If at first you don't succeed...

Going for the pogo on Orejas

I've been wanting to start some kind of blog forever, but have just been too busy/lazy to actually set one up. Now it's thirty plus degrees outside and climbing is effectively impossible, I have some time to summarise the last four months of trips. This is the condensed version!

After Christmas in England I spent a week in Albarracin in January trying to climb Orejas de las Regletas, a short crimpy 8A. The crux is a huge deadpoint from an undercut to a sloper. As it was a short boulder I figured that endurance wouldn't be a factor, and quickly did all of the moves. I linked from two moves in to the end, but could never stick the crux from the start. After a short session I realised I'd developed blood blisters on three fingers of the hand that held the undercut crimp, it's not even sharp! Blood blisters take at least a week to grow out so it was game over as far as that boulder was concerned. I'd also managed to get pretty sick from sleeping in my car in below freezing conditions.

Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In February I  got an unexpected week off and was back to Albarracin doing the same thing, with pretty much the same results. The links felt easier but i still couldn't link in a session, and one session is all you get when your skin deteriorates this fast.

Origami

During Easter I headed north, with one goal. Origami 8A+ is a 24 move sandstone boulder on tiny crimps in the largely unknown (outside of Spain) bouldering area of Santa Gadea. If Albarracin is the Spanish Fontainebleau, then Santa Gadea is Southern Sandstone. The rock is less compact and more crumbly, but it has the advantage of a cooler climate later in the spring than Albarracin. I had a whole week to work on the climb, and i really thought it was in the bag this time, but despite making my best link on it ever (all three cruxes and a sketchy top out over ankle breaking boulders) I couldn't add the four moves necessary to do the only link I haven't made so far-and the only one that counts. Some stats: I've spent about fifty-one days trying Origami. I have 7.9GB of footage of Origami on my laptop and I've fallen off the third and final crux at least fifty times, and that's a conservative estimate. I'm painfully aware that I'm approaching my 'one year anniversary' on the boulder, I started trying it in early June last year.  

We've just had a four day weekend in Spain so i headed to  El Escorial, a granite bouldering zone near Madrid to try Massive Attack 8A+ (there's apparently another Massive Attack in Magic Wood: climbers like trip hop, who knew...) But anyway, this one is a six move crimp problem. I'd had a session on it earlier in the year and managed to do all but one move and even make some links. As I pulled into the car park, I felt a sense of foreboding. People having picnics, t-shirts, sun cream, barbecues? We slogged up the hill in the blazing heat anyway to give it a try but it was clear: the bouldering season was officially over. 

Plan B was to head to to another area near Madrid and get some sport climbing in. Patones, where I used to go climbing as a student in Madrid in 2011 carries mixed memories for me. On one hand, it's the first place I sport climbed outdoors, I remember wobbling up my first ever 7a+ redpoint there. On the other, it's the place where I had all my climbing/camping gear stolen on a trip two summers ago. Needless to say, I already had my eye on a few things. The project in question was a short overhanging 7b. Jugs to start, jugs to finish, and a blank section in the middle. Way back in the mists of 2011 I had lowered, defeated from the crux bolt. This time, I put the draws in, dialled the sequence and executed. After four months of failure, it just felt good to close the book on something. I remembered how impossible that crux had felt in 2011 and realised that I had got what I wanted: proof of progression. It's not the constant failure as such that bothers me, but the niggling feeling that you're not moving forward, that the hours of training are time wasted. Here was proof positive that I am a (slightly) better climber now than in 2011. A mere 7b redpoint you say? It's not the same as an ascent of a big project like Origami, but it's better than nothing at least for now.

In two weeks I'm heading to Fontainebleau and I couldn't be more excited. As usual there are plenty of things that shut me down last time I went, also in 2011, and like the proverbial climbing elephant, I never forget!

Patones: Madrid's local limestone crag