see a very long ways. It was truly amazing. But there were still 23 pitches of rappels to tackle before, food and as much water as you can drink and a margarita. I also had misguided notions about wanting to jump in the pool at the camp ground.
We started rappelling at 530 and were done by 830 then 45 minutes of hiking back to camp. Fortunately for us, one of our friends had hiked up and dropped off more water and a beer at the base of climb. It was one of the best beers I have ever had.
I sit here writing this in the comfort of a cushy chair, feet on the table and an ice coffee at had. I seldom feel I have ever more earned a rest day. My body aches in a variety of interesting places, my fingertips and hands most all. As much from hauling that much rope as from climbing. Aside from being sore today I feel like I am getting stronger. I have started to exist in world of climbing days and rest days with a blatant oblivion to days of the month. You usually know when it is a Tuesday or a Friday as they are market days in town.
More From Mexico Later
Love,
Devon
Date:
December 23, 2013 4:43:59 PM EST
To:
"Cathy Eaton" <[email protected]>
I have not made your climb yet, but there have been lots of climbs or multiple pitch sections of climbs you could do. The style of climbing here tends to be foot intensive. That is great about Dan. I think he will like it. Push ups might help I dont know, try some if they don't bother it then they at least are not hurting. I am glad you guys got to see colin and nicole and stephen and carolyn.
Been climbing with lots of fun people. I am on a rest day today, going to climb hard things tomorrow I think. My body feels pretty good which is nice. I think the being strict about two days on one day off is deffinately helping. Plus I tend to alternate multipitch days and going out and climbing single pitches.
A couple of the people I have liked best had to go which is sad. But such is the nature of the beast.
I am gonna cook a bunch of spaghetti tonight
Love
devon
Merry Christmas
So let me start by saying that climbing camps are strange places. Strange places as you would guess attract strange people. They attract a subset of people who are amazingly psyched about one particular thing. People who sacrifice the rest of their lives towards this one particular thing. This thing is arbitrary and has a variety of genres and styles but a set of well-established rules. So within this subset there are people who are excited for a variety of styles; climbing hard, climbing lots, climbing cool rock, climbing tall things and any other adjective one could put before or after climbing. With that ambiguous explanation I am not going to talk about rock climbing much but my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shenanigans.
So I am around 90 pitches depending on if we allow routes you climb in the same day to count towards your pitch count. Apparently there are rules. Hell I climb with a guy who has multiply pie charts counting his pitch count, partners climbed with routes lead vs top roped etc. Which means I have been in Mexico since December 8th and have climbed two days one day off since the ninth except today, which is Christmas day and it rained so I rested a day early. On Christmas Eve, the day started reasonably normally, being that it was Tuesday we shot into town , 7 people in one pick up truck towards the Tuesday market. This is the bigger open-air market of the week. We went in search or produce and Christmas hats. I personally was also looking for clothespins. All of these things were acquired with in about ten minutes, its an eclectic market. Since we were already in town we went and got coffee from the one coffee shop in town.
We drove back into camp and set out to climb, we went to climb single pitch. So we only got on a couple routes, all hard. Except for the one warm up. One my newly acquired friends was on a mostly rest day so he climbed a bit but mostly for the purpose of getting above climbers to shoot photos. Another obscure area of climbing to be excited about. It takes a lot of dedication to want to climb a route rap down and chill in your harness for an hour to shoot photos of people you have only known for a couple weeks or a couple days. So we climbed all day and I managed to wreck my self on a day where I only climbed 4 routes. The day finished, at a place called the surf bowl. Which was conveniently located next to the start of a 23 pitch route another two friends were climbing that day. We left them a big beer, a juice and some water. Then hiked down and frantically cooked dinner. Tacos with meat, beans veggies and eggs. We made enough to have food for said friends who were climbing Time Wave Zero. After dinner and once our friends got down from their 12 hour adventure we headed back into town. Stopping for margaritas, yes Mexico has little stores that sell margaritas to cars practically everywhere. Why America considers it a third world country is beyond me.
Then we went back a holiday party at the aforementioned coffee shop. Where several buzzed climbers entered the nice Christian missionary run climber coffee shop holding bucket loads of booze and a healthy case of the giggles. During the coarse of our relatively brief stay several strange and eventful things happened. I became the 4th person in camp to get a Mohawk, 10 people watched and three different people cut my hair. My friend Philippe did one armed pull ups with each arm after climbing 23 pitches and we ate cookies. The cookies were pretty epic (home made thin mints.) Next we headed back to camp or so I thought, however my navigating abilities sitting in the back of a pick up truck suggested that we were heading the wrong way. But I figured no, Erik was driving and he doesn’t drink so maybe I was tipsier then I thought. But I was right we headed towards the center of town. Where some impromptu dancing by the make shift Christmas tree. But I spied my objected a three tiered dry fountain. We made a three person three margarita attempted assent of this dry fountain. Needless to say we laughed a lot but decided the final mantel was too sketchy.
Then back to camp were I spun fire on someone else’s Poi around a camp fire and went to bed. The next morning was Christmas and it was raining, so our plan to take a goofy Christmas photo on the spires wearing Christmas hats was nixed and instead we drove to Monterrey to watch the Hobbit. Which for me felt very appropriate for Christmas. So in summary on Christmas eve, I got on an 11 d, a 12a failed to get up a fountain, spun fire, drank margaritas and laughed enough that I think my abs were more sore from that than from climbing. Today is the 26th and is the second day of rain, the natives are restless and people are crowding the coffee shop. Last night there was some chair and table bouldering, which is a phenomenon I can’t really explain but is surprisingly difficult.
Merry Christmas
Love
Devon
Subject:
Happy New Years
Date:
December 31, 2013 1:59:00 PM EST
I hope everyone gets to do something fun for New Years. I don't know what the plans are down here but I can bet they will involve Tequila and not Champaign. My pitch count for the month is 107. It has been rainy on and off for a week or so. Which has been a bit of a bummer. It is that kind of cold bone chilling rain. But we have also gotten a lot of good climbing days in-between. I think I have only taken 2 or 3 rest days I didn't want. But were probably good for my body anyway. I am up to 27500 words on the novel I am working one so I think I've written 7500ish words down here and done a rough edit of the rest of the writing.
I have made a bunch of cool new friends and will be sad that some of them are leaving pretty soon. But such is the nature of the beast. Camp has been a zoo, between the huge influx of climbers here for the holiday and a few rainy days in a row. The kitchen often has every seat full, and every burner in use at meal times. I will be excited to see the crowds diminish back to the level where I knew everyone's name in camp and knew what most people were climbing the next day. But there is something to be said for impromptu fiestas once everyone is done frantically cooking an eating. The tables of the kitchen end up littered with canguamas (32 ounce Mexican beers) and bottles of tequila. Some blaring Mexican music and if the natives get to restive or too over served sometimes there is dancing.
I ran into some climbers I met last year who are renting a casita up past the climbing. I was pumped to see them again, and discover the strange source of the loud cow horn sound that was heard through out the canyon and periodic explosions. Apparently the aforementioned friends had been using didgeridoos to sound their barbaric yawp over the Potrero and if that didn't work, you can't not buy fireworks from the man selling you beer and those are pretty good for making noise too. This will only mean something to Pete but the climbers we know are the wild foursome from Kentucky who always climbed as a unit and climbed ubber strong there ring leader still has a wild laugh and a pirate hat. I am blanking on there names at the moment. I have faith they will come back as soon as I leave the coffee shop.
My wrists have been doing pretty good with the exception of a couple bad days where rain and overuse compounded a bit. But considering the abuse I put on them they are doing great. I have climbed a couple 12a's but not cleanly I think I will get a least one of them if I give it another try. I feel like I have gotten stronger and maybe a little lighter. I hope to send a bunch a 12s in the new year and maybe find a 13 to try and get shut down on and climb more pitches next month than this month, which might be a tall order but we will see.
Peace and Love in the New Year
Devon
Subject:
Letters from camp
Date:
January 12, 2014 10:04:43 AM EST
So time is funny and I may have lost track of it for a bit. But I think my pitch count is 138. I have climbed 5 or 6 12s, I think I am getting stronger. I also caught a ride to El Salto (a crag about two and a half hours a way) and climbed in a new cool three-dimensional style on tufas and stalactites. Learning to rest on that kind of steep featured terrain is a whole new ball game. There were two routes I climbed where the rests meant that you wrapped your legs around a stalactite or a tufa and just squeezed, keeping the weight of your arms by holding on tighter with feet and thighs.
El Salto is amazing or perhaps awe-inspiring is a better word choice. Literally inspiring of awe, both the crazy featured walls and beautiful terrain. You drive down and camp by a small river and to get to the crags you have to cross the river between 4 and 7 times. For one crag this includes a crossing by one of the best waterfalls I have ever seen. It is surprisingly warm water, by this I mean it was warmer than the air, however, the day we were there were cold. Like winter camping cold, ice on your tent, frantic fire starting at camp and at one of the crags cold. But sometimes you need to take a vacation from your vacation, and it was awesome I feel very fortunate to have to gotten to go. I will be on the look out for new friends with cars and do my best on selling them on going back before I too have to head home from summer camp.
There is enough rock there that could keep an army of bolters occupied for the rest of there lives but as of yet there is not actually that much rock climbing there. Which means the warm ups are 11 c so needless to say the two days there kicked my ass making me sore in new and strange ways, but when you are sore it means you are getting stronger.
Upon returning home, to other camping (its strange that I very easily call it home) I took my first two voluntary rest days in a row and my body was as thrashed as it has ever been. Including the days after climbing Time Wave Zero (the 23 pitch route I climbed a few weeks back.) Camp has settled down and is at much more enjoyable amount of people and it feels homey again.
On the down side I have now seen two groups of people that I got close to in a super short period of time go home. It is sad when the other campers have to go home. I keep telling them they should quit there jobs too but . . . Perhaps that is not such good life advice, but when it comes time for my new friends to pack it is the only suggestion I can come up with. I miss you guys!
I have not got as much writing done as I should but only feel vaguely guilty about it. When a week feels like you got a month of living done in it, I figure you lived that week very well. So all in all I am still having a blast. The weather is warm and I need to make eggs so I can go rock climbing.
Love Devon
Ps I spent a day very hung over on new years day voluntarily taking Christmas photos, which is definitely a first for me, ask me about them when I get back they are pretty amazing.
PPs my apoligies and condolences if you were here for most of thess events and I still emailed you, I promise my future letters will be equally droll and boring.
Date:
January 12, 2014 10:21:28 AM EST
So apparently I need to send a second transcript to UTA Texas at Arlington I sent one to the head of the MFA program but they also need one for the college at large. Could you please send the transcript you guys have to this address. If it could get sent out asap that would be great. I only heard back from them a couple days ago and missed a few days of internet connectivity. Thanks
Office of Graduate Studies UTA Box 19167 701 S Nedderman Dr Davis Hall, Room 333 Arlington, Texas 76019 USA
January 17th
I have been in Mexico for a month and 10 days give or take looking at an actual calendar and counting, and as I have had pointed out during numerous games of batgammin I am no great shakes at counting so call it 40 days give or take. My pitch count is around 150, it has sort of slowed down due to a couple factors. Firstly leisurely breakfast in the sunshine, in some countries I am told dinner can be a three hour affair, but here at camp when the weather is nice we all sit out side enjoying the glorious view and eat a very hearty and slow breakfast, which is really nice. I think the civilized world should embrace such slothful and leisurely habits.
As one would expect we discuss, climbing, eating, Alex Honnald, things relating to crude humor, pterodactyl noises and other oddments. Go figure. The other reason my climbing frenzy has slowed is that I injured my ankle 5 days ago and had to take two days off and only top roped things on my last two outings and didn’t climb after it started hurting again. But it is doing pretty good, still at one and a half its normal size and turning a pretty shade of purple. I hurt it walking from my tent, not during the uncountable actually sort of dangerous things I have done, lots of rock climbing falls, scree fields, river crossing and mud. Not to mention the cattle guards which I always have a healthy fear of crossing. But such is the nature of as my father would say being an Idjet and a klutz. On this trip I have bruised my kidney, sprained my ankle and had a lingering cough/cold for twoish weeks and still climbed my face off and had a great time. My body is perhaps a little irked with me but that is to be expected.
After 40 odd days, I feel stronger, and my climbing endurance is pretty amazing at least for me anyway, linking two pitches of hardish climbing trailing two ropes first thing in the morning is casual which is satisfying. I don’t know if I have gotten any better at climbing but I certainly feel fitter. This is probably the strongest I have ever been climbing wise, maybe a shade less burly than just before I hurt my wrist but who knows. Time does funny things to the memory. Once my ankle gets a bit better I have a bunch of harder routes I am excited about, the closest I have ever had to having “projects” meaning maybe I will give them a 2nd or 3rd go in hopes of getting them clean. But who knows there are still a lot of walls I have never been to and so many routes I have never even touched.
As of today the last of the group of people I have climbed with most is leaving. Using peer pressure, bribes of juice or margaritas and any other dirty tricks I could think of I could not convince them to stay. I am sad to see them go, but there are still plenty of nice people at camp and I will make new friends. I hoping to find someone psyched about multi-pitch as I have been climbing a lot of single pitch lately and I want to tick of a bunch more long routes. I am not sure if I will rest today or go top rope a couple things. Tomorrow is supposed to be very hot so a day by the pool would be really nice. As usual life is very hard here, between the friendly people, sunshine, delicious food, rock climbing as many days as your body can handle it and general climbing camp shenanigans.
But I will admit the list of things from home and civilization that I miss is growing longer, as one would expect, I miss good dark beer/IPAs and whiskey at the top of the list, but not sleeping on the ground would be nice, a bath, Indian food, sushi and a whole bevy of other culinary delights come to mind.
I love you guys and hope you are all well,
Devon
Date:
January 24, 2014 5:26:56 PM EST
So I booked a flight from Monterrey to Oaxaca Mexico from the 31 to the 9th. In theory will do a day or two of wondering around Oaxaca and then hike in the Cloud forest. I am going with a guy I met at camp named Bryan. Then we will shoot down to the beach maybe puerto vayerta (the spelling is wrong to lazy too look it up right now) I am pretty excited, my body could use the rest.
I climbed the climb I was telling you about the other day. I climbed it with two nice Quebeca Girls Aiyme and Helene, one of whom only climbs about 5.9 so she sheanaganed her way through the first pitch the 11 doing about 85 percent of the moves and pulling on the fixed rope I droped for her to get through the hardest bits. The rest of route is all under 5.9 its low angle slab climbing, maybe 85 degrees. A lot of edges, and hand foot matches, one of the girls described the route as a midget climbing an over sized ladder. Nice cactus garden at the summit with a nice view.
It was a lot of fun.
Much love
Devon
Subject:
Oaxaca
Date:
January 31, 2014 11:33:37 AM EST
Safely in Oaxaca ... Lunch then maybe some ruins
Love
Devon
On Jan 29, 2014, at 4:01 PM, Devon Murphy <[email protected]> wrote:
In ten days I will have been in Mexico for two months, by then my pitch count should hit around 4 vertical miles worth of climbing. I leave the Potrero for nine days on the 31st I am headed to Oaxaca for some hiking, beaching and much needed resting. Then I come back and have ten more days of climbing, I have aspirations of climbing 8-9 days on and destroying myself in time for my return to civilization. I have a couple more multipitchs I’d like to do but I also have aspirations of upping the grade of my climbing, so I might have to do some much dreaded projecting. But who knows what will happen. As I have been delighted to repeatedly find out have no earthly idea what is in store for me.
I feel like I have been here for almost a years worth of living, I have made a lot of new and wonderful friends, who hopefully I will keep in touch with perhaps by sending obnoxious emails to. Living at a climbing camp is full or lots of literal and figurative highs. But there are also some lows, occasionally you wake up to an ice incrusted tent, and your body hurts and the only things you can find psych for are some good whiskey and a bath with a real bed to sleep in after. But by in large Mexico is treating me better than I could of hoped or imagined.
I had an Epic the other day. An epic is a climbing term for when shit goes horribly wrong (don’t worry Dad I didn’t do anything unsafe and fixed it). I climbed a six pitch route with a party of three (dope ninja) and we rapped a 70 meter wrap from the summit down two pitches to the other side of the ridge. When we pulled our two ropes it moved about eight feet and then got stuck, no trick I knew could get it unstuck. So with our measly ten feet of rope I got back on lead and climbed up two bolts and clipped into both and came off lead and put my self on rappel and on a Prussic. Then I proceeded to self-belay up the first pitch reasonably easily, it was 5.9 climbing. Then the climbing turns 11a and self belaying became much more difficult. This is where I could have been much smarter. I should have belayed both my seconds up to where I was and used my hard won pitch of rope to lead the next pitch. Or I should have switched to two prussic’s and set one up with a carabineer to act as a handle to ease my climbing of the rope. But I did neither of these smart simple things in hindsight, and proceeded to struggle more than was needed. I had been using my Smart to self belay and eventually the amount of rope out under me was two heavy and I could not pull it through an auto locking belay device. So I switched to a normal ATC, and from there I could no longer follow a route, so I jugged up about 35 feet of 5.11 d maybe unclimbed choss. At that point I realized I should have lead the second pitch but I couldn’t get to an anchor. So with the sunlight ticking away still making me very hot and sweaty but painfully aware that I would soon be very cold if I did not get my ass in gear. I eventually got back to a bolted and cleaned section of the wall and climbed the remaining 25 feet to the anchors. My rope was stuck in a measly finger length constriction that tapered, if it had been an inch left or right all would have been well. But I proceeded to rappel a pitch and pull both ropes. Leaving my two climbing partners stranded in the hot sun four pitches off the deck. Then I rappelled down too my very relieved but still incorrigibly high spirited friends Aymie and Helene who had been champion good sports during the whole fiasco. They had laughed and joked the whole time and made plans for shouting very loudly for rescue if I had not come through. The rest of the rappels went text book smooth and besides from some cramps in my biceps, abs and thrashed hands we were all fine.
I am not sure why I am including this in a letter from camp, maybe it is because anytime you can 100 percent safely rescue yourself from a crap situation you are proud of yourself and want to share, or maybe because as a dude in camp put it I got to rescue Damsels in Distress. But more likely I include it because it reminds me how much more there is too know and wonder if there are suggestions for what I could of done better or easier. But either way we got down safe and I drank my second most earned margarita of the trip, I think I enjoyed it more than the one after time wave.
Life continues to be good I hope you all are well and getting adventures of your own in. I will report back after my trip to the beach.
Tootles
Devon