FEATURED POST

Looking up Los Lobos Canyon

Coming home from a climbing trip to Mexico, I find myself sitting in a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning. I’m taking time for some of life’s pragmatic elements like bills and email. Often, I’m challenged in returning from these trips — something feels profoundly different about life back home: more complicated, more contrived. I have heard the process of re-entry referred to as re-tox and, sitting here, the concept fits all too well.

I notice that few people make eye contact.  Even those who seem to know each other avoid real conversation. An older couple is talking about taxes. Another man complains about work, stuffing a blueberry scone into his mouth without looking up at his wife, who is sending a text. I am struck with the profound difference between this place and the space in which I spent the last few weeks.

My wife and I arrived in Monterrey, Mexico on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We caught a cab from the airport, skirted the city, and began moving towards the towering limestone cliffs of El Potrero Chico.

We arrived at La Posada, a basic campground with a restaurant, communal kitchen and few small rooms for rent.  We dropped off our bags, quickly packed our gear, and walked up the road to get in a few routes before the sun set.  We hiked into one of the shaded canyons and enjoyed long stretches of fun face-climbing and routes littered with perfect limestone pockets.

When we got back at the campground, various people welcomed us warmly and introduced themselves. The group was diverse: people from throughout the United States, travelers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and beyond.  They were all gathered together in this little rural Mexican village tucked beneath the shadows of the enormous limestone towers, stretching some two thousand feet above us.

Our climbing trips typically involve long approaches, full packs, and lots of gear. In this way, El Potrero is unique: great cragging, short flip-flop-friendly approaches, paired with long bolted routes up to 23 pitches. It is not often that one is afforded the opportunity to climb a 15-pitch route and still have enough time in the day to walk into town to visit the local street market.  We fell into an easy rhythm, one that was typically unplanned and simple, yet always left us sore and smiling at the end of the day.

Soon after our arrival, we befriended a scraggly firefighter from Minnesota. He happily invited us to join him in an afternoon tradition: a large – immense, really – bowl of communal guacamole.  Each day, contributions would surface from various individuals or couples: endless avocadoes, onions, spices, limes, tomatoes, cucumbers. On occasion, the lone jicama would be added to the mix.

Evening Gathering

Sitting around a half broken metal Coca Cola table was an unlikely crew.  In addition to my wife and I, both classroom-based and outdoor educators, there were students on spring break sitting next to a climbing guide and a twenty-something couple that had been traveling for the last few years, a jovial Aussie who had left home two years ago and was off to Samoa in two days.  And there were others: a real estate broker, an environmental lawyer, a district attorney, a forest ranger, and a computer programmer.  And yet, despite our varied backgrounds, here we all were and through heaping mounds of fresh guac, we shared laughter, drinks, stories, and time.  Within days, we had created a unique community.

Though faces and landscapes may have been different, this is a community I’ve found in many places around the world: from deserts in Bolivia to the mountains of Switzerland, the campground at Indian Creek to sea cliffs of Acadia. These people all have slightly different perspectives, one that draws us together: an outlook that might be considered odd or crazy by some, but one that, to me, seems incredibly sane.  They are a unique group of souls joined in their attempt to uncover the extraordinary in this life.

Back home, I refocus on my computer…I smile, striving to remove the distinction, the separation, of these two worlds. If I pay attention, I discover these kindred spirits wherever I look, whether over a bowl of guacamole in a foreign country or even in a busy coffee shop on a Tuesday morning.