I was totally unprepared to be climbing well on the tufa-filled caves of Guadalcázar. I had either been avoiding or unable to join the group on the previous trips for the 3-hour drive up north into San Luis Potosí, but I’m very glad that I did join them this time. It is a beautiful place, well-off the highway. I was surprised by the subtle but beautiful differences. It definitely felt like we were more north. Somehow, I totally scraped my hands up on everything that I tried, even though the holds tend to be huge. I tend to climb a little desperately on this type of rock. I had painful flashbacks of Kalymnos in Greece. So, I got smacked around by everything I tried, but I came down from each climb smiling. I’m going to partially blame being sick from the damn flu-shot for the previous week, but that is only a part of the reason I got spanked so hard by the rock. I didn’t try anything in the crazy Panales sector, but in both Saltire and the Cuerva, the routes were so nice that they actually made me want to learn and get better at this type of climbing. Easy to say is that I need a lot more stamina for the sustained over-hung routes. Now, I just wish I had my own car, and permission to drive, so that I could go back a lot more often.

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I was torn between editing the pictures for longer and getting them posted, and posted won.