Cumbia Cave: Land of Giant Tufas

	Lots of tufas!

The Cumbia Cave is down a bumpy road in Nuevo León, Mexico. It is located in an area called Las Adjuntas, which is where two rivers converge in a beautiful lush canyon famous for it's canyoneering adventure called Matacanes. The Cumbia Cave is on the way to the already popular area El Salto also known for it's amazing tufa climbing.

	Rodrigo on some big stalactites on Cascabel 11a

Nuevo León is loaded with climbing potential. With only a few local climbers bolting and a smaller number of US climbers then pre-drug war days it is overwhelming how much development of amazing climbing there is to be done here now. Another area which has huge potential is called El Diente which is ten minutes down a road from the city of Monterrey. It has everything for a great sport climbing area four stalactite caves, a 1,000 foot El Diente (the tooth), and an amazing two pitch tufa wall two minutes off the road pictured below. It is all on National Park land but unfortunately a mining company now owns the access road to this amazing gem.

	A small piece of the amazing tufa wall that is currently off limits despite being in a National Park.

We found the Cumbia Cave while driving to another cave full of amazing tufas in the Chipitin waterfall. We decided the drive and hike was a bit to much for that cave though I think somebody could bolt a long adventure route there and it would be amazing. We started bolting the Cumbia Cave last spring and there are currently 15 routes from 11a to 13a.

	Me on Celso Pina 12c jug fest

With the abundance of holds and tufas at the Cumbia Cave we will likely be bolting many more routes. Just looking around a little last weekend I spotted another cave across the canyon. We also bolted an area called the La Cueva del Oso two years ago it is a little more remote and has the white dust of north facing limestone caves.

	Fernanda on La Gripa 12c in La Cueva del Oso

If anyone is interested in climbing or bolting in the Cumbia Cave this winter feel free to contact me for beta on getting there. There is some beta here:
http://www.mountainproject.com/v/cueva-de-cumbia/108010004

Beta for La Cueva del Oso here:
http://www.elpotrerochicoguides.com/#!cuevadeloso/c1wet

	Joel transformed into a Tufa on Vasco Viejo 11d

	Rodrigo on the FA of Vasco Viejo 11d

Donkeys!

	A Las Adjunatas donkey. Don't leave your food out while camping these guys are worse then Yosemite bears. Credit: KRS-Grun

The river at the camping for the Cumbia Cave.

	Steam rising on the river in Las Adjuntas in the morning.

Climbing Devotion 11d R in El Potrero Chico

 Here are some photos from our climb on Devotion in El Potrero Chico. I had two great days climbing with Mike from Tennessee.  His partner wasn't able to make it at the last minute so he hired me as a guide. We climbed Yankee Clipper and then Mike suggested Devotion which had been on my list for a long time.  5.11d R doesn't always attract you to a route though.

I had climbed other routes with similar ratings in Potrero and found them not runout on the crux pitches at all.  With a few cams along this route seemed about the same.  We added a bolt on a pitch above the ledge as requested by Magic Ed one of the first ascensionists.  The route was definitely an adventure and overgrowing as it sees little traffic.  I think if more people start climbing it, it could clean up and be a classic line one day.

First light behind El Toro

Dreams of Stalactites and Sleep

 Fatherhood has arrived.  It was an overwhelming experience after two nights of no sleep waiting for Isabella to start coming out on her own.  Standing in the operating room cutting the cord that connected my daughter to my wife, looking back and seeing the surgeons surrounding my wife as they pull the large bloody placenta out of her abdomen.  Perhaps one of the more intense moments in my life.

Isabella Adeline Grundon was born by Norma Torres Grundon on September 26th at 9:17 am. It was a long road to that moment.  More for Norma then me I'm sure.  She was ten days late and stubborn to come out.  Without going into too many medical details we entered the hospital basically at night on the 24th and after lots of pushing, waiting, and complications received little Isabella via C-Section on that snowy September morning in Mammoth Lakes, California.

Not my normal fall in Yosemite this year.  Due to one of the largest fires in California ever raging Yosemite I was forced to, hike 9 miles to work, hitch hike 6 hours around the fire, and ultimately take some time off, as leaving a 9 month pregnant wife alone with no car while I'm six hours away seems irresponsible.  While waiting for Isabella I was able to bolts some fun granite climbs in the Mammoth area at the Stream Wall.  Scott Borden was visiting before is  Bon Voyage to England and helped bolt a fun 5.11 that needed a lot of scrubbing.

Little Isabella sleeping her first day cragging

 So the baby is born and all is back to normal.  I go back to work the day we get out of the hospital and I am excited to be guiding again.  The next day the government shuts down and I am out of work again.  So here we are blogging on the internet getting excited for a winter season in Mexico of Fatherhood and Stalactite.

The Family

Borden Crushing baby granite tufas in the snow

The Regular NW Route on Half Dome in a Day with Borden

    I haven't climbed the face of Half Dome in maybe seven years.  When I climbed it I thought it was one of my favorite climbs.  It has some incredible cracks and amazing views.  It had been so long because the summer is generally when I work the most guiding.  It is also the best Half Dome season as the route is north west facing and doesn't receive much sun and the summit sits 4,800 feet above the valley which makes it pretty cold.  The combination of the dry and warm spring made it perfect timing for us to climb the route.
 

    Scott Borden and I met at a casual 5 am in the morning.  Our journey up the approach slabs seemed to go quickly.  Despite it's reputation as the "death slabs" they didn't seem to bad going up.  Though our opinion of this chossy wet chasm will change that night in the dark.  We reach the base and rest and fill up our water.
   

  Scott my randomly assigned roommate from college eleven years ago has been a great friend ever since assigned to live with me.  Scott will be leading the first pitches, which is great as I am not a morning person and I am psyched to relax and belay.  Soon I the rope runs out and we are both climbing in unison simul-climbing.  The bottom half of the route is more like an alpine route then a big wall as it is a lot of broken ground with big loose holds.  I remember this section going quickly last time I climbed the route, but we were simul-climbing with the whole 70 meters of rope which created to much drag and wasted a large amount of energy and time.
 

   A goal of mine is to free climb the whole route.  I didn't check out the free climbing variations after our slightly slow climbing of the bottom half of  the route.  We still caught up to and passed one team who camped at the base and were climbing the route in a push also.  The goes free at around 5.12b which is about my trad limit so the reality is I would need to spend a large amount of time figuring out the moves. 
  

  Hopefully this climb lights a spark for me and I can get back up to Half Dome with more then a day to check out all of the free climbing.  The Zig Zag pitches up high are some most beautiful hard finger cracks in the Valley.  I would be great to get back up to them with time and energy to unlock the free climbing sequences. 
    

 Our descent down the slabs in the dark was less then ideal.  I have to wonder who strung the 400 feet of hardware store rope down the skiers right side of the gully?  They should be tarred and feathered.  We reached the valley and biked back to a warm pizza at the train wreck Norma my fiancee had prepared.      Overall it was a killer day with a great friend.  I hope it is not another seven years before I climb the route again.