Hueco Tanks Rock Ranch - Days 81 thru 83

Josh in the round room
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Our next stop was outside of Santa Fe, at the Hueco Roch Ranch, next to Hueco Tanks State Park.  Hueco Tanks is known world wide for its bouldering - bouldering, as we have learned, is climbing without ropes.  Have no fear, it's done on smaller rock (ie boulders) with spotters and crash pads, so when you fall (there is no "if" in bouldering - if you don't fall, you're not doin' it right) you don't get hurt.  The problem with bouldering is the rating scale.  Okay, so brief run down on terms:

Aaaarrrrg
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Class 1 - walking up a hill

Class 2 - walking up a steeper, rockier hill

Class 3 - scrambeling - using hands and feet to climb, but no ropes, and no real danger of falls being lethal

Class 4 - same as class 3, but where falls can be lethal; this is that kind of stuff where you really wish you had climbing gear

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Class 5 - freeclimbing; climbing without aid, except as safety backup

Class 6 - aid climbing - think of those old school mountain guys with pic axes scaling mountains

Bouldering has its own category, not in these classes, called the "V" scale.  So with climbing, a 5.1 is a super easy climb, lots of easy hand and feet holds and not all the way vertical.  5.7 - 5.9 is beginner, 5.10 - 5.12 is intermediate, 5.13 - 5.15 is advanced/expert.  Bouldering starts at V 0...except that V 0 corrosponds to a 5.10 in difficulty level.  So basically, we weren't quite ready to try bouldering since I can't climb at that level yet and Josh is just starting to.

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The first day we went climbing and did another multi pitch climb, this time to 350 ft, then rapelled down, which was awesome.  Then Josh completed another 5.10 climb.  The second day we tried bouldering.  The first bouldering "problem" (in climging its a "route" or "pitch" that you climb, in bouldering its a "problem" cause basically you are focusing on a difficult section of rock that you are trying to figure out) was pretty cool - it was a round "room" that you climb down into, and there are holds in the wall that you climb around.  The second problem was pretty hard, but Josh finally (and exhaustedly)  nailed it.

Almost there...
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So we weren't exactly ready for Hueco Tanks, but we will DEFINATELY be back!