A busy day in Spain

To start off in my first blog as a new Beta Climbing Team Member I want to pass on my congratulations to Mina and Charlie for their recent exploits. Mina for her send of Maralyn Monroe a problem I have had the pleasure of climbing and Charlie for ticking The Walk Of Life, a pleasure that at some point down the line I would like to have.
Yesterday was a fairly typically busy day in Spain for me. When you are trying to climb and renovate a house you just have to grab the moments you have with both hands. The day started in a typical fashion with our usual trip to the builders, 40 blocs in our battered golf had its back end dragging on the floor. Next up a trip to the market to find so old drawers to fit into our rebuilt rustic style kitchen. Drawers found and paid for I waited for Kate to return with the car. When she arrived there was another face looking out of the window in the form of a new puppy. Nemo seems to be a cross of Husky and Podengo!! A new friend for Sandi and the cats I think.

Kate and Nemo at L'Ocaive

After a quick trip back to the house we grabbed our climbing bags and headed up to L'Ocaive. L'Espolon De L'Ocaive is probably the most stunning and best sport routes I have ever climbed. 50m of continously interesting and exciting moves right up until the end. I had tried this routes a number of times over the last year but my last attempt at a redpoint saw me failing to reach the 8b belay. On friday I did the 8b again and at last it was starting to feel ok, on Sat I did some more big links again on the 8b and had a long working session of the top wall. It was a hard session really as the route was in the shade all morning and the wind as bitterley cold, but I managed to conjure up two new sequnces. One allowing me to make a clip that previously I had failed on and the other allowing me to not have to deadpoint to a shallow and blind mono.

L'Espolon De L'Ocaive 8c

Yesterday I returned and with all the days excitment taking my mind off the route I felt relaxed and warmed up well. I fired up the 8b which fell easily, any pump from this would make it impossible to climb the upper technical arete. The top half went well with only a few few jitters including a bit of freestyling around the last bolt when I caught a hold wrong. Thankfully my Kalymnos fitness had come in useful as I managed to recover on all the rests no matter how poor they were. The belay arrived with a scream and I could finally get all my clips back. All in all a fun day out.