Cruising for Huecos

Hueco Tanks was unknown to climbers until the summer of 1975 when Mike Head, a talented young climber, stumbled on the area. With no local partners, Mike didn’t begin developing Hueco’s walls until 1978. Head, along with John McCall and Mark Motes, had the area entirely to themselves. The park restricted climbing from the beginning, with no bolting or climbing on the west face of North Mountain, the area’s most attractive cliff. Placing protection bolts was officially viewed as "rock defacement" so the trio, unwilling to be thwarted by rangers, adopted guerrilla tactics to climb and protect new routes up the crackless walls. Strategies using lookouts, decoy cars, and drilling at night were mostly successful but occasionally they were caught and fined. Once it became apparent that the climbers were not going to kill themselves, climbing was grudgingly accepted by park personnel. The park’s early routes reflect this period with sparse bolts and long runouts on routes like “Sea of Holes.”