SuperRockChick?

On my return to work in early January, my colleagues had decorated my desk with streamers and tinsel for Christmas. In amongst the glittery things, was the most fantastic figure:

SuperRockChick? Ahem! This is a picture of me, apparently, drawn by my colleague's partner, who is a professional illustrator. Maybe this is what they were expecting to see when I returned. I'm afraid I might have disappointed them! However, my first pair of climbing shoes and my first harness bore a striking resemblance to these.

Dovehole Boulders

Saturday was set to be good weather-wise, and for once the forecast was right! It was warm (for February!) and the sun looked promising so Caroline, Andrea and I headed for Northumberland. We all agreed that so often we find climbing in winter so difficult because all three of us get so cold so quickly. Whether this is an unfortunate consequence of our lean, ripped physiques and low body fat, or just because we are girlie wusses, I'll leave you to decide, but Saturday was set to be a perfect temperature for us. Having been to Kyloe so often, Andrea suggested Dovehole.

For some unknown reason I appeared to have removed the road atlas from the car (strange, since we came to rely so heavily on such precious items while we were on the Continent) so we struggled a little with the directions in the Northumberland Bouldering Guide. For those of you who know this wonderful tome, I'm sure you will appreciate the cartographic challenges faced by its valiant authors. More by luck than our expert map reading skills, and maybe because the road atlas was sending us good vibes from it's hiding place under the front seat, we happened upon the Dovehole Boulders peeking out from behind the trees a little way up the hillside. It was a lovely spot, sheltered from most of the wind, and with a lovely view of the Cheviots.

Our first task was to eat. So we sat on the mats and munched our way through various chocoate biscuits, cookies, sardines, coffee, juice and breadsticks, before finding a slightly damp traverse to fall off.

First things first: food!

We started on boulder number one and discovered an interesting and particularly challenging B2 traverse. This was the first time Caroline and I had been bouldering outdoors since September, so it took us a while to work things out.




Following the problems round the boulder in an anti-clockwise direction, the next one was very different from the fingery traverse. A big slappy reach for a rounded lump, followed by a heel hook, turning to a high rockover, and a looooong reach back for some nothingness, left two of us very chuffed to flash it, and one frustrated that she could only do it when nobody was looking!

Caroline getting the heel hook

Depending on which way the boulder was facing, we discovered that some problems were too damp to try. There were some very worn patches too, and we tentatively attempted some of these, our efforts tinged with a mite of guilt at the additional erosion we would undoubtedly be causing just by putting feet on rock.

Our last problem didn't take as long as we thought it would, and our perseverance was rewarded with a proper top out on a Font-height boulder. Wicked! Unfortunately, in our excitement we forgot to take any pictures of it!

We didn't race around and do a huge number of problems; we didn't even do anything especially hard. But just being outside again was fantastic. Circumstances are such that it isn't always possible to spend every day of every weekend outdoors and climbing (although there are many people who seem to achieve that!). For me, the start of the year has been busy, and I have had things other than climbing occupying my time and energy.

Frustrating as this is, I'm not climbing well at the moment anyway so some time out is probably of great benefit. I read with interest extracts from Chris Sharma's journal, written for Climbing magazine. If great climbers like Sharma sometimes feel as though they don't care if they never climb again, maybe it's ok for me to take a wee break from training and pushing my limits while I do other things. Maybe "me and my climbing" have reached the mature stage of our relationship! Climbing indoors is not inspiring me at the moment; I'm finding it hard to muster the enthusiasm to pull hard. Climbing outdoors is currently restricted by office hours and weather, which frequently conspire to limit my opportunities. This weekend's jaunt to the County has most definitely improved my psyche. I hope it will keep me going a bit longer and allow to me focus on other things without going slowly mad.

Trip Photographs

I have already written here about how busy life is now that we are back from our trip. So many things to do, and not enough time to do them all! This explains why it has taken me so long to get around to putting my photographs online. I suspect that most readers won't be particularly interested in seeing my holiday snaps, so this post is specifically aimed at friends and family. Be warned, though. In posting photographs here, you have been spared the tedium of flicking through the 1700-odd photographs we took between us!

Speaking of photographs, I was given the most wonderful present last week: a hardback book containing photographs of our trip and quotations from this blog. I understand that it was produced with the wonders of a Mac Powerbook, and a little piece of software called iPhoto. With the magic of digital cameras, it is so easy to take hundreds of pictures that one might never look at again. But to have them, even just a select few, in a book means that I am much more likely to flick through it to remind myself of time well spent. It struck me the other night, that this would be pretty high on my list of "what to rescue if the house was burning down", and might even be my Luxury on my Desert Island. Thank you!

On the road	Fontainbleau Bouldering
Orpierre	Tautavel
Barcelona	Siurana & Torello
Costa Blanca	Travelling Home

January Blues

My long anxiety to escape from the routine of office life has returned with a vengeance. Yes, I am suffering from post climbing trip blues. It seems almost inevitable that a high is followed by a low; by definition, once you reach the top, the only way is down! But I hadn't imagined that returning from a long trip would be quite as deadening as it has bee. I don't feel inclined to do very much, least of all concentrate on matters which sometimes seem trivial and unimportant. Another interesting twist to the process of adjusting to being home is driving on the left-hand side of the road. It was relatively easy to adapt to driving on the right, but reverting to the left has been much harder. Even now, a month on, I find myself concentrating very hard to make sure I don't end up on the right-hand side of the road when I turn right! How strange.

I knew that coming home would be great. I would enjoy seeing friends again, having home comforts like hot showers, a comfortable bed and internet access(!); I even looked forward to some hard training indoors. But the joy has been relatively short-lived. This is not to say that the delight in seeing friends and family again is any less than I anticipated; it isn't, at all. But it has amazed me how quickly it feels as though I had never been away, how quickly things return to "normal". I've been back at work for only 2 weeks and already assumptions are being made that I know about x, y or z which happened while I was away. Clearly, my colleagues believe I have some special powers akin to omniscience, that I myself have yet to identify or harness! It's very flattering, but also a bit frustrating.

The word frustration brings me neatly to the subject of training indoors. I had been warned that long sport climbing trips have a tendancy to sap one's strength, particularly bouldering strength, but (in my usual cocky fashion) I firmly believed in my immunity from such symptoms. Wrong! My first trip back to Alien 2 was soul destroying. What do you mean that's a 3?? It feels like an 8!! Similarly, some of the lead routes at Alien 1 seem far tougher than I think they should be for the grade. As Mr Brown rightly pointed out to me the other day, I haven't been climbing steep stuff, which is why so many indoor routes feel so hard. It also highlights the disparity between indoor grades and outdoor grades. In my opinion, any comparison between the two is highly suspect.

On the positive side, the grade labels no longer seem to affect my inclination to attempt either routes or boulder problems, although there is a considerable "can I be bothered?" factor instead! I am sure that will change with time. Indoor walls seem very uninspiring by comparison with the great outcrops of limestone we had become accustomed to. I haven't been able to get outside climbing since I came home, partly because of the weather, partly because I now have my 9-5 job back again and partly because life is so complicated here! There are so many other things I have to do (and want to do), but there isn't time to do them all.

I am hoping this is just January Blues; I'm not sure whether I am treating or torturing myself by flicking through all 1700 photographs that we took.

I have, however, returned to something I love. We had a lovely walk to the top of Ben Vorlich. It was a beautiful day until we got to the summit, where we found ourselves in an icy, gusting wind and thick cloud! Despite being a little chilly, it was nice to be back in familiar surroundings....very different from sun-drenched, Spanish limestone.

The snowy summit of Ben Vorlich

The view towards Loch Earn

Fontainbleau Photos

Here are some pictures of the time we spent in Fontainbleau in late September, early October. I have a whole lot more, this is just a slect few! I'll put more pictures up from other places along out route soon.

Fontainbleau Bouldering

Home Sweet Home

"I know of no sweeter sight for a man's eyes than his own country" so said Odysseus, relating tales of his native Ithaca. Homer has a point, I think. The best part of going away, for me, is coming home. Coming home after 3 1/2 months away has been quite an experience.... and I haven't got as far as the office door yet! Having thought about very few things while we were away, it has been a shock to remember how phrenetic my "usual" life is.

Dover harbour - darker, colder and wetter than we left

Since September brain power has been concentrated on what there is to eat, where to sleep, what there is to climb and whether or not it's going to rain. That's not to say I've thought exclusively about these things, but I'd left behind the everyday paraphernalia of washing, washing up, phone calls, post to open, deciding what to wear, worrying whether my hair is a mess (ok, so I didn't worry much about this before I went away or while I was away, but suddenly now it seems important!) etc etc. Revolting as this may sound, we even stopped worrying about how often we showered - everything we had with us was also unwashed. Alarm bells only started ringing when we realised that everyone we met smelled of washing powder....

The luxuries of home are as luxurious, if not more so, as I had anticipated: my own bed, a hot shower and clean clothes. My tan is fast washing away as a result; I have had it pointed out to me on numerous occasions already that it might not be tan after all, it's just dirt! On the flip side, I've realised exactly how little "stuff" one needs, even to lead an exceedingly comfortable middle class existence. I've started to clear out various cupboards, signed up for eBay and Freecycle, and am trying very hard to avoid post-Christmas sales (reasonably, though not entirely, successfully).

For those of you who like statistics, or who might be thinking about a similar trip, here are some numbers:

We were away for 93 days during which we drove 5264 miles, climbed 155 sport routes and tackled 160+ boulder problems. We climbed for 71 of those 93 days.

We spent 9 weeks in a tent, 5 nights in hotels, 4 nights in a gite, 1 night in a refugio and 15 nights in the wendy house.

The whole trip cost me £1802.12, which includes bank charges and commission.

Caroline ate 2.75kg of Nutella and bought the entire stock of rice cakes from Intermarche in Laragne. We have eaten unprecedented quantities of butter, rice and potatoes, made our own chips, sampled some strange cheeses and not poisoned ourselves once. We've had 3 hangovers between us and drunk our way through about (I reckon) 250 teabags.

It cost us £168 in petrol to drive the 1654 miles from Finistrat (near Benidorm) to Edinburgh (including one night in a Formula hotel) using the toll motorways through Spain and France. The tolls cost us just under 140 Euros.

We climbed indoors yesterday. That was a shock. I feel like a complete fraud saying that I did 7b in Siurana when I got spat off 6b at Alien Rock. I have no strength at all, I feel weak as a kitten, which seems daft having spent so long climbing outside. My excuse is that I haven't been climbing steep stuff outside, and all the lead routes at Alien Rock are overhanging. I forsee a lot of training in 2008......

Diff climbing the drilled wall near Torello

To sum up, I should have done this trip years ago. It has been a tremendous experience and we've had a lot of fun. I would do it again tomorrow without hesitation. There have been highs and lows, but it's all part of the fun. It's hard to maintain the motivation and enthusiasm to climb every day for so long, when the usual home comforts are missing. There is no prosaic routine to put the exciting things into perspective. I also found that being surrounded by like-minded climbers makes it far easier to explore one's limits, to push oneself and to attempt things that one might otherwise shy away from. In other words, it's difficult to generate all your own psyche! I am rapidly coming round to the idea that everyone should take some time out from whatever they regard as normal. Removing the clutter of things we take for granted (hot water, bed, clean clothes, to continue with the theme....) has given me a better idea of what is important to me, has put things in perspective a little more. "I can see clearly now the rain has gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that blind me. It's going to be a bright bright sunshiney day."

Chilling out in Font....happy days :-)

Dave Mac on A Muerte (9a) at Siurana

I'm gradually catching up with the routine stuff I've been evading for three and a half months, including adding photographs to previous blog posts which had none, opening a mountain of post and washing all the clothes I took with me. It's nice to be back in my kitchen, and I promise I'll make some more brownies soon. I know you've been missing them! I'm now looking for the next challenge, which might be as simple (!) as moving house. In the meantime, if anyone out there is thinking about a long trip I've only one thing to say.

Do it.

Happy New Year :)

Driving Home for Christmas

Believe it or not, there was SNOW on the Costa Blanca hills on Saturday night. It rained heavily and some of the tents at the Orange House looked like those little floating puffy lifeboat shelters. Fortunately, we had picked a well-drained spot. Having run out of psyche for sport climbing, we thought we would head north to Albarracin. But when Sunday morning dawned cold and everything was wet, we sacked it off and decided to come straight home on Monday. Albarracin would have been pretty chilly.

Heavy frost and -10 in Lyon

We left the Orange House outside Benidorm at 11am on Monday in warm sunshine. Our journey took us through torrential rain in northern Spain (the hills west of Tarragona, towards Siurana, were covered in snow), past a mini tornado just south of Barcelona, bitter chill in Girona, thick freezing fog in Lyon, cold dampness in Calais, and salty road spray and low winter sunshine in the UK. We attempted to maintain a Mediterranean climate in the car by turning the heater right up. Then we bought some cheese and the car started to stink. So we turned the heat down and ate the cheese. Unfortunately, the damage was already done and the smell of camembert lingered on.

Heading north...

Tea on the road at Saint Quentin, 90 miles south of Calais

Travel weary on the Calais - Dover ferry after 2 days' driving

As the temperature dropped, the price of petrol rose as we travelled northwards, and we are horrified to see that it is now more than 100 pence per litre here in the UK. In Benidorm we paid 1.12 euros per litre (which is about 81 pence). The car was washed clean by the rain on Saturday night, and two days' driving through France and Spain left it a little dusty but not too bad. The shortest leg of our journey, through the UK, has left my car black with grime, the windscreen washer empty and the wipers squeaking!

Thick fog on the M11

1654 miles and 32 hours of driving later we are home.

Phew!

Continuing with the cheese theme, once we were in the UK we willed Radio 2 to play Chris Rea's "Driving home for christmas", but they didn't.... what irony that they're playing it now as I write this. The best things come to those who wait.....?!?!?

Clear skies and winter sunshine heading into Scotland

The Pentland Hills finally come into view. The last few miles seemed to take forever...

Little Britain

The Costa Blanca felt like little Britain when we first arrived, but last night the electricity pylon next to us exploded and all the lights went out. It´s taken all day to (partially) fix and suddenly we are wishing we were back in the UK where things (appear to) work. It´s gone chilly again (unseasonally so, apparently - again) and we are ready to come home. Although it´s nice to sit in the sun by the pool and under a palm tree, right now I would happily swap this for a hot bath (or just hot water that lasts more than 1 minute) and my own bed. We have concluded that all we need is a week´s holiday from our trip and to come back refreshed and strong and ready to climb Everything and Anything.

A rest day...chilling by the pool this morning

So, more 7b action started with a route called Oceano at the Wild Side, Sella. It couldn´t be more different from Gurungos: steep, juggy and polished. The moves are simple: reach up, grab jug, pull hard. Nothing technical or difficult about it. Not my style at all. I´ve done all the moves on a top rope but I still can´t link them all in one push. The bolts are very spaced and I haven´t even tried to lead it yet. Bong put it very well when he said "It´s not an inspiring route." He´s absolutely right. I want to do it, because it´s different from what I usually enjoy and, although it might seem like making a rod for my own back, I will always at least try to rise to the challenge. I could do it with a bit more practice and a lot of stamina training. Questions are, is it worth it, and do I have time? Answers: no, I don´t have time.....but I´m not sure that answers the first question of whether it´s worth it. I´m not sure that it is, but I like to finish what I´ve started, so maybe I´ll come back in the Spring and have another bash at it. Here is Iain flashing Oceano, with complete composure:

We have had many discussions about good holds and bad holds, and what constitutes a "mono" and a "two-finger pocket". I thought this picture might highlight some of the differences between climbers. This is my index finger and Bong´s index finger. So what is a mono for him is a two finger pocket for me. Hurrah for pixie fingers!

I can´t reach the big holds, so it´s a good job I have small fingers with which to use the little ones.... all swings and roundabouts really.

Oranges and Lemsip

We're now at the Orange House, on the Costa Blanca, a lovely spot and a haven of Britishness amidst the happy-go-lucky chaos that is Spain. It's warm and sunny, although the evenings are chilly (but not as chilly as Siurana). We've spent a couple of days being anti-social and sitting outside because when we arrived the Orange House was infested with the lurgey. Fortunately, the affected (and infected) inhabitants have now either departed(!) or recovered (natural selection, I guess) and we are now able to enjoy sitting inside in the warmth!

The climbing here is very different from Siurana - so far, we've only climbed at Sella on grey slabby limestone, with lots of water pockets to tuck fingers and toes into. This is very sore on toes, but very good for those of us with pixie fingers! There are many more routes showing polish than at Siurana, and Sella is much busier than Siruana. We had become accustomed to having the crag to ourselves, and there is a little bit of me which is slightly put out to find that the 10 routes on either side of us are all occupied, and (heaven forbid!) all by Brits! Having said that, it's a nice change being able to chat to everyone without feeling embarrassed at my appalling Spanish language skills. We have many more places to explore here, with many different colours of limestone. The grading definitely seems slightly softer here than at Siurana, although it's difficult to compare them since the climbing (in our grand 3 days' experience) is very different.

The good news is that Caroline has now flashed her first 6b. The bad news is that my faithful shoes have finally gone through at the toes. I hope they will last another 3 weeks, although I have visions of tiny blisters on the ends of my big toes (which has happened before). Maybe we will have to go shopping! (We haven't done that in a while!!) I've lost a lot of psyche after a superb final week in Siurana but Caroline seems to be compensating for this more than adequately. She's definitely on a roll, and we will have her redpointing 7a before she can count 30 elephants. We have some new friends here, Victoria and Paul, who have also achieved personal bests in the last 3 days. (Thanks for the use of your laptop, Paul!). Will has also achieved a personal best today.

Caroline attempting to onsight 7a - La Cosa - only the crux defeated her

I had a bizarre experience yesterday. During a failed attempt to onsight 6c (Dingo Boingo), I heard a voice calling my name from the other side of the valley: Emma! Hello? Who's that? Gary. Gary who? Gary Jones. I nearly fell off with surprise! Fortunately (for me and Caroline) I didn't fall off, but I did bail on the route early because a) it was hard b) it was very hot and my fingers were very sweaty and c) the conversation on the ground below me was more interesting than tiny water pockets above me. Gary and Cristina - lovely to see you both and thanks for the treats! Cristina, I hope you get many happy hours of climbing from your new shoes! It's all here waiting for you...

We're looking forward very much to all our visitors next week. Anyone else want to join us? The more the merrier!

Gurungos

In spite of my cavalier approach to climbing goals for the season, promises of 7c by Christmas etc, I don´t think I really believed it would ever be possible. Pipe dreams, I thought... but if you don´t believe it, it won´t ever happen. So having done 7a+ on a third redpoint, I thought that maybe Dave´s suggestion of 7b wasn´t so unrealistic after all. We had several discussions over which route to try and concluded that Gurungos, on Campi qui Puigi at Siurana was probably best, despite the comments about it in the Rockfax guide ("not one for the nervous..." - ha ha ha!). Granted, it seems to be (by concensus, not by me!) hard 7b, but having worked the moves, taken 7 falls off the crux move whilst just doing bolt-to-bolt, it went second redpoint on Tuesday.

Tea - makes you strong!

Pulling the top rope

Clipping the first clip - a boulder problem start on very sharp crimps

Since we were leaving Siurana on Wednesday, I really didn´t want to leave it unfinished, so on Tuesday Campi qui Puigi was Last Chance Saloon. It´s a long route, 27m, with a fingertip-scraping bouldery start, followed by a short easy section to the bottom of a flat vertical wall with small crimps (crux). Above that is a small overhang with some good holds and a bolt above. The top section is supposed to be easy, but frankly, holding it together up there was almost as hard as the crux. The sequence on the top section is not obvious, and I did it a different way every time. The big holds appear to be spread liberally across a rough, sharp and bumpy expanse of blankness, with the odd small, not-so-good hold hiding away. Fortunately, my pixie-sized fingers were able to make use of the small holds to get me across the blank expanses between the good holds! Phew!

Flying lessons off 7b...that's a screaming face not a laughing face

Some cunning redpoint tactics included a down climb to a ledge from the clip before the crux. First redpoint went well: up to the 4th clip and then down climb to the ledge, long rest ("look mummy, no hands!"). But then the crux move went a bit wrong, and ended in a proper scream several feet lower than where I wanted to be.

The crux move - catching the tiny triangle with one finger

It´s awkward to catch a tiny sloping triangular crimp with one finger, nudge a second finger onto it, and then pull hard. I needed to lunge for this one off a small left hand crimp (sorry, that´s a terrible word but I can´t think of a better one - that´s how it felt anyway!) because it was a long way up. Apparently tall people keep their feet much lower on better holds, but that just wasn't an option for me. Second redpoint nearly went wrong when I almost forgot to put my right foot out on the small smear in order to reach up for the aforementioned sloping crimp. There is always that little bit of amazement when a hard move like that is successful. I almost didn´t know what to do next. I guess that´s where the "practice" kicks in.

Then you get both hands on this big ledge...

...and shake out above the crux

Top out - higher than 27 metres will ever get you!

Thanks to Dave and Caroline for patient belaying, to Dave for the loan of his psyche and to Diff and Dave for the pictures. I had a brilliant week with you all and the climbing doesn't get much better than this for me!

Now we are on the final leg of our trip, on the Costa Blanca, there is still time for my "7c by Christmas" pipe dream to become reality. I think it's unlikely, but you never know until you try...