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….
———————-
Words by
@zclanton from his essay Guerreras, published in Volume 24
LINK IN BIO to score a copy in one of our zine bundles
LINK IN story to read the piece
đź“· by the author and his collection
#theclimbingzine #climbing #rockclimbing #mexicoclimbing
