Riglos! (in which Ali and Naomi have adventures...)

I was trying to think of some suitably impressive words to use to describe Riglos, but I can't so here's a photo instead:

The towers are about 300m high and are made of variously sized pebbles stuck together by a sandstone matrix. Close up, they look improbable, like a large pile of rubble that should fall down, but somehow doesn't. It's also home to the largest colony of griffin vultures in Europe - they circle around catching updrafts from the towers, making the place feel even more atmospheric.

We spend just under a week here, and were joined by Naomi (who also visited us earlier in Chulilla) and Charles (a climbing partner of Andy's from the Cheddar days). Andy and Charles had their sights set on some of the classic overhanging routes on Mallo Visera (Andy wrote about this here), so Naomi and I went exploring.

We had great fun on several days playing the fortunately/unfortunately game. It's not really much of a game - you just describe things that happened to you prefacing anything that went wrong with "unfortunately" and your solution to the problem with "fortunately". It amused me though, so I thought I'd write about our adventures in this style...

Day 1: unfortunately, on Naomi and Charles' first day there was a speed climbing competition going on in Riglos - routes had been allocated a certain number of points, and participants had to collect as many points as they could in a 12 hour period. This meant that the classic routes on the main towers were busy. Fortunately, the Mallos Pequeños (the smaller towers to the east of the main ones) were not included in the climbing competition, so we decided to head there instead. Pequeño is a relative term - the towers were still 100m high!

Mallos Pequeños (Aguja Roja is the one on the right)

We decided to do the Normal route on the Aguja Roja (graded 4+) as a gentle introduction to the strange rock. We made it up the first two pitches, despite some initial misgivings about the state of the rock - it turned out to be a lot more solid than it looked.

Crazy rock, before the rain...

...and after

Unfortunately, when Naomi was leading halfway up the fourth pitch (having decided to join the third and fourth pitches together) there was a crash of thunder and the heavens opened. Fortunately, we were highly resourceful, and organised a quick and efficient retreat, abseiling down in torrential rain which then turned into hail. The storm only lasted about 30 minutes, but, unfortunately, the rock was soaked and we were too. Fortunately, the sun came out afterwards so we squidged back to the village and steamed dry in the sunshine.

Day 2: with an earlier start, a more stable weather forecast and an absence of speed climbers, we set our sights on a bigger objective on the main Riglos towers - the Travesia de las Cinco Puntas del Mallo Firé (also graded 4+). The Firé is the west-most of the main towers, and has a distinctive, many-peaked ridge line along the top. Unfortunately, as seen from the east during the walk up from the village, it looks intimidating and impenetrable.

Mallo Firé

Fortunately, there's a sneaky easy route round the back that allows access to the ridge at an amenable grade. From there, the route goes to the top of peaks Montolar, Mallefré, Mateo and the tiny subsidiary peak of Buzón, before finishing on the slightly disappointingly named Punta de No Importa.

Unfortunately, our rope was too short to get all the way to the end. Fortunately, I decided this was close enough...

Unfortunately, taking in so many peaks meant that the route was quite complicated - lots of climbing up, abseiling back down, and some devious route finding. Fortunately, we formed an efficient and honed climbing team so this was no problem - we ticked off all the peaks, enjoyed some amazing views, saw some vultures and made it back down in time for a lovely meal at the Refugio.

Day 3: unfortunately, after the exploits of day 2, we were both tired. Fortunately, it was a lovely day and the shop in Riglos sold ice cream. We lazed in the sun taking many photos of Andy and Charles climbing the normal route on the Mallo Puro (it was Charles's last day so they'd decided to push through the tiredness). Unfortunately (for them), we mischievously decided to steal their shoes. Fortunately (for them), it turns out I'm not very good at subterfuge, and tend to crack under the pressure of devious questions such as "what's in the bag?" I don't think I'm cut out for a career as a spy...

Mallos Puro (the pointy bit on the left). Andy and Charles are just reaching the top - can you see them?

Day 4: Charles had to leave, so Naomi and I teamed up with Andy to climb Moskitos, a seven pitch route on Mallo Visera. This is a sneaky route that gets you into some similar positions to the famous harder routes up this wall (Fiesta de Los Biceps and Zulu Demente - see Andy's blog), but weaves around to avoid most of the steepness so is a much more amenable grade (6b/6b+, depending on which guide you read). The first few pitches were really fun: some interesting crack climbing, followed by an airy traverse across to the 'Trone', a car-sized boulder improbably wedged two-thirds of the way up the tower.

Naomi on the traverse pitch of Moskitos

Unfortunately, the sun hit the crag at this point, and we'd all underestimated the effect of the heat on climbing performance. The crux pitch leaving the Trone was a bit of a struggle and I had to pull on pretty much all of the bolts to get up it. Fortunately...erm......I made it in the end, we didn't have to do a complicated abseil retreat, and I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of staying hydrated... The walk down from the top was spectacular.

We were ravenous when we got down, so enjoyed some well-earned tapas and ice cream at the bar, and watched some base jumpers being silly...

Day 5: exhausted! We drove to Santa Ana, near Lleida, intending to do some more conventional single-pitch sport climbing, but instead ended up eating tasty food and paddling in the (very cold) river.

Overall, Riglos was an experience - a spectacular place, and a very different style of climbing from what we were doing before. I left feeling very inspired to come back in the future, but will have to get a lot fitter first!!

Hiking in the Pallars Jussa

One of the things that makes being injured a bit less annoying is that it gives you time to do some other things that normally get pushed out by climbing.  One of these is hiking - I'd intended to do a bit of it on this trip, but up til now climbing and the associated faff had been taking up all our time.  As it turns out I almost couldn't have picked a better place to do it if I'd tried!

The county of Pallars Jussa is situated in the Iberian Pre-Pyrenees.  It's a beautiful landscape of Pre-Pyrenean mountain ranges split by deep, rocky valleys, with stunning views of the snow-capped Pyrenees themselves on a clear day.  The county consists of two main sections either side of the town of Tremp: Serra de Montsec on the southern edge, and Vall Fosca (the Dark Valley) in the north.  We've been based around Montsec so far because that's where Terradets is, but hopefully we'll get to explore north at some point too.

There's loads of well-signposted, waymarked footpaths round here - the map we picked up from the tourist info in Tremp describes over 50!  We've only done three (routes numbered 2, 6 and 1 from the map, respectively), but they were all lovely.

Barranc del Bosc (8.7 km): This was a pleasant ridge walk that took a couple of hours one afternoon.  It passes underneath the 500 m high rock face of Roca Regina, then climbs the hill beyond to gain a ridge with some lovely views.  According to the sign board at the top, it's a good place to see eagles.  Based on the pictures provided, I think I saw a short-toed eagle flying past.  Or it may have just been a buzzard - but since we both forgot to take cameras on this walk you'll just have to take my word for it...


El Castell de Mur (8.8 km): This was another pleasant afternoon walk, with the added bonus that it went past not one, but TWO medieval castles!  Starting from the small village of Guardia de Noguera, we climbed up the steep hillside to reach the first castle, Castell de Mur.

This was the bigger of the two, and has things to see inside and a little museum attached.  Unfortunately, it was all closed when we got there - unsurprisingly since their opening hours appeared to be only Saturdays and Sundays, 11.30-13.00.  There was a little interactive information screen outside though that provided information on many aspects of Catalunyan culture, history and gastronomy, including some traditional Catalan recipes.  I was particularly intrigued by this one - a Catalan version of haggis, I think:

Intrigued to try this...

The walk continued gently along a ridge to the second castle, Castell de Guardia.  This one was a lot smaller and more ruined, but you could go inside and climb up a ladder to the first floor.  I got to do a royal wave from the window, so it was totally worth it:

Royal wave...

We then headed back down to Guardia de Noguera and started enviously at what I assume is the local cider making setup:

Ermita de Sant Salvador and Portella Blanca: The final route was a longer one (I'm unsure of the exact distance but it took about 5 hours) that climbed all the way up to the ridge of the Montsec de Rubies and down the other side, via the Ermita de Sant Salvador del Bosc.  This was reached by a route called the Camí de les 100 Corbes - I naively assumed this meant 100 steps (I'm sure I've done walks in the UK before that have been called 'the path of X steps') - I thought '100 steps will be easy enough, and an efficient way to gain height'.  It turns out 'Corbes' actually means 'bends' - it actually translates as the path of 100 switchbacks!  When a path's named after the number of switchbacks it has, you know you're in for a slog...  I quickly lost count of the number of bends, but some helpful individual had marked the number left to go at regular intervals.

There were also little stone shrines dotted along the path every so often, each with a picture of a different saint in it.

The Ermita itself wasn't particularly impressive, just a bricked up stone building - I'd have been pretty disappointed if it had been the only reason for walking up there.  The views, on the other hand, were amazing!

After the Ermita, the route continued up to the ridge (via a few more switchbacks!), and then along this to the Portella Blanca.  I had no idea what this was going to be - it turned out to be a big notch in the cliff on the south side of the ridge that allowed you to get down.

I was struck by the contrast in the vegetation on the north and south sides of the range.  On the way up I'd been walking up rocky paths through deciduous woodland full of moss-covered trees, ivy, and little purple flowers.  On the south side we were back to a typically mediterranean landscape - pine trees, spiky bushes and lots and lots of rosemary).

The route described by the map unhelpfully stopped at the Portella Blanca, possibly because the ridge of the Montsec de Rubies marks the edge of the county - the way down was therefore someone else's problem!  The route joined the GR1 long distance footpath at this point though, so I followed that until I found a sign pointing back to Font de les Bagasses, where we'd left the van.

Long-distance walking potential:
The second walk we did (the one with the castles) coincided for a while with another route marked with a mysterious red '8' symbol. The mystery was revealed when we found a signboard at Castell de Mur. We'd come across El Camí, a relatively recent long distance footpath (parts of it are still under construction) with the ambitious aim of connecting together all sites of cultural, historical and ecological interest in the Catalan speaking regions. The Pallars Jussa contains a 160 km section of it. I had a look at the full route on their website later - it's somewhere between 4000 and 5000 km in total and forms a rough figure of eight (the reason for the '8' symbol). I was quite surprised just how far the Catalan speaking region extends - north to Perpignan and as far south as Alicante on the mainland, and over the sea to the Baleriac islands. The whole thing seems to have been put together by volunteers and funded by donations, so it's quite impressive. Definitely something I'd be interested in doing more of if I came back to this region - the 0.1% we've done so far was very nice!

Terradets broke me (but it's pretty)

Since Barcelona, we've been exploring inland Catalunya - first the province of Tarragona, then further north to Lleida. Although Catalunya's quite a big place (about the size of Wales), most of the population lives in the coastal cities of Barcelona, Tarragona and Girona. The inland areas are sparsely populated, very pretty and rural and, most importantly for us, full of rock.

We visited three different places in Tarragona:

• Margalef - powerful pocket climbing on towers of conglomerate rock with our friend Adam, who we meet on our way south.
• Arboli - more conventional limestone climbing in a beautiful setting. Sector El Falco in particular has stunning views over the valley to Siurana and Montsant.
• Montsant - more conglomerate rock, but with bigger and more positive pockets than Margalef. The climbing's less about power and more about endurance.

El Falco at Arboli

Andy has written about these in more detail. I've mainly been trying to relax a bit after my head issues earlier in the trip. I've had some good days climbing when my head's been working well, but also several days just enjoying the glorious sunshine and the scenery. I had a really good day at Arboli though (pink trouser power!) and managed my second 6a onsight of the trip.

About a week ago we moved north into Lleida province, starting with Terradets. It is beautiful here, with the Pyrenees visible in the distance on a clear day. It's an area we've not visited before, so we were keen to explore. Unfortunately, I've had a bit of a setback...

After traveling, we thought it would be a good idea to have a relaxed first day and do some easy multipitch - with hindsight, a big mistake.  The route we chose, a 200m 6b called Smoking, turned out to be, as our friend put it, "a bit spicy".  I had hoped to lead a few of the easier pitches, but backed off the first (grade 5) pitch, because it only had about 6 bolts in 30 m and the climbing felt much harder than the other 5s I'd done that week.  Andy put in big effort to lead the 2nd pitch (supposedly 6a!), which involved some savage pulls on tiny finger rails using insecure footholds, where the bolts were again generously spaced. He actually power-roared at one point - not something that's happened on a 6a for several years.

My attempt at seconding was much less successful.  At a blank section where the holds were extra tiny, I tried to stand up on a really awful foothold, but the rucksack I was carrying threw off my balance, and I ended up pulling really really hard on some tiny handholds to compensate. There was a loud, crunchy sort of noise, and suddenly it hurt to pull on anything with my left hand. I scrabbled and whimpered up to the belay, then demanded to go down - there was no disagreement from Andy.

Sad hand...

According to my internet research I've damaged the A4 pulley in my left ring finger - a classic climber's injury (I know damaging A2 is more common, but the pain seems to be concentrated round the second knuckle, not the first). Pulleys keep the finger tendons running along the bone when the fingers are bent, but crimping (pulling with fingers bent at an extreme angle) too hard can overload them. The advice from the internet seems to be ice and rest and no climbing for 1-3 weeks, followed by a gradual reintroduction. It's quite a specific injury - it only hurts if I crimp but not if I pull in a more open-handed way - but the important thing is to not accidentally aggravate it again before it's healed and make it worse.

It's been just over a week since I did it now, and the swelling's gone - I can get my engagement ring back on! I was going to try it out on some easy climbing today, but this morning the wind was gusting so much that the van was rocking on its springs, so might leave it a bit longer.

Witches Wall

In the meantime, I've been belaying Andy on his project at the excitingly named Witches Wall, and we've found a whole new, multinational circle of friends - other Witches Wall devotees. We've also done some of the many lovely walks round here - I think this deserves a post of its own. So I've been keeping busy. And in scenery like this you can't complain too much, can you?

View over Embassament de Terradets

Barcelona (for the cactus enthusiast)

This week, Andy turned 30. Since this is apparently when life begins, we thought we ought to celebrate. So we took a little break from the climbing van dirtbag lifestyle and spent a few days staying in an apartment in Barcelona with family and friends. We'd specifically set aside a part of the trip budget for this as our joint birthday and Christmas presents to each other, but I did get Andy a magnetic lizard on the day too.

We spent a lovely few days eating too much and did a range of touristical things. We did well - in four days we sampled several varied sides of Barcelona: Las Ramblas, a castle, the gothic quarter, the Gaudi architecture and the seafront. However, when I looked back through my photos I found that most of them seem to be pictures of cacti. Anyway, here is what we got up to - where appropriate I've put in links to pictures of the sights of Barcelona taken by better photographers...

Day 1: we wandered up Las Ramblas, and had lunch while we waited for our party to become complete. Later we walked over to Barceloneta, and had seafood in a restaurant near the sea. We then walked back to Las Ramblas and stopped in a bar on the edge of the old town to order a beer. We got a bit more than we bargained for...

That's a half-size wine bottle, but still...

Day 2: a slow start due to the massive beers of the previous evening. We bravely headed out at about lunchtime to visit a fort in Parc de Montjuïcs that's on top of a hill looking out over the sea. There is a cable car that takes you up the hill, but one of our group refused because "I don't understand how they stay up", so we walked. This meant that we went through the botanical gardens, including one garden comprised entirely of lots of different types of cactus. This is where I took most of my photos.

Wild west...

Round cacti

Fuzzy cacti

These ones made cool shapes

These ones have flowers

At the top, we didn't go into the fort because it was expensive and there was a queue, but we did have some good views out over the sea (although mainly the cargo port). Again though, my photos mainly focus on cacti - we noticed an unusual type of graffiti where people had written their names on the leaves of the clifftop aloe vera plants.

The view...

...and the cactus graffiti

We then headed back down the hill and stopped for coffee at a quirky coffee shop with construction site themed decor. The walls were decorated with hazard tape, construction signs and toy tools and, most entertainingly, there was a skeleton in a hi-vis jacket installed at one of the tables reading a map! They did very nice pastries too (I forgot to check what the place was called but it was just down the road from Paral-lel metro station).

A long-term customer...?

Fueled by coffee and pastry, we caught the metro up to the Sagrada Familia, the unfinished cathedral designed by Gaudi. It's pretty impressive and weird, and I utterly failed to get any decent photos of it. Since it's pretty famous though, here's a link to some official ones.

We celebrated Andy's birthday that evening - a day early but some of the others had to leave the next day. We had some fancy cocktails (courtesy of Andy's mum - thank you!!), then dinner in the old part of town.

Day 3: Andy's actual birthday. We started off with a tapas lunch on La Rambla. The set menu at the restaurant we picked seemed surprisingly reasonably priced. The catch turned out to be that if you ordered a beer or sangria it came in a glass as big as your head and was very expensive! Slightly wobbly from all the sangria, we wandered over to look at Barcelona's other cathedral (the old gothic one), then went to Park Güell to look at some more Gaudi architecture.

More enormous drinks...

Day 4: we went to the beach. I dug a really deep hole! We then sent some time wandering along the seafront, and had ice cream.

Yay!!

Overall, it was a fun trip back to civilisation. We're in the van again now and have been easing ourselves back into climbing. We spent our first night back in the van near Cornudella de Montsant, about 2 hours inland from Barcelona. In the morning we went to the cafe and sat near some other climbers, then we went to the climbing shop - Andy got some new climbing shoes and I bought some awesome pink trousers! We then stood near some rocks in Siurana to have lunch - someone Andy knew was out with a group of friends so we stood and chatted for a bit and watched them climb. Finally, at about 5 pm, we arrived in our intended destination, Margalef, and I climbed some mini-routes (just over 10m long) until it got too dark to see the footholds.

Expanding comfort zones

As I described in my last post, I was getting a bit frustrated with my climbing performance in Chorro, in particular my lead head. Since I wrote that post things have been getting gradually better, and I feel like now I've slightly turned a corner. Only a little corner, and there are definitely a few big hairpin bends to go, but it's a start...

We spent the last few days in Chorro climbing with Helen, a friend from Bristol - Andy has already written about this in more detail. I really enjoyed Helen's visit, but didn't do a great deal of climbing - instead I used the fact that Andy and Helen were psyched for similar things as an excuse for a few days off, which was probably what I needed. We rounded off the Chorro leg of our trip and Helen's last night with dinner in a local restaurant with an entertainingly translated menu.  I had wild board in red wine - it was very tasty! Jabalí al vino tinto in Spanish, if anyone's interested...

I was definitely looking forward to a change of scenery though.  This arrived in the form of Chulilla, a spectacular limestone canyon about an hour inland from Valencia. We had stopped here for a day on the way south and really liked it, so we were excited about coming back for a longer stay.

A panorama of the gorge at Chulilla (made by Andy)

We also acquired a new visitor. Our friend Naomi flew out to join us for a five day trip.  I'd only actually met her twice before this trip. She sport climbs at a level more similar to me than to Andy (unlike most of the visitors we have scheduled), but both times we've met she has impressed me by seeming gnarly and insane, in a good way. The first time she was on crutches having completed most of a mountain marathon on a torn hamstring, and the second time convinced me to go fell running in the Lake District in the rain when I was still in post-thesis mode and hadn't exercised in months. I was therefore quite keen to work on my head issues and not come across as a total wuss!

There was an initial false start. We had an afternoon of rain, and then visited an "old school" crag where everything was at least two grades harder than the guidebook said it was (it's been a long time since I've seen Andy have to try so hard on a 6b).

The next day we visited Fantasia, one of the easier crags a few km away from the village. The majority of the climbs here are concentrated around 5+ to 6b, in contrast to the other sectors where there's only a handful of easier routes interspersed between all the 7's. I had set a tentative goal of maybe trying a 6a, but I after my dismal performance in Chorro I felt like I needed to ease back in to leading, so had intended to start on the easiest route on the sector, which was 4+. Naomi had other ideas though, and jumped straight on a 6a with the infallible logic that 'I'm going to be scared anyway so I might as well get scared on something hard'.  This turned out to be a great idea - the climbing on this particular route was amenable and the bolting friendly so after Naomi's successful ascent I managed to wobble my way to the top. Third 6a flash of the trip, and the first one where I didn't panic and try to clip bolts on a different route!

Naomi looking cool

It was then my turn to pick a route.  Feeling inspired, I decided to have a go at another 6a. This one was a bit steeper and had a tricky move round a bulge low down.  I managed to figure out the tricky move to reach a massive handhold on top of the bulge, but from there the last bolt was by my knees and I had to do a slightly committing move (an awkward mantelshelf move to get stood up on the big handhold I was using) to get to the next one. At this point The Fear reasserted itself and I had a little panic and down climbed back to the bolt - back to business as usual. I was anxious not to let the side down after Naomi's success though, so after lots of patient belaying and encouragement from Andy and Naomi, and lots of attempts going slightly higher each time, I finally managed to wobble up onto the hold and clip the next bolt. I managed to get another bolt higher, but got stopped by another committing move and decided I'd had enough. Naomi then dispatched the route in super quick time, but made noises about the moves being hard which made me feel a little better.

She then had a go at a 6b, a grade that I had always previously dismissed as too hard for me to lead. She lowered off the fourth bolt having got stuck on the hardest move, but set me the challenge of trying to lead up to her high point. With no pressure to get to the top, and having seen someone else try it, I surprised myself by being able to do it, even though I was quite scared above every bolt. When I got to Naomi's high point I was even briefly inspired to try to go higher, until it was pointed out that I hadn't taken any quickdraws to clip the next bolt with - this sent me quickly scuttling back down again.  A strategic Andy was then deployed to retrieve the quickdraws and fix a toprope.

Bolt sighted...

Must...clip...bolt...

Yay!

Overall, although I only succeeded (in a conventional sense) on one route that day, it was really satisfying to step a little bit outside my comfort zone in a relaxed, low-pressure environment. I had slightly forgotten how much fun it can be to have a go at stuff that I find challenging, while not taking it too seriously, making silly noises and throwing sticks at Andy (he was very cheeky - he deserved it!)

The next day continued in a similar vein, although a cold wind sapped climbing psyche to an extent. I had a go at a 6b (something I'd not normally have done) - I managed to lead a bit of it, and toprope most of the rest on a slightly slack rope. There was one particular bit I found scary - a sideways traverse out of a corner on some rounded holds - where falling meant taking a sideways swing. In the interests of comfort zone expansion, I spent a little while toppling sideways while making squeaky noises from progressively higher and higher in the corner, to the bemusement of the strong Spanish guys climbing the hard routes on the other side.  Naomi meanwhile put in a really big effort to second a 7a that Andy had climbed, and Andy managed to get his first 7b+ of the trip on only the second attempt.

On the final day of Naomi's visit we went back to Fantasia.  The gradual comfort zone expansion I'd been doing (with even really realising it) over the previous few days had paid off and I felt really inspired to try to lead something hard (for me).  I picked a 6a on the far left edge of the crag, which unfortunately turned put to be the only route on the sunny south-facing crag that was in the wind.  The hardest part of the route was two bolts from the top where you had to do a strenuous pull over a small bulge using a sideways handhold and a high foothold. There was a place where I could stand in balance just below this, and I spent a long time there trying to calm down and pluck up the courage to do the move. The wind was whistling round the edge of the crag and I was getting colder and colder the longer I stood there, so eventually when the wind died for a few seconds I went for it.  Scrabbling around above the bulge I found a hold at the base of a very spiky bush (although I didn't notice the scratches until afterwards), clipped the final bolt and kept going to reach the lower-off at the top.  There was an awkward moment where I was level with the lower-off but couldn't reach to clip it because the holds faced the wrong way - this would normally have sent me scurrying back down, but I managed to keep my head together, find the hold I needed, get in a sensible position and clip the lower-off for my first 6a onsight in over two years!  I came down shaking, exhausted and covered in scratches, but exhilarated.

About to do the move...

Ow...

Naomi then had a go, but the wind picked up even more and she was being blown off the holds below the crux where I'd had my rest. After four days of climbing in a row we were all a bit tired and the rest of the afternoon was devoted to some hardcore sunbathing.

Lazing in the sun

Andy has also been expanding his comfort zone this week, but in a different way.  We've spent a couple of days at Sector Chorreras in the main gorge of Chulilla.  The sector is aptly named - chorrera means tufa in Spanish. Tufas are rock formations created by the same process that makes stalactites in caves: gradual build-up of small mineral deposits left behind by dripping water. The only difference between tufas and stalactites is that tufas are not detached from the underlying rock - they are formed by water running down a surface rather than by dripping freely.  This results in impressive formations that often look a bit like organ pipes or dribbly candle wax. The climbing on these structures is quite different from normal. Upward progress requires lots of twisting sideways, pressing outwards and bridging between tufa pipes, rather than pulling downwards on conventional holds.  Sector Chorreras is particularly spectacular - the entire surface is one enormous tufa formation.

Sector Chorreras - the black streaks are all dribbly tufas

The tufa pipes are so wide and rounded that there are very few normal holds, and the climbing is a whole body experience of bridging, jamming, contorting, udging and wriggling. Andy put in some huge efforts to onsight a 7a, a 7a+ and a 7b in this style (quote of the day: "so far outside my comfort zone I couldn't have found it with a map"), which involved contorting into positions I didn't even know he was capable of - my personal favourite was both feet and both hands simultaneously bridged out completely horizontally!  I couldn't get a photo because I was belaying attentively at the time, but it looked something like this:

Bridging for glory!

Since Naomi's visit we've had another set of visitors (which is why I've been so slow at updating my blog) - but I think I've rambled enough for now, so will leave a detailed account of their visit for another post.  Currently enjoying an impromptu double rest day (feeling exhausted!), some sunshine and lovely views...

Fear, frustration, falling...and foraging

Dear everyone who's coming out to climb with us this trip,

I am really really bad at lead climbing. I mean REALLY bad.  As in, I'm quite capable of failing on a 5 because of a lack of lead head - that level of bad.  Please manage your expectations accordingly.

Yours frustratedly,

Ali

The trip started fairly well, given how little climbing I'd done before we left, and in our brief stops in Catalunya, Chulilla and the Costa Blanca on the way down it seemed like I was making progress. But in the last couple of weeks, here in el Chorro, it feels as though I've hit a wall.  The weather hasn't helped with establishing a rhythm (although given what I hear has been happening in the UK lately I probably shouldn't complain too much about the drizzle we've been having).  But mainly, as always, it's my lead head that's been letting me down - I have a crippling fear of falling. In certain situations, e.g. on a traditional route above dodgy gear, this might be reasonable, but on sport climbing if you fall all that happens is you drop a few metres until you're caught by a safety system (rope clipped into a bolt drilled into the rock) of which each component could individually hold the weight of a small lorry.  I know my fear is irrational.  I've thought about it logically, I see other climbers take falls all the time with no ill effects, and I've caught Andy when he's fallen off routes more times than I can count.

Logic doesn't help though - as soon as I get into a situation on a route where I have to do a move that I'm not sure about, where there's even a tiny possibility that I might mess it up and take a fall from above a bolt, my mind goes to pieces. I get sweaty hands (not helpful), grip the holds too tight, stop trusting my feet, hyperventilate, etc, etc, and quite often am completely unable to commit to the move. No matter how many times I tell myself, logically, that it's safe, that Andy's not going to drop me (he'd never hear the end of it if he did), something about the feeling of the rope being slack and dropping backwards into the unknown sets off the primal terror part of my brain.

I know exactly why I have this problem.  I had a fear of falling when I started climbing, as I think do most people - I maybe have it a bit worse than some, but it's pretty common.  However, I've never really done anything to try to fix it. The only way to deal with an irrational fear of falling is to fall every so often to show your subconscious that it's not really that bad.  I never did this - I fell into the trap (one that I think maybe a lot of girls who climb with boyfriends fall into?) of usually toproping and seconding things, thinking 'I'm not ready to lead this yet, I'll come back when I'm more confident'.  The problem with this is that, as Dave MacLeod eloquently explains, if you don't actively work to expand your comfort zone it doesn't stay the same - it shrinks.  By never trying to lead anything scary, I've now shrunk my comfort zone to basically zero, such that now everything is scary.

Expectations vs reality

Another issue I'm having is dealing with my own and other people's expectations.  I've spent most of the last few years surrounded by climbers who don't see leading as a big deal, and who think 6a is such an easy grade that it's barely worth even warming up on.  I've realised I've internalised this idea and therefore see 6a as something that should be easy.  So far though I've only managed two on this trip and both felt like a huge mental struggle even though they were on days when I was climbing well. On bad days I've failed to climb 5's because of The Fear, and end up beating myself up because it "should" be easy.  It's a bit demoralising when you mention to other climbers that you're only climbing easy things, and they immediately start recommending 6b's that you should try - as things are going now they might as well be suggesting that I fly!  And The Fear means I can't just get on it and have a go anyway - I'd just end up lowering off below the hard bit having been too scared to go higher.  Sometimes the advice can be frustrating too: e.g. "I get scared of falling too: you've just got to forget about it and focus on the climbing". No, sorry - if you are capable of "just" not thinking about it, then you don't have the same problem that I do!

I know exactly how to fix the problem, but it's not very nice.  As I said, the only way to deal with an irrational fear of falling is to take some (safe) falls to teach your subconscious mind that it's not really that bad.  I did some googling to see if there was another way (there isn't) and came across a blog describing someone overcoming the same issue - she made a resolution on her birthday to take a lead fall for every year of her age.  I therefore picked 27 as a suitably arbitrary number of falls to aim for (if only I'd thought of this before my birthday last month!), although given the scale of my problem I thought 27 sets of 27 falls would be more like what's needed.  I did one set of these a few days ago when it was drizzling, off a slightly overhanging 6c.  Starting from nothing, going straight to taking big falls from above the bolt felt like too much too soon, so I focused this first session on taking drops from having my waist level with the bolt.  This gives a short 1-2 m fall as the slack in the system is taken up and the rope stretches, but still has that sensation of falling backwards onto a slack rope that I struggle with.  I managed a session of 27 of these, gradually trying to reach higher and higher up the wall before letting go.  As expected, the first was the worst, then each successive fall from the same place felt a little easier.  It surprised me a little how the fear came back every time I changed something though - I could fall several times from one position and it would get less scary, then I'd move one foot an inch to the left and suddenly felt as terrified as I had the first time.  It's a start, anyway - more work (26 more sessions, at least!) needed. Just got to keep going with it - I really don't like doing it and if I'm not careful I can always find an excuse not to.  Hopefully it'll be worth it in the end if, by the time we get back to Catalunya, say, I could relax and enjoy myself a bit more while climbing closer to my limit on lead...

If not, I'm not sure what I'll do. I could keep climbing but only toproping and seconding.  There's nothing actually wrong with this, and I really enjoy climbing when the fear's out of the equation, but for sport climbing it feels a bit like playing tennis with the net down.  I'd have to deal with my climbs never being counted as "proper" ascents by other climbers, and I'd always be reliant on someone else to climb my routes first to fix the rope up there for me.  Or I could get really really strong, so that I can climb harder without feeling like I'm going to fall.  But that's a lot of work, and there's still the possibility that one hold that's slightly smaller than I'd like could completely shut me down.  Or I could become a boulderer so I don't have to deal with heights, although I would then have to deal with my other fear which is awkward top-outs on boulder problems.  Or I could find a new sport entirely - if nothing's better after 9 solid months of climbing then at least I'll know I gave it a proper try...

Amptrax

In other, less whiny news, we did our first long multipitch route of the trip yesterday - the classic nine-pitch 6a Amptrax.  We have designs on doing some much longer, harder multipitch routes in the Alps and Dolomites later in the year, so this was good practice for remembering how to climb efficiently as a pair again.  For speed (since rain was forecast in the afternoon) Andy led all of the pitches (see above), and I just tried to focus on climbing quickly and sorting out the rope efficiently at each belay point.  The climbing was exciting, and steeper than expected, but felt a little insecure as the high humidity made some of the more polished handholds feel a little greasy.  In the end we only did the first five pitches because I was convinced I'd felt a few drops of rain and decided it would be a good idea to retreat. As it happened, the sun came out again halfway down the first abseil (the rain that was forecast for the afternoon never arrived), but it would have been a bit of a faff to go back up again by then.  We did all of the hardest bits though so it still counts!

On the way back I had a bit of a Ray Mears moment. I've been interested in foraging for a little while now, and a few days ago one of our new van friends showed me where to find wild asparagus. It grows at the base of one of the many types of prickly bush that make up most of the landscape round here. Presumably, if you leave it to grow, it will turn into more prickly bush.  Since we were running a bit low on vegetables for dinner, I decided to go foraging to see what I could find. I was semi-successful - here is my asparagus:

I foraged an asparagus!

It might be a while until I can survive by myself in the wild though! Andy very generously let me eat the whole thing - it tasted pretty much like cultivated asparagus but slightly more bitter...