Last night I worked till around midnight (editing Mick Tighe's voice) which is kind of early for me normally. But I didn’t get to sleep and so was a complete mess when the alarm went off at 7 to belay Alicia at Laboratori. I belayed until noon and felt so sleepy I decided not to even climb.
As we packed the car I changed my mind and decided to have a play on Photo-Shot 8b. After a couple of ridiculous tries where I first fell off the hardest move by fumbling the hold, and then fell off the easiest move by completely missing the jug, I got it done in full roasting hot sun. This was not a very professional performance. But it was a good fight nonetheless.
Lesson. Get your work done early, go to bed. Wake up with a functioning brain.
Pleased to redpoint Aitzol 8c. Definitely my first 8c warm-up!
After a long drive from Magic Wood we arrived in Catalunya feeling a bit tired. I had a bit of realisation that going from pulling on for a couple of seconds on a Font 8C to trying to do stamina routes in Margalef was maybe not going to be easy, especially as I still couldn’t pull on pockets properly after straining a lumbrical in Magic Wood.
My goal for the week was not too ambitious. All I wanted to get was revenge on Aitzol (soft 8c). In late 2013 I was here for a week with Alicia. We’d had the trip booked for ages and in the interim period I needed to get my second ankle surgery and the date for that fell just over two weeks before the trip. Not ideal. I said I would still go and just do what I could - probably just belay and feel sorry for myself.
I arrived in Margalef still barely able to walk 100 yards and still taking antibiotics for a painful wound infection. On the first day I was almost in tears just walking from the car 100 metres to buy the guidebook. I limped up a 200m approach and just belayed Alicia and popped painkillers.
After that the tide turned on that particular recovery. And quickly. The next day I did one 6c. The next a 7a+. The next an 8a redpoint. Then on the final day I got 7c+ onsight, 8a+ redpoint and almost managed to redpoint Aitzol 8c.
I fell just after the crux but couldn’t really make the most of the heel hook rest and couldn’t do any drop knees. It was fantastic to leap back trough the grades day after day and switch from delicate surgical patient to rock climber again. I knew that my next time in Margalef I would be straight back to try and finish Aitzol.
I had a couple of tries in awful conditions and although the moves were no problem, I was getting pumped after ten seconds on the rock. But after a rest day the rock was drier and I returned and started up it straight away, opting to just work the moves a bit for my warm-up. I arrived at the heel hook rest feeling quite good, so decided to continue. Next thing I was through the crux. I was definitely feeling quite warmed up by then.
I climbed all the way to the anchor without really getting that pumped. At the start of the trip I bought a silly Santa hat in Barcelona in prep for Christmas family silliness. We a pact that if I fell off a 6c or failed to get overlapping halves on Aitzol, or if Alicia said ‘take’ on lead, we’d have to wear the Santa hat for the next three routes.
After my 8c ‘warm-up’ I was chuffed when Alicia announced that I’d earned full immunity from the Santa hat for the rest of the trip. With my project done in the first ten minutes of the session, we headed off for a brew and then got on Llamps i Trons (8c+/9a post hold break). I certainly wont be climbing that in our last couple of days here. But I think I have a new project to return to Margalef for.
A lovely day filming Alicia with the drone on her favourite run in Serra de Montsant.
Alicia enjoying the last morning in Magic Wood before the monster drive to Catalunya.
After a summer of climbing a lot of slabs, I’ve been climbing for the last two weeks in the giant roofs of Margalef. Here’s a wee clip of climbing and 8b and 8c (might be 8c+ now after I broke a crucial hold) in the roof of Sector Finestra. These are definitely not slabs!
Part of the fun of climbing here right now is it’s good therapy for an injury I picked up recently. More on this over on my Online Climbing Coach blog here.
For the past three weeks or so, I have been just climbing and not doing anything else for the first time in a looooong time. I’ve been soaking up the rest time and starting to get back to feeling normal after the whirlwind of the last few months.
I’m in Siurana (Spain) right now, climbing limestone. It always takes some time for mind and body (mostly the skin on my middle two fingers!) to adjust to this alien rock type again. On the first couple of days I just took in some classics like Kalea Borroka 8b+, Migranya 8b and a flash of La Cara no Miente 8a+. Since then I have been heading over to Margalef and soon found myself staring the belay of an 8c+ in the face on redpoint. But I hesitated, feeling I was out of gas and came off. That was a shame since heavy rain the next day flooded the river and made the crag inaccessible for several more days.
Always after climbing big projects like Echo Wall, I have to take quite some time to figure out if I still want to be climbing at all. That’s not to say I’ve ever felt that I don’t want to, but after such a big experience I think it’s normal to have some months of figuring out where you stand and what you want to do next.
After I did Rhapsody in 2006 I got pretty psyched to do a lot of training and increase my level a bit. I already had Echo Wall in the back of my head, but the main reason was just because I enjoy training. I am feeling that again right now, especially as the last month’s training seems to have had a good effect on my level.
I have hard projects on my list in bouldering, and winter climbing already, but not really any in trad or sport climbing. In these disciplines I’ll need to travel a bit, and see what comes my way. That will be fun! As soon as I’m back, the ice tools will be out and I’ll be in the cave getting strong on axes for the big yin.
After the flood
The dam at Margalef having it’s work cut out
We made an impressive dam across the swollen river with a bit of Scottish caber tossing from Michael and myself and got back to Cova Soliada for another shot at the 8c+, Sin Domesticar (a Dani Andrada route from earlier this year). After two flood enforced days rest, I was feeling in good shape and dispatched this on my first try, with possibly over a minute on the bat hang at the lip of the roof. My toes are getting stronger. Here is a wee youtube of this:
After that I spent some time tussling with another 8c, L’Espiadonis, which I tried to redpoint with a totally duff sequence several times. Once I gave it some respect and worked out a decent method, it only slapped me one more time with a fall tickling the finishing jug before allowing me to climb it:
It’s been good so far to spend time consolidating 8c and 8c+ and doing some more routes quickly, for a while. I needed to do this just to see what it was like again. I don’t get a chance to do that in Scotland at all because I’ve done all the hard routes and the projects are all sick hard. But perhaps out of habit or more probably personality, I have confirmed for myself once again that I am happiest in long term project mode, on proper hard routes.
Alicia climbing with the aid of the car’s full beam
So I had gone back to trying things in the 9th level for the rest of my time, but when Dave Redpath left without finishing an unbelievable roof at Margalef that he had bolted earlier in the trip, it was time to back onto seek and destroy mode. Dave reckoned it would go for me but sounded hard above the lip of the cave. After a couple of hurried work sessions I set off and swung through the roof to arrive at an uncomfortable bat hang in a great position on the lip. The hang was a toe-torque rather than passive jam, so after a minute I found that my feet were too tired to let me pull back up to the holds. Doh! What the hell am I going to do now? After a few sets of crunches and pathetic swings at the pockets, I resorted to clambering up my own legs to regain upper body contact and get on with the crux. Happily the unintended extra stay in upsidedown land, and extra arm swinging helped shift the pump in my arms and a grunt around the lip got me quickly to the belay and my first Spanish first ascent – Knuckleduster 8b.
Imitating the bats that live in the roof crack of Knuckleduster 8b, during the first ascent.
