After 6 weeks of walking up hills with a pack and sitting
around in an apartment eating way too much while waiting for good weather I
have now made it to Siurana in Spain. The climbing here is sharp and crimpy
with the majority of routes being vertical to slightly overhanging. Siurana
itself is an old town perched on a plateau above some amazing limestone cliffs.
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| Siurana Town. |
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| View from Siurana of the cliffs we are climbing on. |
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| Siurana laneway. |
There is a strong crew of climbers from around the world
here and everyday people are throwing themselves at routes up to grade 9a+ (36).
It is always surprising the people you run into multiple times when climbing at
random cliffs around the world. So far I have met people here that I have
previously climbed with at Ceuse, Kalymnos, The Getu Valley, and Arapiles.
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| Relaxing after a days climbing :) |
My first two weeks have been about trying to regain some
sort of sport climbing fitness as alpine climbing has a way of altering your
body's natural movement and lowering your centre of gravity. I have been trying
to climb a higher volume of easier routes to try and speed the process while
having the occasional shot on something harder to make sure my power doesn't
diminish. It is a bit frustrating falling off routes only two months ago I
would have done easily but I am making sure I keep a positive mindset and have
already noticed improvement. I am hoping I can lose some of the weight I put on
in Patagonia (especially in my legs) as fast as I put it on.
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| L'Escamarla 7c+ (28). Mega classic and hardest route I've done so far here, which i sent second go. Belayed by Mayan, photo by American Chris. |
I will be around Siurana for the month of April and have
picked a couple of projects that should be good training whether I get them or
not. One is an endurance based 8b+ (32) that i feel no where near even though the moves aren't that hard and another is a power based 8b (31). Both are amazing routes!
