Hmmm, last time I wrote a blog post we were just leaving Spain. Now we're in Italy! I seemed to have skipped an entire country...
Excuses:
I've been meaning to write something for a while but:
a) no one particular event seemed to stand out at the time as the subject for a post
b) after nearly six months, living in the van has come to feel so normal that it doesn't seem worthy of comment
c) more geekily, (and probably the real reason for the lack of post) I discovered qPython for Android, so I can now mess about improving my programming EVERY EVENING, instead of just when I've managed to charge my laptop!
I've been meaning to write something for a while but:
a) no one particular event seemed to stand out at the time as the subject for a post
b) after nearly six months, living in the van has come to feel so normal that it doesn't seem worthy of comment
c) more geekily, (and probably the real reason for the lack of post) I discovered qPython for Android, so I can now mess about improving my programming EVERY EVENING, instead of just when I've managed to charge my laptop!
France was the second leg of the single-pitch sport climbing part of the trip. As Andy's already alluded to in his posts, in terms of climbing progress France probably wasn't as kind to us as Spain had been. We had a bit of bad luck (or was it bad planning?) with soaring temperatures and injury niggles getting in the way. Still, we visited quite a few cool places...
First few days:
We started off with a few days on the Ariege, on the French side of the Pyrenees. I had a fun couple of afternoons on a granite outcrop near Auzat. Out of curiosity, I tried to visit the Hypocras factory in Tarascon, where they make a medieval aperitif out of wine and spices, but it was 'Fermée Exceptionellement' on that particular afternoon...
We started off with a few days on the Ariege, on the French side of the Pyrenees. I had a fun couple of afternoons on a granite outcrop near Auzat. Out of curiosity, I tried to visit the Hypocras factory in Tarascon, where they make a medieval aperitif out of wine and spices, but it was 'Fermée Exceptionellement' on that particular afternoon...
The intended main event:
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| Cal on 'Les Culottes de ma Grandmere' |
We next headed to Gorge du Tarn, near Millau, where we'd intended to spend several weeks. The first week was great - we met up with two of Andy's Kilnsey friends, Rachel and Cal, and tried a variety of things in the Tarn itself, and at Le Boffi, a nearby crag we'd been to before. I'd never visited the Tarn properly before, and it's now definitely on my 'to come back to' list. It's a beautiful, atmospheric place, with amazing rock architecture. The climbing is quite special too - the normal routes are spectacular enough in their own right, but there are several enormous 70-80m routes specifically bolted to be climbed as one massive, uninterrupted megapitch. We didn't do any this time, but possibly something for the future - maybe after buying a longer rope...
Injury time:
Unfortunately, after about a week in the Tarn, both of us started feeling broken. Andy had a tweaky shoulder and I developed golfers elbow, a common RSI in climbers. We decided it was time for some time off. We started with some walking around the Tarn area, exploring the gorge from a different perspective, but it became clear that our niggles weren't going anywhere fast and we needed a proper break from climbing. So we drove south and spent a few days beaching and exploring the Camargues near Montpellier: Andy wrote in more detail about this here.
(I don't think he mentioned the white horses though - the area's famous for its indigenous breed of Camargue horses, many of which live semi-wild on the marshes).
Unfortunately, after about a week in the Tarn, both of us started feeling broken. Andy had a tweaky shoulder and I developed golfers elbow, a common RSI in climbers. We decided it was time for some time off. We started with some walking around the Tarn area, exploring the gorge from a different perspective, but it became clear that our niggles weren't going anywhere fast and we needed a proper break from climbing. So we drove south and spent a few days beaching and exploring the Camargues near Montpellier: Andy wrote in more detail about this here.
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| Camargue wildlife |
(I don't think he mentioned the white horses though - the area's famous for its indigenous breed of Camargue horses, many of which live semi-wild on the marshes).
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| Camargue horses |
Next steps:
a storm front blew in after that so we escaped eastwards and eased ourselves back into climbing. The first stop was Chateauvert, near Brignoles, with John, a friend met through North London MC. After that we moved on to Saint Leger and Malaucene, some crags which are near Mt Ventoux of Tour de France fame (Top tip: if you decide to drive up this famous road biking landmark on a whim, make sure it's not a bank holiday Saturday!) Again, Andy already wrote about this part in more detail...
a storm front blew in after that so we escaped eastwards and eased ourselves back into climbing. The first stop was Chateauvert, near Brignoles, with John, a friend met through North London MC. After that we moved on to Saint Leger and Malaucene, some crags which are near Mt Ventoux of Tour de France fame (Top tip: if you decide to drive up this famous road biking landmark on a whim, make sure it's not a bank holiday Saturday!) Again, Andy already wrote about this part in more detail...
My experiences: Chateauvert is all about sustained, slightly overhanging climbing on scoopy pockets - I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I have become fit! Compared with the beginning of the trip (and when I visited Chateauvert a few years ago), I can now hold on for ages! On the other hand, my lead head (and on a couple of occasions my toprope head) seemed to have regressed again to zero, probably due to the loss of momentum caused by the injury timeouts.
The last day at Chateauvert was scorching, and that weather pattern continued for the next couple of weeks. Climbing in the sun became pretty much impossible. Apart from one day at Malaucene, which made my elbows hurt, I split my time in the Ventoux area between belaying Andy on the shady bit of Saint Leger, and sitting in the river...
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| La Baleine is a good place to escape the heat... | ...but the river is better! |
The next stop was Orpierre, a bit further east, near Sisteron. On paper, this was an ideal crag for us - a whole wall of easy routes that I thought I could use to rebuild my momentum, right next to some 8a's for Andy to try. And it all came into the shade at about 1 pm, which suited my morning habits perfectly. Unfortunately, it turned out to be so hot and muggy that, even in the shade, we didn't get decent climbing conditions until more like 7pm - too much of a lazy morning even for me!
Star spotting at Ceuse:
So we moved on to nearby Ceuse. As well as being described in our guidebook as 'the best crag in the world' (you can't go far wrong with that!), it has the added advantage of being at the top of a big hill, making it much less hot than the previous venues. The downside, obviously, is that you have to walk up the aforementioned big hill to get to it... It was my first time at Ceuse and I was suitably impressed - it's also been added to the 'to come back to' list. I'll have to get a lot better first though - the other disadvantage of Ceuse (for the ego, at least) is that it's a difficult climbing style that's hard to do well at until you've got used to it. We both got resoundingly spanked...
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| A small part of Ceuse... |
So we moved on to nearby Ceuse. As well as being described in our guidebook as 'the best crag in the world' (you can't go far wrong with that!), it has the added advantage of being at the top of a big hill, making it much less hot than the previous venues. The downside, obviously, is that you have to walk up the aforementioned big hill to get to it... It was my first time at Ceuse and I was suitably impressed - it's also been added to the 'to come back to' list. I'll have to get a lot better first though - the other disadvantage of Ceuse (for the ego, at least) is that it's a difficult climbing style that's hard to do well at until you've got used to it. We both got resoundingly spanked...
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| Jonathan Siegrist on Biographie extension |
Unsurprisingly, given the world-class reputation of Ceuse, there were a few famous climbers hanging around - the first time we've seen any on this trip. I'd assumed Catalunya would be the best place for star spotting, but the closest we got was hearing from a friend that Adam Ondra had been in Margalef about a week before we arrived. In Ceuse there was a group of American climbers filming Jonathan Siegrist trying the route Biographie and its famous extension. We got to see some of the magic of climbing film-making in action. The route's too long to film the actual successful ascent all in one go, so they were filming multiple attempts on different days to be edited together later. When we saw them they were filming a special hat removal scene to fix a continuity problem - they'd filmed him climbing the bottom section wearing a hat and the top section without it. We also saw Arnoud Petit (French climbing legend) hanging around the crag base doling out wisdom - this is probably less impressive though since he apparently lives at the bottom of the hill. Ueli Steck (famous for record-breaking solo speed ascents of Alpine north faces - e.g. North face of the Eiger in 2:47:33) was also staying at the campsite. We didn't actually see him, but we knew he was there because he has a special 'Ueli Steck' car that says 'Ueli Steck, www.uelisteck.ch' on it.
Summing up:
After a few days, the weather turned unsettled so we decided to move on, heading eastwards for the Alps. This marked the end of the proper sport climbing part of the trip. There may be some valley cragging on dodgy weather days, but the focus from now on is going to be on longer, mountain routes. But more on that later...
After a few days, the weather turned unsettled so we decided to move on, heading eastwards for the Alps. This marked the end of the proper sport climbing part of the trip. There may be some valley cragging on dodgy weather days, but the focus from now on is going to be on longer, mountain routes. But more on that later...
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| An Alp, in the distance... |
Overall, the sport climbing tour of Spain and France has been fun, though I haven't made the gains in terms of climbing ability (at least when purely measured in grades) that I'd hoped I would. This was partly due to bad luck with injuries - I was definitely noticing some improvements before the finger injury - but probably also due to some tactical errors. I perhaps should have been a bit more disciplined about training my lead head (the biggest problem with my climbing) in the first month or so of the trip, trading some time spent doing some boring, unpleasant exercises in exchange for being able to climb well on a much wider variety of things later. At the time, however, I was quite happy to run around aimlessly leading easy things as and when I felt like it, and just hoping that improvement would happen by magic.
On the other hand, I'm feeling fitter than I've probably ever been, and this should only be improved by some time spent in the mountains. So this should give me a good base to work from when we get back, if I get organised and do some proper training over the winter. And having the opportunity to visit so many beautiful places has been amazing and really inspiring. I probably now have more on my list of places to visit again than will fit into one lifetime...
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