Cañón de la Huasteca, Arte de Malaria and Parque Nacional Basaseachic, free repeat of Subiendo el Arcoiris. On March 13 Eliza Kubarska and I made a rare repeat of the free-climbing testpiece, Subiendo el Arcoiris (Climbing the Rainbow; 300m, 5.13b (8a) max), in Basaseachic National Park in Chihuahua. We climbed the route in redpoint style after a short preparation period. The climb has fragile rock, and some holds on the original line have broken off. We had to find detours on pitches 3,4, and 7, but the climb is beautiful with a delicate breeze blowing from the waterfall, and we had a constant rainbow hanging behind our backs.

Also during the trip Curt Love (U.S.) and Laurent Antichant (France) almost freed the route, with only one fall, on the 5.12d second pitch.

Afterward we moved to the Guitarritas section of Cañón de la Huasteca, Monterrey, relatively close to El Potrero Chico, to find our own virgin wall in the place that the Huichol Indians consider the center of the universe. We opened a line that we called Arte de Malaria, in part because Eliza was hospitalized with malaria after a January trip in Chiapas, but also because everybody undergoes his own “malaria“ to survive.

Bolting ground-up, we opened the line through eight days in March. Our route is 300m long, 5.12c (7b+) max, and 10 pitches: 5.10c, 5.1 lb, 5.12b, 5.9, 5.12b, 5.12b, 5.12a, 5.12c, 5.10c, 5.10c.

David Kaszlikowski, Poland