The standing joke in our family is that there’s always an agenda. There’s always been a plan, beginning with Charlie asking me a test question fourteen years ago on an April day in West Virginia: How would you feel about going on a really long road trip? We spent the next 6 years planning.

Five years, we said. Five years, then we’d reassess. Turns out, five years can fly by pretty fast and you realize you’ve only been to a fraction of the places you had in mind when you started out, partly because somehow, even with the freedom to go almost anywhere, you keep returning to places you know. We’ve grown a list of comfort crags, places we come back to because we love the climbing, but also because they’re familiar. Logistics are easy: we know where to camp, where to get water, and do laundry. In most of these places, we feel welcomed into a community. The Red River Gorge (KY), Maple Canyon (UT), the St. George/Hurricane area in southern Utah, and more recently, Hueco Tanks (TX) have comprised a circuit of places that feel like home.

This past April, following three hectic summer months camp hosting in Maple and five significantly less stressful months of winter doing the same at Gleatherland (Hueco Tanks), we recommitted to the approach we embarked with in 2015. There’s still been a plan of sorts, but this one’s had fluidity and flexibility built into it. We’ve been places we’ve never been before and climbed routes we’re not deeply invested in. We’ve experienced fewer “destination” areas and more micro-crags, most of which deviate from our standard style of extremely steep, gymnastic climbing.

We’ve hit nine crags in the time we’d normally spend at two or three: The Tunnel, Diablo Canyon, El Camino Cave, El Rito, Viento, Rat Cave, the Actual Cave, Box Canyon, and Sitting Bull Falls. We visited El Rito a second time to finish up a couple routes, freshen up some bolting, and add a new line. We stopped by El Camino again because I had a one-hang that was nagging me, and we like the people. We also added a new route in the Box Canyon. What’s that? You say you’ve never heard of most of those crags before?

Charlie calls it the Tour of the Obscure. I’ve dubbed it a learning intensive, because man-oh-man that’s what it’s turned out to be. I’ve found myself needing to engage with different motivations, practicing high highs and high lows, embracing uncertainty, and trying to apply the presence of process to smaller short-term goals the same way I do to the big ones.  It’s been a good experiment. Letting go of habits is liberating, and I think the anxiety I’ve always carried about new cliffs has dissipated slightly.

We’ve finally surfaced from the sea of obscurity to make our way to this winter’s home, El Salto, Mexico. It’s still in keeping with our theme of the new-to-us, but a little more on-the-map than some of our recent stops. Crossing the border with the van and trailer was surprisingly easy, despite the high concentration of law enforcement officials. We were shocked when we were bypassed for inspection, and at the checkpoint further south, we just had to open the trailer for an officer to glance inside. Not even one look inside the cargo van with reflectix covering the windows! I’m sure we’ll have a very different experience on our return trip. A few hours- and one wrong turn that resulted in a detour through a lovely little vacation town- later, we were on the narrow, winding road that climbs the mountain to El Salto. The drive up would be exciting in a car; in a full-sized van, towing our home, it bordered on harrowing. Hairpin switchbacks, leaning tree trunks, and oncoming vehicles barrelling down the hill and whizzing by on the sliver of available asphalt available kept our mortal reality front and center. But we made it. Home, for now, is the El Salto Crag Ground Campground. On the two days we’ve climbed so far, we’ve loaded up our packs and quite literally walked across the street to the La Palma Cave. The prime crags are just a couple miles away. Life here is pretty good.

We’re here just in time for our birthdays. I’m 54 today; Charlie turns 68 (a number that confounds us both) in December. We’ll miss Hueco, but these bodies are begging us for a winter off from ground falls, even well-padded ones. And after this last stretch of quick, casual affairs, we’re ready to settle in next to a little cave and maybe fall in love with a rock climb again.

~ Maggie

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