Beauty New 200-metre 5.13c in Mexico
Jacob Cook and Drew Marshall add another new route, and the hardest to date, on La Popa
Jacob Cook and Drew Marshall have opened another route on La Popa in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. El Visitante is a seven pitch 200-metre 5.13c, which makes it the hardest route on the wall.
The first hard route on La Popa was El Gavilan 5.13a 9p in 1997 by Kevin Gallaghar and Jeff Jackson. The second ascent was in February 2013 by Alex Honnold and Josh McCoy. Cook and Tony McLane made the third ascent, but didn’t free every pitch – read about their ascent here.
There are several other routes on La Popa, including Spanish Harlem 5.11+ A0 11p (FA: Marcus Garcia, Alvino Pon, Rodney Blakemore, 1998), Como el Agua 5.12b 6p (FA: Dakota Walz solo, 2022), Super Blood Wolf 5.11 8p (FA: Cook, McLane / FFA: Marshall and JP Thomas, 2019), and Los Naguales 5.13b 10p (FA: Cook, Marshall, 2022). Also last year, Canadians Bronwyn Hodgins and Kelsey Watts freed El Gavilan – read about their ascent here.
Cook and Marshall have teamed up for several hard new routes in Squamish, including Balance 5.13b 4p, Call of the Siren 5.14a 5p and The Drop Bear 5.13a 9p.
El Visitante
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