Siurana

Wow - Greg and I are finally in Catalunya. So far we have made the drive out to Siurana twice - the roads are all super windy and steep. It takes us about an hour to get to the parking lot. This morning Olivia threw up on the way up the road from Cornudella de Montsant to Siurana - Greg and I also felt quite sick. The weather so far has , as expected, been quite hot.

Yesterday, our second day in Spain, we went to Can Marges Lower to do a little 5.9 slab climbing. The rock at Can Marges is filled with water dimples, and the climbing can be quite thin at times. I'm always amazed at how terrible I am at slab - I even had to take once on the 5.9. Liv and Greg both got on it to start off our trip. After a little slab, we went back to the Moorish village that sits above the clifis. The village has the most amazing views - you can see right to Arboli and Montsant. After walking around a little, we went do to another slab sector called Sector _____ India, where we got on a 10a slab. Greg and I worked the climb for a bit, but neither of us could figure out the ending sequence on "Apache" (6a+).

Today we woke up early (7am) - perhaps too early, as we were pretty tired getting in the car. We had planned to camp at Siurana tonight, but that didn't end up working out. After our hour-long drive to the car park, we hiked in to L'olla, walking past El Patti and "La Rambla". L'olla is a short, overhung crag, maybe 30 feet tall and 30 degrees overhung with tufas and pockets. After having seen Obe do this (8a+) tufa climb in Dosage 5, I was hooked on the area. Upon getting there, though, I was quite intimidated by the difficulty of the lines. I got on the 8a+ today but putting up draws on 13c is HARD! I think we are going to try to get a stick clip soon, wich should make it easier to work routes. Anyway, feeling sick and tired, and a little defeated, we headed back home for the day.

Tomorrow it looks like we'll be heading to Margalef to check out some of the easier 4, 5, and 5+ climbing in the region. Hopefully I'll be able to put some photos up soon.

Greg and I made it to Rumney for a few hours yesterday. It was hot and very humid, so we decided that it would be best to let Greg get some experience leading sport routes outside before we leave for Siurana on Tuesday. Dr. No and Techno will have to wait till the fall it looks like...

It has been a long time since I have updated this, but I hope to start again. Greg and I leave for Catalunya a week from tomorrow, and I'm super excited! I've been climbing really well in the gym, doing laps on the two 13b/c routes... hopefully I'm prepared for some of the mid-length routes. I doubt it will help for the pure resistance 50m+ routes, but what would. Surprisingly I haven't lost any power - I can static 1-5-9 on the campus board now, which was one of my goals for the summer.

This Friday and Saturday I plan to head to Rumney - I've planned to do so for the past 2 weekends, but weather and familial obligations have prevented me from doing so. If I make it up there, I'd like to finish up Dr. No (13d/14a) and jump on Technosurfing (12b). Other than that, I just want to touch real rock again! It seems like its been forever....