Boulder and beautiful

In bouldering lingo, a climbing route is called a “problem''. Some problems in Hueco Tanks State Historic Site in Texas are tougher than others.

Mine was an overhang pocked with depressions. No need for a 5-inch-thick pad to soften my landing, I thought. After all, I was only a few feet off the ground.

I clung to the granite until my grip on a thin ledge failed and I fell to a flat, slanting rock below, landing on my back on the desert floor.

Privileged climber

My climbing partners for the day — a group of from Perth and climbing junkies from Colorado — barely looked up at the sound of my thud. Falling from boulders is part of the fun. It's a privilege.

This 860-acre park — a protrusion of sun-burnt boulders in the Chihuahuan desert east of El Paso — ranks among the top two or three bouldering sites in the world.

Since the sport's popularity began to surge about 10 years ago, bouldering enthusiasts have descended on Hueco (pronounced Way-co) Tanks like ants to a picnic.

Pictorial relief

But there is more to Hueco Tanks than climbing.

The rocks are adorned with more than 2,000 pictographs and petroglyphs from American Indians who have been visiting the area since 8000BC.

Thus the problem for park officials: How do you preserve historic Indian rock art while accommodating climbers from as far away as Europe and Australia?

In mid-November, just as temperatures in West Texas were dropping to comfortable levels, I flew to El Paso to experience the park and see whether such divergent groups of visitors could coexist on this tiny island of pitted rock.

The park appears as a stony oasis, festooned with juniper and oak trees.

The park headquarters, a stucco building at the entrance, is where I started my visit, making reservations to join a rock-climbing tour.

Corey Dwan, a guide, was leading six climbers from Colorado and Australia into East Mountain. He agreed to let me tag along.

These were experienced climbers and travellers who talked about Hueco Tanks the way surfers extol the virtues of Oahu's North Shore.

Taking on the challenge

When we arrived at our first bouldering spot, a place called the “Warm Up Roof'', I understood why they called the routes “problems''.

Climbers do not scramble up a rock face on a whim. They study the pocks and indentations with the thoughtfulness of a mathematician. They plan each manoeuvre. And once they get on the rocks, they fall. Repeatedly.

The falling bodies were cushioned by 5-inch-thick pads called “crash pads''.

Rock climbing and bouldering are different activities. I have scaled a few rocks but I would classify myself as a novice.

Unlike rock climbers, who use harnesses and anchor ropes, bouldering enthusiasts climb 20 to 25 feet at the most, using only their hands and feet.

No pain, no game

Near the “Warm Up Roof'', the climbers took turns on a problem that ends with a steep pitch about 20 feet above the ground.

The climbers cheered one another on and howled with disappointment when someone failed. And the consequences can be painful.

When Scott Koehler, a software engineer from Denver, made it to the V-4 pitch, his hand slipped out of a deep depression. He landed on the cushion and, with a pained expression, held up his hands.

The rock had ripped two slabs of skin from his fingers. The injury is so common that climbers have a name for it — “flapper''.

Everyone was having a blast — climbing problems, quoting lines from the HBO series Flight of the Conchords and blasting techno rock from a portable digital player.

A legendary battle and escape, which took place around 1839, is depicted in one of the most famous examples of rock art at Hueco Tanks.

The Kiowas — about 20 Indians on a mission to raid a settlement near El Paso — were confronted by Mexican soldiers. The raid had failed and death seemed certain.

The Kiowas retreated to the Hueco Tank boulders and, for several days. Most of the Kiowas escaped by climbing a tree-root system.

Art vandalised

The painting of wounded Indians and a giant tree-root system is displayed on what looks like an immense rock amphitheatre. I saw it on an art tour with eight other visitors on my second day at the park.

The scene was defaced in the 1970s by graffiti vandals. But Hueco Tanks is decorated with hundreds of other paintings and etchings.

We passed several concrete and stone dams that were built when developers tried to turn this stretch of desert into a resort with lakes and hotels.

The dams were meant to store water for swimming pools, which is why the word “tanks'' was added to the park's name. But at the urging of historians and others, the county halted the development plans and turned it over to the state of Texas in 1969.

After finishing the two-hour tour, I planned to see the famed Mushroom Boulder and try uncovering rock art on my own.

Mushroom Boulder was a stone wedge that looked like a huge problem for any serious climber.

Venturing on my own

I came across three army medics who were about to tackle a problem known as “small potatoes''.

I asked them to spot me while I tried the problem. The climbing was easy.

I felt proud of my feat but it was nothing compared with my excitement, when I found an opening under two building-size boulders and spotted a red design on the rocks about 15 feet above me.

I climbed to a shelf where American Indians had painted a red bird.

A few feet above that, I spotted a painting of a mask with a scowl. From my perch, I could see the East Mountain, glowing gold in the light of the setting sun.

What was there to scowl about?