The bouldering renaissance was in its infancy but it was getting big fast. For reasons mostly related to my peers, I wanted to be part of it. This resulted in a roadtrip that could have been just another egomaniacal pursuit of stone, but really turned into something different. Among other things, it changed my life, albeit for reasons not entirely related to Hueco. Maybe this story will venture on to that topic too.

From rainy Copenhagen one late January in '92 I headed way out in the Texas desert. My destination was far from any climbing of value, namely a lone rocky protrusion called Hueco Tanks, in the trashed and dusty outer burbs of El Paso. Some write up in Mountain Magazine had praised Hueco as the new frontier, the 'only real winter hang out in the US' with a scene that reminded the apparently overnostalgic author of Camp 4 in its heyday. This all sounded marvelous, compared to the mossy and mostly deserted gneiss of coastal Sweden this time of the year. I had just toured the french Riviera for several months, sampling monotonous clip ups on generic limestone with my Canadian buddy Dave (these were the happy times of few obligations, when a little work here and there easily financed long roadtrips), and thought Hueco would provide a more stimulating adventure.

Upon arrival I noticed that They were all here, in the balmy haze of midwinter Texas. Dozens of eternal road trippers in beat up Toyota trucks. Slick euro boys and dirty brits. The guy with the bolthanger ear rings that played Abbey Road on auto reverse every night, all night long in his little cub tent. Also present was the gray Astro Van with the original 'Sport Climbing is Neither' bumpersticker, housing the emperor of it all, John 'Verm' Sherman. We all stayed at that place, what was it called, Pete's? That rusty dump of a quonset hut, surrounded by dusty weed fields. A Tarantino set.

Never having been one to melt in seamlessly with any crowd of participants, I mostly hovered on the periphery of the scene. New wave bouldering, it turned out, was practiced in an intensely competitive, hyper social sort of way by large groups of look alikes. They descended on the bloc of the day, suffocating the rock with sweaty bodies, clouds of chalk and loud, insane hollering. After wandering on the tail end of such a melee one time too many I was forced to retreat into myself and do some pondering.

It did not help that my companion (we shared his car) on this trip was a highly dysfunctional character with few interests beyond climbing. I saw too much of myself in him and got a little worried. This guy was doomed, I thought. His tunnel vision and manic depressive behavior was fueled by an obsession for climbing that left little room for joy. As we drove the endless, monotone desert miles of SW Texas there resided an oppressive silence in the car when the climbing ranter died out. And it often did. We slowly started to drive each other nuts. This is nothing new to the impromptu partnerships often formed in the name of climbing. A few others come to mind. But this time I felt different.

Bouldering, and its focus on pure movement and extreme difficulty as an end in itself, proved to be so out of tune with all I valued in climbing. Where was the adventure, the stamina, the intense exposure, the partnerships that forged friends you'd never forget? Even worse, where was the rock? Not these little eggs and revered undercuts and seemingly holy 10 foot obstacles. No. Where was the walls? The soaring lines that made your neck ache when tracing them up in the sky, and your belly turn from fear? I felt sorely out of place. And I didn't have the finger strenght or athleticism to do much more than scrambles. Why did I come here?

Trying to get the most out of the situation, I hitchhiked to nearby Guadalupe National Park and disappeared in the mountains for a week. It was lonely. Cold. Did 20 mile days. Hunted for water. Long windy nights in the tent. Writing. Thinking. I had little in this world besides climbing and my girlfriend at home. Eschewed college for a brief stint in the military, and was now uneducated and largely unmotivated. Except for adventure. I had been on the go for so long, that I always needed to see what was beyond the horizon. Definitely restless. Positively lost.

to be continued..