What do you think? Comments and questions welcome below.
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On February 12th 2018, Bicho and I climbed Timewave Zero (23 pitches, 5.12a/b) for a timed ascent of 2:34. 

Bicho had the idea, and at first, I thought it was silly – the last time I’d tried TWZ took 19 hours.

Then I thought, maybe it’s worth a try. Not to mention that this was an opportunity for our friends at Monkey Hands, Exposure Industria and Mad Rock Climbing to give us gear that would benefit the local North Mexico youth climbing program that I work with, Climbing Borders.

Also, given the name, I also think it’s fitting that climbers go for a speed ascent!

With some research at the Buho Cafe, we found that Honnold has a 1:45 solo ascent. One simul team also marked 2:51 on 8a.nu. The next day, I heard that Mexico legend Carlos Mac claimed an impressive 1:30 on simul, soon after the route first went up. For realsies?  By pure chance I caught Carlos Mac in El Salto that weekend, a few days before Bicho and I planned the timed ascent. A bit of background: Carlos Mac has many first ascents of his own lines, including the monster El Gigante at 30 pitches, 5.13, so his achievements are nothing to sneeze at. When I asked Carlos about Time Wave Zero, he said: “We climbed like crazy! We started at 4pm and arrived above at like, I don’t know, around 5.30. We had 50 draws!”

 

 

Carlos Mac, possible 1:30 time record on TWZ.

Well shit, I thought.

Carlos’ 1:30 on Time Wave Zero is hard to believe: years warp our memories, and stories inevitably exaggerate with each re-telling. Time also moves very strangely when you’re in the flow. As Einstein says, “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”

When we run up TWZ in 2:34, it felt like 30 minutes, and when I give a belay for 30 minutes, it feels like 2 hours.

In my mind Carlos (and his partner) hold a record – it just wasn’t important enough to time, since he’s climbed so many badass adventure routes that require more than knowing how to clip bolts.

I also want to believe this OG Mexico climber’s could kick any millennial, Generation X/Y climber’s nerveless ass – including ours.

Bicho’s Simul Plan

In theory, with a ‘quick clip’, simul can be as fast or faster than soloing. The only issue is  when the top climber runs out of draws to protect with – plus the extra weight of draws –  plus the seconds wasted to place each draw. My friends at Mad Rock Climbing provided 30 ultralight draws that weigh 2.58 oz each which would be donated after; Bicho never had to stop, except to wait for a party; and he skipped almost 200 bolts to move more quickly.

The Go

At 2:35pm on Monday, Bicho had 20 draws and carabiners on him to get him to the pitch 8 ledge, where he grabbed the 30 Mad Rock ultralights for the remaining 15 pitches. I followed the whole way – which isn’t quite as interesting as leading, admittedly, but it was just as important that I didn’t fall and pull Bicho off a run-out.

Just below the summit, we actually lost ~15 to 20 minutes to a party that was doggedly trying the crux. When they spied Bicho’s head popping up at the small ledge under the pitch (21), the leader gave a final successful effort, and the team let us pass. Bicho impressively climbed through the crux without pause, stopping only when he reached the top to wait for me as I scrambled on belay up the ridge. And when punched the clock: 2:34, 4 minutes over our goal. We had mixed feelings. We were fast. We knew also that we could go faster.

About Timewave Zero, 23 pitches, 5.12a

Time Wave Zero (23 pitches, 5.12a) is said to be one of the longest routes in North America – whether this is true, I don’t know, but the line is in my backyard near Monterrey. Mexico. The longest is said to be El Gigante, a monstering 30-pitch 5.13 located in cannabis fields of northern Mexico, and rumored to be accessible by one guide. My friend Maria Fernanda Rodriguez is one of Mexico’s strongest female sport climbers and summited El Gigante with a female partner in 2014 in spite of twisting her knee on the two-day hike in to the base. (She persistently jumar-ed her way to the top, and was in physical therapy for months after.)

The route is named for a crazy theory on time by Terrance McKennan, an ethnobotanist obsessed with a pattern in major events in the last 50 years and who coincidence his theory of the end of the world with the Mayan calendar. Fittingly, Bicho and I talked about Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and another perspective of seeing time: as a mountain range much like the Rockies stretching endlessly in both directions. On the wall, we agreed that as humans we forget how small we are in the big scheme of things. That the record is be significant, and the act itself of speed climbing was a way for us to be in the present, in the flow.

If you’re going to speed climb a sport route, Time Wave Zero would be the one: the line sits 15 minutes from the car, 20 minutes from a hot coffee and stack of waffles at the climber’s charity Búho Cafe, and an hour’s drive from the third largest and by far most Westernized city in Mexico. A visible white streak running down from the summit like a thin cascade, it pours into an area at the base called the Surf Bowl, and because of TWZ’s popularity, the line is relatively clean until the toothy summit – a fourth-class pitch – and easy to follow. TWZ is a classic hotcake stack of easy climbing, mostly 5.9s, with a few moves of .11a and .10d and topped with a tiny dollop of 5.12a.

According to Magic Ed in one of the original and most popular guidebooks, TWZ was originally bolted to the large ledge (pitch 8) in 2000 by Magic Ed and Dave Benton, and known as “Jambo Bwana”, until the following team pushed the line to the top: Dane Bass, Jimmy Carse, Paul Irby, Will Meinen, Jonathan Robinson, Magic Ed, and Tami.

Getting down

A few rappels are exactly 30m, so our 65m rope was just enough. We made sure to tie knots in the end of the rope. For double rope raps,  the toothy rock, lechuguillas and palm trees can grab the rope, so on the few traverse raps it’s worth coiling and bringing the rope on the way down. On a separate descent, my friends watched from below as I wrestled with a palm tree.

 

 

Why simul for speed, when there’s more risk?

Good question, put forth by a friend in El Búho Café.

I actually had an internal conflict doing something considered dangerous, while I mentor with youth.

In short, we’re taking a calculated risk that is minimalized by our experience, and simplify the factors as much as possible to the point that we almost always know what the other is thinking, or should be thinking. Climbers have died and taken trips to the hospital simul-ing in El Potrero Chico, and Bicho skipped 180+ bolts with the same potential consequence, but with more awareness and care. Bicho is technically a stronger grade climber, but we are pretty evenly matched – I’ve climbed 5.13c, competed in world championships for speed, sport and bouldering, and in total have been climbing non-stop for 20 years. Only because of our extensive experience did I accept Bicho’s invitation to try simul-ing for speed. I was even skeptical we would go fast, until our planned two-day test run.

On the test run, we checked the weather, talked logistics and prepared for the worst – rain, dehydration, darkness, other parties. Capable friends knew where we were.

We simul-ed up with heavy packs to the ledge, pitched camp, read a bit, napped about an hour, and watched the clouds pass. Then since the weather looked good, we decide to check out the rest of the route, and topped our two-day test run in 5 hours.

About Our Youth Program “Climbing Borders“

We received some old gear of Magic Ed’s youth climbing efforts as a donation to our youth program Climbing Borders, a kind of passing of the torch: three ancient helmets and seven left climbing shoes. Granted, the gear wasn’t very useful, but the gesture was a nice one, and the gesture motivated our youth leaders to come to Potrero Chico. Like everyone before them, regardless of country and economic class, they are always awestruck at the lines, and explore the walls’ features ravenous eyes.

Finally,
Thanks to Mad Rock Climbing for donating 30 draws to Climbing Borders!

-Tiffany

Send me any questions on FB, IG or below.

 

 

The poorer the adventurer, the richer the adventure.

(Photo above from old trip into Mexico.)

I walk into the small dingy office, and tell the very large man in the chair that after $260 in parts I only had $100 for labor for taking out and installing the new part, and what did he think about that.

He pointed behind him. There was, above his head, a sign that said in big red letters “$125 per hour (2 hour minimum), No Exception”. A machete was stuck into the wall next to the sign. The machete, says the mechanic shop owner, is for people who didn’t want to pay. I tell him I had one too, but that it’s for plants, and not really sharp anyway.

He pulls out his pocket knife. He gives me some pointers on sharpening. I somehow manage to steer the conversation in the direction of my volunteer work with kids. When someone opens the door to ask about a new client, he says not to worry, his boys would do the installation for $100 dollars. People can tell right away that I can’t lie to save my life – and boy, when I’m nervous, words just spill like oil from a BP ship.

We also look like a female punk rock band, piling out of a van with our Mexican tans wearing glasses, bright shorts and all the attitude of coyotes who’ve just breezed through the border their first time.

My registered life in Colorado is on the brink of a disorganized mess after living in Mexico for almost 2 years, so I’ve decided to take a small 6-month break and idle from Mexico back over to the Rocky Mountains. And that there would be the slightest 32-hour driving detour through Yosemite Valley, California, abusing the straight line to our final destination and making it more of a banged-up closed parabolic bell curve of driving hell, through long stretches of no-where Texas and the southwest.

I feel like breaking down out there, on the road, alone, would be the end of me. I’ve had one-too-many panic attacks while being stranded in my van in the south – I imagine that if I did break down, some months later I would be found crawling across the Colorado border like the child found on a raft on that Florida beach, who came all the way from Haiti; I’d be barely recognizable, having been adopted by a pack of dingoes and surviving by dumpster-diving fried food behind southern KFCs; I’d be full of stories about desert storms and ghost towns, of lizard-looking dragons and the odd human friend that maybe existed, or no.

No, better not to break down alone in the south, I think.

Besides, Yosemite is a long-ass drive, and belting Matt and Kim Lightening in the car for 10 hours can’t be repeated with the same enthusiasm twice.

A gas station attendant in the tiniest town before San Antonio, Texas ask if we’re a band, so after a brief pow-wow, we decide to go along with it. Our spontaneous rock troupe would include ex-punk Francesca on lead vocals, mellow Xelo on cello, dependable Jen on bass, and yours truly on cowbell.

Here’s a bit more history on my new fellow band members.

Francesca Cesario, OG outdoor badass who recently ascended Aconcagua, just finished her International Alpine Rescue course, and most impressively (to me) is losing her large toenail to frost-nip (a whipping cold -15C volcano summit in the southern Mexican state of Puebla).

Xelo, a magical and happy human being, has the darkest sense of humor this side of the moon, and would crush you in a Cards Against Humanity game, and her heeler puppy Suni.

Jen, the youngest of our troupe who jumped at the chance to have an adventure in California before her visa expired.

There was a disclaimer with these three: I had explained to my fellow female adventures, and the community on Facebook, how the spirit of the road trip was pure adventure: “Hey, anyone want to go to join us on any part of a trip to Yosemite-Zion-The Diamond to help with diesel, driving or to give a belay?” And everyone wanted to go.

There was one thing: the van could lose power at any time.

“There’ll be an element of surprise to this trip,” I told people.

The cost of driving to Yosemite with 4 people would be like a very cheap bus ride, I said, just more mysterious and unexpected because of looming mechanical/electrical problems. Wall-E is the perfect adventure vehicle – a 2005 Sprinter van with 5 cylinders (a whopping three working without a hitch), two cup holders, standing room for a young adult African elephant or three-and-a-half camels, first-class leg room (if you don’t mind the dog herd coming with us) plus 5 functioning seat-belts for human beings, and a luxurious hammock that swings excitingly with every turn. All Wall-E needed was new brakes, an emergency hand brake, turbo, a windshield, and small engine overhaul for two faulty cylinders. So WallE got an oil change for the trip.

So far, so good, the little Mercedes engine lasted to the middle-of-nowhere outside of Ft. Stockton, Texas, where we swapped out the battery with a spare I happened to have, until that failed too, and we hailed a passing truck to jump-start Wall-E awake. Now we’re in exciting Ft. Stockton, which is a fantastic pueblo full of elusive road runners and tiny horned dragons that look like lizards. We found there’s a leak into the alternator, and by happy coincidence the replacement is exactly what I have in the bank.

We’re waiting for the piece, drinking tea and maté in the vansion’s parlor, and trying to figure out where to print the car insurance card that went missing on day 1. Best case scenario, we’re playing spoons for a cheering crowd at a pub in El Paso, an upturned hat on stage with us. Worst case scenario, we arrive at Yosemite without any trouble.

 

This happened last Friday, when we had a ‘misadventure’:

“Okay, look. Who’s gonna be my girlfriend? Where are you guys from? Look, I’m handsome, fast and furious. Hey. Who’s that sonofabitch behind us? Tailgating me, huh? I’ll show him. I’m fast and furious. Fast and-”

“Curve,” the girl in the passenger seat calls, interrupting the monologue.

“Obviously.” The wheel jerks.

The monologue came from a driver who had offered us a lift back to the city. We now realize he is absurdly intoxicated, and driving as if the road lines were squiggly instead of straight. I’m panicked.

The driver’s friends seem unworried, though. He had behaved much more sober than the other locals we had bumped into or been passed by that night, and he had really insisted on giving us a ride. Pretty soon though, he’s acting like a gangster straight out of the narco film “Los Jefes”. Which was, I think, coincidentally filmed just outside the entrance of this canyon.

“Curve.”
“Obviously.”

There’s three of us, sitting squished in the back seat as the car weaves and is corrected, and we’re getting more and more nervous. A sense of self-preservation paces and fidgets in the back of our minds. Our hypothalamus is poised for flight or fight.

“Obvio obvio obvio. Hey, who does this dude think he is? Orale tu pinche maricon joto.”

This is what happens when you go ‘adventuring’. Things go awry. A designated return ride was supposed to meet us at 10:30pm, if we hadn’t looped back to the entrance by 10, and we had continued to the the dam, coasting the whole ten miles until the road dead-ended. At this moment we still didn’t know where our return ride was, and the canyon after the midpoint had no signal.

We had actually turned down several rides, offered by drivers in even worst shape that this guy. Twice before we’d hitched rides, once with the local police when they made their usual rounds, and the second time that I had jumped into a car, it had promptly reversed a back wheel over the 30-meter cliff. This third ride is stretching my luck.

At least this guy stayed on the road, and all-in-all his friends seemed unworried.

“Curve.”

The wheel jerks right.

Still, worrisome though.

“Obviously.”

Suddenly, the driver gets fed up with the guy behind him, maybe picking up on our discomfort of being in a car sailing left and right like it was tacking to catch the wind.

“I’m f*cking fast and FURIOUS!” He speeds up.

We had enjoyed the journey into the canyon in traditional style: one on a bike – one on skates – myself, running – and now found ourselves hurtling back towards the canyon’s sharp turn on the small windy road that had been so peaceful. But it was frequently crossed by passing mules, cattle, and stray dogs and we’re rapidly approaching 100 kilometers an hour in pitch darkness, hurtling too fast towards a fishhook turn…

“Curve. Curve!” the girl pouts emphatically. We begin all shouting: “CURVE! CURVE! SLOW DOWN! -”

For a few seconds, his foot stays on the pedal. Then he brakes hard and bouncing careens off the road into the pebble dirt that lines the backcountry highway.

“Okay, we’re getting out now,” says the fastest-acting one of us. Claudia, you’re a goddess.

Now halfway in we immediately get another ride in the back of a truck and an hour later we find our friend. Exhausted, but too excited on account of being alive to let the adventure end just quite yet, we talk about that ride while we eat at my house. Then I drop the others off at each of theirs. At 5am, I face plant in bed.

Adventure? Well, mission achieved, though that ride is not something we ever necessarily want to repeat. In the spirit of tradition, we’re going back on Friday to do the same 10 mile route in the canyon again.

This time I’m parking my van at the finish line. But as they say… Adventure begins when plans end.

 

1. Own a camera, sometimes. Sometimes use it.
2. Give hugs and kisses (and receive them). If this sounds easier said than done, maybe you’re feeling very alone? In that case, you must not own a dog.
3. Get a dog. You can call it “Dog”, or any animal not related to dogs at all: like “Moose” or “Elephant”, or something big and entirely un-doglike.
4. Live simply.
5. Love deeply.
6. Learn other languages, and remember it gets much easier after the second.
7. Get overly excited about the little things, so you can roll with the big things.
8. Travel, then open your home to other travelers.
9. Always remember these wise words when you’re not having fun: “Adversity is adventure.” – Tommy Caldwell
10. Breathe through your nose.(It really does help when you need to focus, like when you’re saving lives in the mountains, navigating icy channels, or just under pressure to order pizza.)

Below, the interview in Spanish.
For english speakers, here’s her interview in English on Rock & Ice

Some backstory. You can skip down to the interview if you’d like.

I wrote her in English and translated her responses from Spanish to English for R&I. The reason I approached Mar was because she’s the fifth woman to ever do 9a, I’d never heard of her before – and she had no sponsors, which resounded a part of my childhood. She’s also vegetarian, which is a surprise. Many of us can appreciate Mar’s focus, overcoming a lack of resources and sacrificing everything to pursue her passion. She has gone to great lengths to train better while keeping a job. Not many people can climb full-time without rich parents or moving their life into a car.

In summary, Mar’s vegetarian eating is great for sport climbing, where it is a benefit to be lighter. Her job also revolves around fitness, which as Udo Neumann once said is the basis to all climbing – it just depends what you do with it. If you listen to a lot of climbers’ interviews, you’ll see a common trend in training that focuses first on fitness. Then they add shoulder power and finger strength and the life. To conclude, if  you lift and move all day, hike mountains, and eat well, this sounds like work – but it’s great for fitness.

On a side note, very little climbing literature exists in Spanish compared to English. This seems to seriously blunt the growth of the sport in training circles in countries that don’t primarily speak English and in Mexico I continually find myself wishing Eric Horst was born in Spain.

Other links:
Crux Crush
Mar Alvarez Blog
Namuss Films on EpicTV: How to Climb 9a and Hold Down a Job

 

 

– – – – – – – – –

Interview with Mar Alvarez

What city do you train in? Did you design your training area?

Entreno en el mismo pueblo donde vivo, en Estadilla (Huesca). Cuando me vine a vivir aquí con David, hace 4 años, no había ningún tablón ni rocódromo cerca, por lo que para poder entrenar teníamos que desplazarnos bastantes kilómetros y, por tanto, perder bastante tiempo en los desplazamientos. Teniendo unos horarios laborables que cumplir, se nos hacía imposible ir más de 2 o 3 veces por semana. Además, se trataba de tablones pequeños en los que, para nuestro gusto, faltaban ciertos elementos importantes para poder entrenar bien. Por todo ello, decidimos hacernos un tablón particular lo más cerca posible de donde vivíamos, lo que nos permitía a la vez hacerlo y diseñarlo a nuestro gusto.

What specific antagonist exercises do you do most?

Intento trabajar los antagonistas de los músculos que más influyen en la escalada, como pueden ser los extensores de dedos, manguitos rotadores del hombro, tríceps y pectoral. Los ejercicios los hago con gomas elásticas y con pesas. 

What is your training for finger strength?

Haciendo suspensiones. Son muy aburridas pero es lo que mejor me va para eso. La forma de hacerlas va variando en función del ciclo de entreno en que esté y de cómo voy progresando. En este aspecto me ayuda Pedro Bergua (escalador, entrenador y amigo), quien está metido de lleno en el estudio de cómo optimizar y hacer más eficientes los entrenos. 

How many hours a week do you train?

Según el ciclo en el que esté, entreno más o menos horas. Los ciclos más suaves pueden estar entre las 15-20 horas semanales, mientras que los más duros pueden rondar las 25 horas. A eso habría que sumarle el par de días a la semana que salgo a correr y los ratos que dedico a los estiramientos. 
Esto es lo que intento hacer y cómo me lo planifico, aunque luego no siempre lo puedo cumplir porque el trabajo no me lo permite.

What do you often eat for protein? Are you vegetarian?

Procuro cuidar la alimentación pero no hasta el punto de planificar la frecuencia con la que como unos u otros alimentos. Las semanas en las que más duro entreno o escalo sí que procuro comer más proteína, pero no es algo que calcule o planifique. 

Sí que soy vegetariana, De hecho lo soy desde casi siempre, ya que mis padres lo son. Es algo que ellos me inculcaron (nunca me obligaron, de hecho de pequeña comía carne en el colegio pero fui yo quien decidí no seguir haciéndolo), y como me ha ido siempre muy bien, he seguido siéndolo. Además de ser vegetariana, intento comer lo más natural y ecológico posible.

What education do you have?

Estudié la carrera de Administración y Dirección de Empresas y también  el curso de Auditoría de Cuentas. Durante unos años ejercí como tal, pero no acababa de llenarme del todo, así que lo dejé todo y me preparé para ser bombero (durante este tiempo de preparación, 3 años, tuve que dejar completamente de escalar). Y ahora trabajo como bombero.

I fundraised, started, and promptly stopped talking about a climbing vanlife food recipe book last year just before August. At that time, I took on Move Mountains, a 3-month slideshow and gear-collecting road trip that increased the testing and experimenting of recipes while traveling with various friends in Squamish, Leavenworth, Smith Rock, Castle Rock, American Fork, the Rockies, El Salto, and Potrero Chico – to name a few crags – and squatting the climbing gym parking lots en route and between these areas in 8 states.

Here’s a new recipe made with just a stove and GSI Outdoors pan.

Coco PB Quinoa Energy Bars

It’s vegan, almost paleo, and easily varied for all you special types of foodivores. I’m lactose intolerant, gluten reactive, and transitioning vegan to paleo, but it doesn’t stop me from eating buttery cookies and adding milk to coffee.

I highly recommend having coconut oil and coconut butter in your kitchen, even if you love dairy and olive oil.

• Toast Quinoa and Seeds on your van’s Coleman/Whisper/mini-kitchen in a dry pan.
  (Not gluten-free? Add oats.) Set aside.
• Mix 2 spoonfuls of coconut oil with 1 spoon each of coconut butter (and/or real butter), honey/agave/maple syrup, pb/almond butter, and seeds –> chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame.
• And add a pinch of salt.
• Top off the wet mix with any whimful combination of the following: ground flax, cocao, cinnamon, bee pollen, vanilla extract.
• Toss in toasted ingredients, mix.
• Sneak into the cooler/fresh snow outside/your solar-powered mini-fridge/ or a friend’s refrigerator to set for about 1 hour.