Since commercial bouldering pads were unknown, I’d fashioned my own pad prior to the trip. It was only a couple inches thick, but it was better than nothing, and it protected me from the inevitable back-slapper that I repeatedly incurred at The Martini Roof. Other makeshift pads of the time were the duct-tape couch cushion and the classic tri-fold chaise lounge. That season there was even a team simul-carrying a futon mattress everywhere they went.
Hueco gets miserably cold in the winter once the sun goes down, and with such short days and cold nights, climbers had to find ways to rev it up after-hours. Fortunately, Pete’s hosted a roaring pallet fire every night. The crew of misfits would stand around drinking, smoking, and spraying about problems they sent, hadn’t sent, and the ones they needed to know about. In a scene reminiscent of a high-school kegger, duct-tape-patched hoodlums ran laps jumping over the fire, often screaming drunken obscenities.
Another popular nocturnal activity was a sojourn into the surreal Round Room, situated just inside the park. Its close proximity across the park fence from Pete’s made it a convenient nighttime hang when properly illuminated with lanterns. More than a few raging, tag-team pursuit tackle traverse comps were held in that circular syenite porphyry room.
An alternative nighttime journey included a quick hop over the border into the squalor of Juarez. That season the town was on maximum police readiness because a deranged serial killer had been on a slaughtering rampage of teenage prostitutes; we decided to stick to the Round Room. But this threat didn’t stop some climbers from going “abroad” in search of cheap Valium, tacos, and cervezas.
The quintessential Hueco experience changed forever in 1998. East and West Mountains, as well as the East Spur, where climbers once roamed and climbed without restriction, now required guides to access these problems. Despite the Internet rumors and media frenzy that heralded the “death of Hueco,” the park never “closed.” Provided that you’re willing to work within the system, access is still easy. The once-demolished vegetation is growing back, and the atmosphere is more tranquil thanks to limits on the number of daily visitors. While I was on a tour in 2005 with winter-resident “Arkansas Rick” Oliver, a Hueco veteran and now-guide, I saw killer new problems that were established only the season before, and classics from twenty years ago that I didn’t know existed. One thing that has changed, though, is how seriously climbers treat each day in the park compared with the “never-ending season” mentality of the golden age. “I’ve seen a real shift in the types of climbers coming to Hueco since my first visit fifteen years ago,” said Oliver. “The new boulderer kids are so much more serious when it comes to their vacations. They just don’t party as much!”
The volunteer guide system helps educate visitors (both climbers and other user groups) and control development, and limits the impact of climbers wandering around in the park. This program, which is largely coordinated and sponsored by the efforts of Rob Rice, has been hugely successful in working with Texas State Parks to improve climber access and awareness. If the guided thing just won’t work for you, North Mountain is still the way it used to be (provided that you’ve got a reservation; only seventy climbers are allowed there per day) and there’s a plethora of V-grades to keep you busy — but only after you’ve watched the park’s mandatory orientation video that explains who was there first, and what a “tank” is.

Another effect of the Hueco “closure” is more global. The dynamic bouldering community, upset with their loss of Mecca, exploded outward to other areas, and the bouldering revolution truly began. “I see the ‘closure’ of Hueco as having a huge influence on the growth of bouldering in America,” says bouldering connoisseur Wills Young. “It was because Hueco became ‘off-limits’ that climbers began searching out options around their own local climbing areas, searching for alternatives.”
“The process of seeking out new areas was led by climbers who had been going to Hueco for a week or two each winter, then coming home and realizing their local rocks could be just as fun to climb on,” recalls bouldering filmmaker Josh Lowell. “I think the main effect of the closure was that boulderers who’d been spending their entire winters in Hueco needed to find another wintering spot with plenty of rock, stable weather, and free or cheap camping. That’s when Bishop blew up.”
Hueco’s history records a distinct tilt in climbers’ focus, the birth of what we now recognize as modern bouldering. Everyone who was able to get there — including myself — had a subtle but direct impact on bouldering’s future. We left there enlightened. When the restrictions came, this unspent power caused a cataclysmic expansion of bouldering throughout the country, shooting new vitality to places such as the Southeast, the Shawangunks, and Bishop. While Hueco has morphed past its wild days when climbers roamed freely, the guide program and visitor limitations are preserving the park for future generations. I’m grateful to have participated in the golden age, but I’m just as psyched as always to return again this year and savor some of the planet’s finest problems.

Luke Laeser is the production coordinator and webmaster for Climbing. When his eyes aren’t on the road looking for the next choss-pile Mecca, he’s focused on the next corner of a rally-car course.