El Diente is a huge, tooth-shaped monolith which—for as long as anyone can remember—has been the favorite hangout (literally) for Guadalajara’s rock climbers to gather and practice their skills. The Tooth is located only five kilometers north of the city’s Periférico or Ring Road and is just one rock among a veritable forest of monoliths nestled between the rustic villages of Río Blanco and San Estéban.
On a normal day the only sounds you hear at El Diente are the chirping of birds and the sighing of the wind and it’s hard to believe you are only a 17-minute drive from the roar of traffic on the always busy beltway.
But September 16, 2012 was different. Rock City rocked to loud pop music and bustled with visitors, as the Grand Finale of the Vive El Diente International Festival – celebrating the extraordinary natural beauty of these rock-covered hills and assuring its future as a protected area and park – kicked in.
As I sat writing in the shadow of a giant boulder, I could see tiny figures inching their way up distant spires while other climbers close to the ground swung from one handhold to another as they racked up points in a competition to be the best boulder climber of the festival.
Organizer Luis Medina told me the most popular of the 60 activities on offer at the festival were bouldering, trail running (by day and by night) and slacklining. “There’s everything from slide shows and yoga classes to ziplines,” he said.
I had heard of tightropes before but not the slackline. This, I discovered, is a long, flat piece of nylon webbing upon which talented people might not only walk, but bounce, jump and dance as well. One of the slackline experts at the festival was William Fuenmayor, national slackline champion of Venezuela, who ran a free “slackline clinic” throughout the three-day event for anyone interested in improving their skills on the thin nylon band.
Another champion honoring the festival with her presence was California’s Lisa Rands, said to be the best boulder climber in the world.
With so much emphasis on climbing, it is important to mention that El Diente is also a marvelous place for walking and the perfect spot for a family outing. This was proven on Saturday when a hike was announced to a place called Las Tinajas (The Pots) at the northern end of the rock-covered hills. This route is basically flat and skirts the base of Cerro El Diente for a kilometer and half, taking you through weirdly-shaped boulders and (in the rainy season), numerous bubbling brooks which you can easily hop over. Along the way, you’ll pass a gentle slope covered with what I call the Giant Bowling Balls. Finally, after a half-hour walk (an hour, if you stop to play with the butterflies and photograph the wildflowers) you come to Las Tinajas, which are picturesque “natural bathtubs,” an ideal place to take a dip in the cold mountain water before heading back to your car.
The high point of the festival was the last round of the bouldering competitions, with a huge crowd cheering on the best climbers who had to ascend a climbing wall set up for maximum difficulty. This was followed by the closing event in which several brave slackliners attempted to walk a high line stretched 40 meters above the ground between El Diente and another colossus, El Colmillo (The Fang).
“Was the festival a success?” I asked Oscar Gonzalez, one of the founders of Vive El Diente, whose aim is to protect, preserve and promote this extraordinary place. “We originally set up this festival because we were worried about a large housing development planned for the area around El Diente,” he said. “I’m happy to report that this event brought us together with those developers, who assured us they also want to see El Diente preserved as a well-maintained park, open to the public. The developers now plan to work with us and invest in this project and they even invited the festival-goers to camp on their property.”