Type: Sport, 850 ft (258 m), 9 pitches
FA: Paco Medina
Page Views: 286 total · 12/month
Shared By: John Serjeantson on Jan 23, 2023
Admins: Rudy Peckham, Ricardo Orozco, Mauricio Herrera Cuadra

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Description Suggest change

This is an alternative way to start Reinas y Reyes by skipping the crux pitches via a gully on the west side of the ridge. Overall I found the route to be 1 star with only two fun, clean pitches. But the novelty of climbing such an aesthetic feature is 4 stars. 

The gully goes at a very loose 5.4 for about two pitches toward the ridge notch. You then contour right (staying on the west side of the ridge) and climb up two small steps, scrambling over to the start of the arete and meeting up with Reinas y Reyes. From there, we did 7 pitches (linking 2 of them) to the summit. 

It sounds like most people solo the gully although there is hardware in there to use for protection (though it sounds like it's intermittently chopped). There are only a couple short crux sections of 5.4. We solo'd it, opting to go one at a time to avoid possibly pulling loose rock off on top of the other. With this, we may as well have just roped up and belayed since it took as much time. I would recommend that, as it is very technically easy but it feels a bit like bomb defusal trying to find solid holds and feels like it's impossible to guarantee you're on solid holds the whole way. But choose your risk tolerance, it is often simul solo'd. The last short step also has mandatory moves on a large, sketchy detached flake but you have good solid holds above so that felt like there was a bit more of a chance you could hold on if it peeled.

After meeting up with the arete, you'll find a bolt with a fixed cable leading to an anchor on the west face. You can follow this to start on route. This is what we did and the first moves above are probably the crux of that pitch but I would simply just start from the arete if I were to climb it again to avoid the hassle + rope drag. 

From here I would say reference the full route page or Rakkup but neither descriptions really matched fully with what we climbed. This is what we did:

P1: Climb through blocky, sometimes vegetated terrain. Mostly scrambling with a couple small trickier sections. Ends at a hanging anchor above and to the left of a ledge. I simply put myself on a long clove and tied a fig 8 on a bight to belay directly off of so I didn't have to hang here. (Felt 5.8/5.9 if going off the intended anchor, 5.6 otherwise). Be very careful not to pull blocks off on the people hiking to Cueva de la virgin down below.

P2+P3: We then easily linked two pitches with a 70m through more blocky rock that got slightly less vegetated and through some fun corner features. Alpine draws were very helpful here. (5.8ish)

P4: A very short pitch up more blocky terrain to reach the start of cleaner looking headwall above (5.7/5.8). Another awkwardly placed anchor at the right edge above the ledge but an extended tether will let you belay standing up.

P5: The first of the harder pitches. Climb up the slab to reach the steeper corner above. Can stray not far from the bolt line to make it a tad easier. Though I followed the line directly and felt it wasn't too bad. (10-)

P6: This pitch is listed as 5.9 in other spots but both my partner and I felt it was the crux at 10+, when compared to EPC. We both fell/hung on the crux moves but cruised through the previous pitch. Traverse left off the belay then up moving through several small overlaps with some fun body positioning. I found the bolting led me to the right up more compact, featureless rock but the easier moves were slightly to the left. Would not be possible to aid without a stick clip but you can hang mid-sequence. After pulling the final bulge, you'll be below a small roof with a corner to the left and right. Not sure why the route didn't go up one of these corners but instead it goes hard right over the arete to the north face, up some chossy rock in a crack then onto a ledge. Again, another super janky anchor and sounds like the intended route has you going to the summit as one full pitch, though I would imagine the rope drag would be heinous. 3 bolts with chainlinks and washers (the slackline bolts?) sitting on the ledge and two very spaced out bolts on the face above the ledge. Can use a long cord to connect these together or the rope itself. I used a long cord and belayed off my harness sitting on the ledge with the rope redirected to the closest bolt and clipped myself into one of the slackline chains. 

P7: Seems like this could be easily scrambled on the short ridge directly above but there was a bolt on the face to the right which protected some more easy, technical moves, then a short scramble to the summit anchor. 

Descent: Follow the trail on the backside to the saddle between Pico Pirineos (where you summitted) and Pico Independencia (the one you can see lookers left to Pirineos from the road) until you meet a 3 way junction with a trail heading up to the summit of PI and another to the right heading down and then left below the summit of PI. Follow the latter to the first rap anchor, which is essentially directly below PI's summit. From here make one rappel, with a 70m we didn't reach the next anchor and had to do some easy down-scrambling to reach the next anchor, tie knots. With a 60m looked like you'd have to downclimb some easy slab (was told it was 5.6 downclimbing). The next anchor is a threaded chain and threaded webbing. Would not be a bad idea to bring some extra webbing, though the chain seems bomber. From this next rappel you'll be on the ground of a hanging garden on the backside (south face) of the massif. Follow the trail down until you reach the gully, do not follow the gully (easily mistaken as the trail itself) but look for the trail and a cairn. Follow this to the next rock wall on the edge of the hanging garden with a very old, sketchy rappel anchor and a newer chain anchor. From here you have 3 rappels down the south side to the ground. I believe we followed a chimney feature for the first rappel, then followed straight down (lookers left) of the chimney (you can follow the chimney and easily find the anchor, but then the second rappeler should go down the face to avoid stuck ropes), then an obvious rappel to the ground. From here a surprisingly pleasant hike on solid slabs in the dry river bed looking at the towering south face of Independencia will bring you to a road. From here, we went left following the road to the ridgeline with a large concrete structure without a way down. We then followed braided trails down the slope into the compound below, crawling under glass covered openings in the fences. Otherwise, you can probably contour lookers right around the compound to avoid that.

Location Suggest change

Park here:

25.64913966952254, -100.46110492523715

Walk to the far end of the lot and follow the dry riverbed until you reach a loose looking gully that will take you up to Cueva de la Virgen. This is a popular day hike for people from Monterrey so you should be able to find good information from somewhere like AllTrails. The cave is closer than it looks, likely a 20-30 min hike. You will reach an initial smaller cave but keep scrambling up to get to the large cave above. Unlike the integral route, you don't start on this face. You need to hike THROUGH the cave to the other side, reaching a gully leading out from the other side of the cave. Continue hugging the wall on the right looking at the ridgeline above, you'll find an obvious rock gully without as much vegetation in it as others. This is the start.

Protection Suggest change

Bolts (We had 24 draws on us in case to link but did not use nearly this much. Something like a rack of 16 would allow you to link likely and 12 is probably fine without linking).

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