Hueco has been mostly open for the last 3 years or so. As usual, in order to climb in the park, you have to go through the typical American bullshit rigmarole of booking and buying a ticket for each day you want to climb. These passes are avaliable only for climbing on North mountain, and only a certain number are avaliable each day. If you want to climb on east or west mountain, or the east spur maze, you need to book a trip with a guide which is a further expense. Obviously, this assumes that you have endured the 'orientation lecture' at the ranger station, where you watch a film telling you to suck eggs (ie: don't leave litter, don't shit in the park, don't stomp on plants, don't interfere with the wildlife - although some of it would probably kill you anyway, and so on)
What we found was that if you visit in US college holidays, all the students book all the places on North mountain, regardless of if they use them or not. This means that if you haven't pre-booked a pass, you have to wait until mid-day to see how many lazy bastards haven't turned up to use their block-booked passes. (E.g: US student takes a 2 week break to Hueco, and book a place on North mountain every day of their trip. After one day they are trashed and take 2 rest days, without telling the rangers that they no longer need a pass for their 2 rest days. Meanwhile, everybody else has to wait all morning untill the rangers decide that the lazy sods aren't going to show, and then they reissue the passes to you.
Apologies for the rant, but this level of beaurocracy really pisses me off. Hueco is one of the World's best bouldering areas, but its located in the wrong country......and now they will finger-print you when you enter the US of A. Go to Rocklands, thats my advice, and leave the Yanks to drown in their rules and regulations!
