Nearly Home

My two months out here is coming to an end, on Tuesday I catch the bus down to Malaga to meet Yvette for a week in El Chorro then fly back to damp England. It’s been a good two months, although there has been rain I am still to miss a day’s climbing because if it. There definitely has been plenty of sun, most of the time we’ve headed swiftly to the shaded crags once warmed up.

Me at Orihuela

As with all trips it’s the people you meet who make it, it would have been a hell of a lot duller without Paul, Dan, Ryan, Scott and Elly. I’ve been taken to some incredible areas and climbed some incredible routes. Paul Thorburn who developed the Pirates of the Caribbean area below Toix T.V gave me a personal introduction to the area and I was able to enjoy some incredible pitches on immaculate rock.

Ryan at Orihuela

Although the climbing and company has been magnificent times here have been pretty frustrating, as someone quite unpleasantly put it to me yesterday, I’m just here to tag along. Every day climbing has generally been to belay someone on their project, or to make up numbers to go to a crag they want to go to. I’ve still not had a bad day’s climbing, but out of two months here I’ve only been to one crag at my behest, and that nearly got cancelled as well. In a way this doesn’t matter, I’ve achieved nearly all my goals, redpointing a few 7c, onsighting 7b+ and hopefully hitting my millage goal with Yvette next week. The only disappointing thing is I never managed to see so many other incredible crags, this region has so much to offer, but I feel I’m leaving having barely touched the surface.

Would I come back? Definitely, there is too much to do here not to come back.

Learning to Redpoint

I've been here a good few weeks now, getting up in the morning doing some cleaning then rest of the day climbing. There is a good community of strong climbers in the area, so haven’t been short of people to go climbing with. The main problem is trying to get back on the projects I’ve opened up across Costa Blanca. I had a good session on a few 7c, but hadn’t been able to get back to the crags to redpoint them.

Working the lower crux of Batacazo

For me redpointing is a whole new game, outside I’ve always tended to go for the onsight, and when that failed get it second go. Now I’m trying to climb routes I could never onsight and having to be very methodical in my climbing. Bolt to bolting the route, working the moves, getting the foot holds perfect the clipping positions right then going for the link. My main objective was an awesome 7c at Los Pinos called Batacazo, it was the line of the crag, a series of perfect pockets leading up the overhang for 18m. I could do the moves, but on the first redpoint cold fingers stopped me dead, I couldn’t feel the hold or clip the bolts and had to take the fall, unpumped and frustrated.

Me on Tai Chi at Olta

It took over a week before I could get a lift up there, so the pressure was on, not knowing when I could get back on it I had to do it that day. I warmed up bolt to bolt on the route, tearing a chunk out of a finger and making another finger go numb in the process. More worryingly I was shattered at the top, out of breath and knackered, it didn’t bode well for the redpoint attempt. But on the redpoint it could not have gone better, each moved flowed into the next, every foot went exactly where I wanted it, I reached the brief rest post cruxes relaxed and with a mild pump in my forearms, I locked off the under-cling and clipped the chain and had the route in the bag. I even managed to jump on the 7c+ next to it and link it together in two halfs and fell off the last move trying to onsight the 7b next to them all. So if I ever get back to the crag they will have to be finished as well.

Yvette and Jon do Spain

Really haven’t been very good at keeping this blog going over the summer. My main excuse is I can only keep one thing going at a time and I’ve devoted myself to trying to write a book. I say trying, well I have written one. Whether it’s good enough to get published is another matter. But guess will just have to wait and see.

Valencia Center

Since I last posted, Yvette and I finally got our house. It was a fight, but in the end we moved in at the end of July. We’ve been busy getting it all homely and just enjoying having our own place. I’ve built a training wall in the garage so I can get cranking and get a good winter in the rock. That was the plan, but within a week of it being finished I tore my main tendon in my forearm pulling to hard, on too small a holds on too hard a move. It’s now nearly 8 weeks since I did that and I’m only slowly getting back into climbing.

Trying to think back for the last five months to what I have been doing. I guess one highlight was two weeks in Spain with Yvete, having our annual climbing trip (I couldn’t climb much thanks to tendon). It was a good little adventure, mostly I covered the same area as I did with Steve back in April. The main difference this time was I had a bit more money to spend, so we ate out a bit more.

Cuenca

Eating out in Spain is a bit of a lottery, the first roll of the dice is whether the restaurant chooses to open, and if it does whether it’s before my British stomach can’t wait and more and goes else were. The next roll is if the food is any good or just microwaved for you. Finally it’s the lottery of whether you can actually translate the menu or if they have an English Menu they’ve translated correctly.

All this leads to a few interesting meals. Breadcrumbs with Ham and Tomatoes, is just a plate of fried breadcrumbs, sorry Yvette for not finding Tripe in the dictionary, guess I’ll eat that one, but we did manage to translate and not order Pigs ear soup. We did have many interesting meals and probably spent more time eating than we did climbing.

Yvette's First Font 6A

Other than our culinary adventures in Spain there isn’t much to report, Yvette bouldered her first font 6A, I climbed all the easy things I could. We went to Valencia and I got Cityatitis as usual and then we flew home. We did learn that mixing climbing and culture doesn’t really work. It’s one thing to climb most the day then sit on the beach and swim in the sea. Another to climb most the day, then walk up steep hills in medieval towns and try and look around museums, the later doesn’t really work. Promise to get an update out after Christmas.

Gorge de Tarn

We finished off in Margalef with a playful day on an amazing 7c then down to the coast and Raul and Sabina. As always Spanish hospitality was at its best, an amazing meal, good wine, a hot shower (the first of the trip) and a soft bed; if only we could have stayed longer. But the drive to France was beckoning and up we headed, the further towards France we got the harder it rained, by the time we went over the Pyrenees it was torrent, giving the van a well needed clean.

It eased off as we came past Millau and into the valley, parking up beneath a huge rock roof which kept the remainder of the downpour off us. As often happens we pumped into another couple of Brits who we had climbed with in Siurana and Margalef. Bob and Tash, who I also knew from my days climbing in Portland are just wrapping up their trip as well, slowly heading back through France to England. Other British climbers who we met in Spain are also likely to pop in during the next few days.

Gorge de Tarn is quite an amazing place, a crystal clear river runs through the centre and the cliffs rise up vertically and overhanging on either side. We only climb on one side, on routes that are often long and draining. I’ve been working on my stamina, so working on doing multiple 7a’s and 7b’s in a day. Sometimes the 7a’s get climbed onsight, but more often than not my stamina fails me and then my exhausted arm’s struggle to get me to the chains at the top. I would love to project something harder here, but without the stamina that is unlikely.

The trip is now coming to an end, within the week (depending on when I get this blog up) I will back in England with Yvette the Puppy and everyone else. I will be relieved when it’s over, I still am amazingly psyched to climb and climb and would love to stay here in the Tarn and get good on routes. But many other parts of the trip have taken their toll of me and I am ready for home.

Margalef

We left Siurana and travelled across the hills to Margalef. Although Siurana was amazing for the scenery and being able to watch Steve McClure onsight his way through an 8b and and 8b+ in a day I needed something that suited me a bit more. The village of Margalef must rate as one of the quietest in Spain, a half empty store, closed refuge and the odd trickling fountain. But we’re not staying in the village but up a wiggling track with steep roofs of rock powering their way over your head as you drive through. This is what we came here for, short steep and powerful routes in deep pockets.
Waiting to Climb
The rock is a limestone conglomerate, so limestone packed with pebbles and stones, where these fall out you have your perfect lipped pockets to pull on, where they haven’t a slopey crimp or future foothold to use. The other thing which is different in Margalef is the wind! We enjoy light warm breezes throughout the day which stop us overheating on the routes. As dusk comes down these are replaced by gales which rip through the valley, changing direction every few minutes to shake the van and toss our chairs across the campsite if we’re not sat in them.
Charlie and Gillian warming up
Moving away from Margalef and back to my last post, I think I may have been guilty for using my blog and this keyboard to vent my frustrations, sometimes on a long trip when it’s just the two of you it can feel like your only outlet, hence the bit of re-editing on my last post. But moving on, Margalef might not be as beautiful as Siurana but the climbing here has cheered me up, we have enjoyed every route we have been on from pumpy 6b warm-ups to very steep pocket pulls on 7b’s and 7c’s. I still have not mastered the art of redpointing a route where you practice the moves before linking them together from the ground up; but I’m making progress. One thing you do notice on the routes here is how much your body gets pumped by them, even a warm up, although none of the moves are harder than any other place we are climbed we find our forearms screaming with lactic acid within a few clips.
We’re finding that we are strong enough for almost anything, but just lack the stamina, I cruised my way through the crux of a 7b+ only to fail a clip from the end as my stamina failed and I couldn’t cling onto the easier climbing to finish. At the moment we are just trying to climb everything we see, we have a few goes on some of the harder stuff but if it doesn’t go quickly we move on and find more entertainment.
Ben at full stretch in Margalef
We have two more days of pocket pulling to go before moving up to see Raul and Sabina near Barcelona then onwards to France for the final week and a bit of the trip.

Siurana

Siurana; we’re parked up beneath an ancient ruined castle, its parapets straddling the small rock outcrop that makes up Siurana village, its complete with Keep, domed roofs and a tunnel underneath to sneak in by. Siurana is famous for its waves of overhanging rock and one of the world’s first 9a, ‘La Rambla’. We came here so psyched after our time in Cuenca and rest up on the beach. But so far Siurana has been nothing but disappointment. We warmed up in the sun on our first day and quickly realised that further climbing in the heat would be impossible, so we chilled till the shade covered the cliffs. We warmed up once more and I pulled onto one of the classic 7a+’s. I have nothing positive to say about the route, the bolts where all over the place, you clipped off barn door potential side pulls when there was an obvious jug below and a few feet afterwards which would have made better position for the bolt. I fought on till the 6^th clip and was then faced with a 4m run out on strenuous ground and lowered off. It put me in such a foul mood I also bailed on the next 7a, also meant to be a classic of the area.

British Van's parked up in Siurana

I promised myself a clear head and positive outlook for the next day. We warmed up on one of the most enjoyable route so far then leapt into Bitec de Biceps a 7b+ on very steep ground. I got through the first crux and then came off above the second clip trying to dig my fingers into a shallow pocket. I gave it a few more goes before lowering down for a rest. Steve pulled on and flashed it, going through some obviously run and sketchy terrain near the top. I realised that if I failed to get it then I risked leaving at least £50 of gear in the route as a present for the next climber, the bolts being too far apart to bolt to bolt it. I had to call it a day. I am now gutted that we left Cuenca, there were so many lines that were perfect for me.