Elder y Hermana Hoffman: La Huasteca: Rock Climbing Heaven

"I never met a rock I didn't like." (Lincoln Hoffman)

La Huasteca is a huge, sheer, limestone rock face on the backside (western) Sierra Madre mountain range. Elder Lilywhite and his wife are serving in the West Mission offices and he is a mountain climber/rescuer, so he was dying to see a world class climbing area. Being the supportive bunch that we are, all the senior missionaries and the mission president & wife decided to drive out there on our preparation day and have a picnic.

Our first stop was on what we called the "rocky plains"--and we are not kidding when we say rocky. Try to imagine acres of land covered with these natural river rocks. A couple of miles into the park, someone convinced the President that he should go off of the road onto these rocks so we could check out the mountains up close. About 50 feet into the journey, his van sank down into the rocks and came to a dead stop. Everyone jumped out of both cars to see what we could do to help. Elder Lilywhite had brought along his very expensive climbing rope--you should have seen his face when we asked if we could use it to pull the van out of the rocks! With the car empty and a few old missionaries pushing, it slowly emerged from the sink hole. A new route was chosen with more success and off we went to the real mountains.

The following are "real" mountains:

Soon, on a foothill of a "real mountain" an odd collection of old people wearing name tags were found eating a picnic lunch in the greenest, most comfortable area we could find. In spite of there being no restrooms within 20 miles, the conversation was good and desserts were plentiful. What more could you want on an adventure?

As the old people partied, the younger generation kept trying to find a way to get to the top of the mountain. There was an actual rock climbing school giving lessons, as well as experienced climbers trying new routes.

GRANDKIDS: HOW MANY CLIMBERS CAN YOU FIND IN THE FOLLOWING 5 PICTURES?

#1 Climbing

#2 Climbing

#3 Climbing

#4 Climbing

#5 Climbing

It was a holiday, so there were hundreds of cars and dune buggies zipping up and down the dirt road. A few of them stopped to rest in the shade of a cave while others were busy filling up their trucks with rocks.

Rock Collectors: Are they building or selling?

As we prepared to leave the area we discovered that further along the road it is greener and quite scenic--but the road was washed out during the the hurricane of 2010, so we must postpone that part of the adventure. We will leave it to the horses and riders for the moment.