Caballo Muerto

I've been equipping and working sport routes in the nature sanctuary behind my house. In Santiago, Chile. The last project is short but constantly overhanging with a crazy hand-jam/traverse/layback crux finish to get to the chains. One friend told me - When you say you found a good climb it has an overhang and a hand jam.

I drive straight to the cliff from school where I'm to meet my climbing buddy, Loco. Who was not there. On the trail I come across a dead snake, somebody had chopped it in half with a big rock. Nice. Poor thing - snakes are rare here. When I get to the cliff there's a dead horse swarmed by a cloud of bees about 30 feet past the climb - right on the trail. Nice. Lucky for me it's downwind - but I start feeling weird about all the corpses - a bad omen? Still no Loco. I try to see why the horse died, but it's just too smelly to get close. So I boulder and clean the base of a potential new line. And wonder about rumors of mountain lions in the area. Is he stalking me? Really it fell off the cliff and broke a leg. I think.

Finally Loco shows - with some crazy story that Mexicans always have for being late and we boulder a bit more and then get to work on the climb. He says - you have to open this today, man, you have the perfect name for this climb. And I know exactly what he means, but this thing has been giving me fits for two weeks now. The best I've done is two rests to get to the chains.

I lead up to the last bolt, before the weird crux, and lower - so I can rest and then try it with the clips in - no shame. Plus I'm still not warmed up. And I want one strip of tape for the big jam. Loco works the climb for a while, then wife and baby show up just as I sail to the top, sink the hand jam, step right, reach waaaay up for the undercling where my foot slips and my shin smacks against a ledge. Just before clipping into the anchors. OUCH. Physical and mental ouch. I rest, finish, set a top rope and figure I'll have to wait for the weekend. Or maybe someone else gets the FA. Loco and Darlene work it on top rope. The sun is going down. The dogs are trying to get at the rotting horse. Wee Antonia is crying because somebody stopped feeding her wild blackberries. And I think, hell, one more try before my shin really starts hurting.

The wind goes down, and you can really smell that damn horse now. I get up to the same place where I slipped, take extra care, place the foot closer to my body, jam, traverse, reach up for the undercling, switch feet, stand up and clip in!

So that's my new route - with the name Loco knew we had to give it - Caballo Muerto. Dead Horse. No idea what the grade is, but some Chilean kid is sure to call it 5.9.