el potrero chico

Frank Madden, author of the guidebook to El Potrero Chico, offers up his two cents on the critical gear you'll need for a trip across the border to experience big-wall sport-climbing at its finest!

Monterrey, Mexico is just a waypoint for most American climbers on their way to El Potrero Chico. But for the local youth of the city---navigating a society rife with drugs, gangs and other ills---life is far more complex than scaling limestone walls.

This child soldier problem in Mexico has huge concerns, impacts that climber Rory Smith recognized as significant while working on his master’s thesis in international development in Monterrey, Mexico, (45 minutes from Potrero Chico) in 2013. While conducting research centered around gangs and organized crime, Smith had a thought: Could rock climbing help these youth?