Road Trip Part 1 - Turbulent Waters

 



Pizza!!

On the 23^rd of June I met up with Alex and Phil Waterhouse in Cambridge for a month long Road Trip across northern Spain and up to Ceuse via various crags on the way.  We were seriously psyched for crushing the European rock and getting some awesome ticks.  Alex and I poured over guide books searching for the ideal areas and routes to get on.  However before any of that there was the small matter of actually getting there!  Queue a 36 hour ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao in northwest Spain. That being a particularly exciting prospect, we loaded ourselves up with pizza and boarded the ferry ready for a non-to-entertaining journey.  Half hoping for a sketchy crossing to spice it up a bit, we encountered nothing more than some mildly turbulent waters on the first night. After exhausting the limited entertainment, we had to resort to partaking in Bingo (it was very dull okay and even bingo sounded entertaining) to no avail we even did a quiz in which I discovered I have an unwanted knowledge of songs from my mum’s questionable music collection: Kate Bush, Shakespeare Sisters, Abba etc.

 



The Huge Baltzola Cave

Eventually we reached Spain and the first stop was Baltzola cave.  Unfortunately it isn’t a very well documented climbing area and so we couldn’t find it in any guide books.  So after a couple hours of searching Bilbao for some sort of information we managed to find a rough GPS coordinate for it.  We set off and surprisingly found it relatively easily.  Now, when you think of a cave you may think of a large hole with a limited amount of climbing in it mostly bouldering height, like Parisellas maybe?  This place is on an entirely different scale to anything I have seen before.  It has in excess of 300 routes in it from 6b to 9a and towers over a colossal area from completely blank roofs to overhangs covered completely in stalactites.  However we still had no guide book and there were no locals to ask about the routes.  As a result we found a cool looking line and gave it a go whilst Phil went off to try and find more info about the crag and potential campsites for the next couple of days. The route turned out to be hard and after working it we figured out the beta and found that a knee bar pad was very beneficial for the upper section.  After a few goes Alex managed it  and although I was getting close one move in the middle of a poor crimp/pinch and a heel hook was stumping me as a kept missing the wide pinch that you had to grab as you fell away from the wall.

Eventually some Spanish climbers turned up and informed us that the route was an 8a called Blandiju confirming our suspicions of the grade.  Alex then wanted to try an 8a+ called Iluminatis, at the other end of the cave.  He worked the moves and thought it do-able and second go managed to latch both huge dynamic moves on the route and clip the chain - Effort!  Finally before leaving I fancied the look of what I thought was a 7b next to Alex’s 8a+.  It felt pretty steady except one section on a poor sloping pod that required a high heel hook to hold you into the wall whilst matching the poor sloper to gain more positive holds above.  I reached the last chain relatively easily and then moving into the last couple of moves which went into a hole in the roof.  Concerningly the route became extremely thin at this point and although I could see a huge juggy fin not far away it was still way out of my reach and there seemed to be little in the way of holds to get to it.  After a fair bit of procrastinating I went for it and dropped it due to the fact I had no idea how to negotiate the lack of holds.  Eventually I discovered two knee bars, the first being quite positive whilst the second was horrendous and relied totally on friction and felt as if it would slip at any moment.  Despite this I had to put my full weight onto it and trust it to reach the finishing holds and top out.  To my relief the locals then told me the route was in fact 7b to the last draw and the grim thrutchy finish I had fallen on in fact boosted the grade to 7c!  Calling it a day we headed for the campsite.

The next day I succeeded on both routes the 7c second go and the 8a fourth red point, worryingly on the actual ascent of the 8a I went to use the crux crimp/pinch only to find it was soaking wet, quickly reassessing my options I managed to complete the move using a slightly higher and even poorer pinch, relieved I managed to keep it together to the top.  Alex also did the 7c and then set about working another 8a+ which followed a line of stalactites through the heart of the cave.  Despite the good attempts he didn’t manage it that day. Returning the following day for Alex to finish of the 8a+ he finally succeeded. Happy with what we had managed there we headed off for the next destination - Rodellar.

 

As it was a pretty long drive anyway between the two crags we decided to go the slightly longer and more scenic route via Riglos a huge multi pitch destination of conglomerate rock. Its impressive size made for an interesting drive and eventually we arrived at our destination for the next week.  

 

 

 

Rodellar is impressive because of the sheer amount of world class climbing in such a small area.  It is a gorge so it is perfect for summer as you spend the morning on one side then switch to the other side as the sun reaches you so you can climb in the shade all day to avoid the heat.  There are twenty plus sectors in just the area we were in all within a 30 minute walk from the campsite.  

 

First stop was El Camino which is one of the first sectors you come across and largely used as the warm up crag.  We got on a 7b to warm up then Phil decided he would have a go on a 6a+.  The polish and unfamiliar rock proved to make the climb much harder than predicted and sadly resulted in Phil hurting his shoulder. Finally before the sun reached the crag I couldn’t resist getting the climb called Billy el Rapido 7a.  To make it more interesting we added a sit start to it, this was in fact pretty hard and would probably get approximately a V5 boulder grade.  I enjoyed the rest of the climb and actually got a pointless bat hang in for the fun of it.

 

 

 

 

As the sun moved around we switched to the other side of the canyon and went to one of the most impressive sectors of the area Gran Boveda which yields some imposing lines up to 40m on severely overhanging rock.  A classic 8a there is Coloseum but at 40m long we were unsure whether our endurance was up to the challenge, there was only one way to find out!  It is fair to say we both got spanked, running out of steam and pump dominating our arms and legs we fell off just half way up and looking at how far left we had to go on the route we gave up for that day.  Despite the fact I got some good rests in and yet more knee bars I got severely pumped likely due to the amount of time hanging around on the route, Alex for example spent twenty minutes on it.  Feeling unusually tied for the amount of climbing I had done I called it a day. Alex still determined not to get defeated by the crag tried another less steep 8a only to find the moves absolutely nails, we sacked it off for the day feeling deflated at how unproductive the day had been.

The following day we agreed to have a rest day due to how tied we both felt after the previous day. Despite intending to have a relaxing day we ended up filling it with some tiring slack lining. Also we followed a group of canyoners down the waterfalls and pools of the river, hopelessly ill equipped in flip flops we had a very good time negotiating the hanging boulders and rapid water that blocked the way; I even got in some pretty unsuccessful shallow water bouldering.

Third day in Rodellar and we decided to head to Café Solo an area boasting a variety of routes and an 8c called welcome to Tijuana that Alex wanted to try to see if it was a potential project for the future.  On getting there we started on a 7b to warm up, I started up feeling fine only to have my chalk bag fall off at the third clip (punter error).  I continued dubiously convinced that I would grease off a hold. To my surprise I reached the top without too much trouble.

Next up was the route Café Solo 7b+, not expecting it to be too hard I pulled on to be instantly shocked at the difficulty of it.  I battle through the full on climbing to the third bolt where unable to continue as I could not clip I fell and nearly hit the deck. Annoyed at the fact I had dropped a 7b+ so low down, Neil Gresham who was also there trying an 8a told me that the climb had a reputation for being hard and that he too had dropped it in a similar place. Feeling better I tried again only to fall again at the same place. Three goes later and I had finally done. Warning to anyone else who tries it that route is not 7b+ its nails at that grade.  Meanwhile Alex had been trying the 8a Neil was also on and after falling a few times at a huge span move for him he managed it. He then tried to work Welcome to Tijuana the 8c and as you would expect it was pretty hard.  He got half way up doing most the moves before we began to run out of time.  I quickly finished off another 7b before we left.

The following day we started at Ego Centrismo on a very hard 7a+.  First go I dropped it because my foot popped whilst clipping and after hanging one handed on a poor hold for a couple seconds I couldn’t recover.  Next Alex wanted to try an 8a on sight; he got most of the way through the boulder crux at the start but sadly dropped it on a thin traverse out left.  I tried it but was not psyched for the lower section despite finding the more technical traverse above very pleasant. 

Moving on we headed to El Dolphin. The primary feature to this crag is a very impressive arch which has an awesome 7c+ running up the centre of it.  I tried it and despite getting right to the end I ran out of footholds and, a bit lost as to what I should do, I fell receiving some nasty rope burn on the way down.  Next go I cruised up the climb and reached the last hard move still feeling fresh, frustratingly the move is a big throw into an undercut and I fumbled it a bit and didn’t manage to catch it right.  I intend to return and finish that one before we leave Rodellar.

That brings me to the present (2^nd July). We have two more days climbing in Rodellar before we move onto Lleida for another couple of days.  Despite there being masses of fantastic crags: Oliana and Santa Linya to name a couple.  They are mostly winter crags and so in the current heat they will be mostly unclimbable.  As a result we will only go to Tres Ponts and maybe Terradets before moving on.  

I plan to blog every week for the month that I am out here so I’ll keep you posted.

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