La Pauta
Sole climber nearing the anchor on a route at La Pauta (click photo to zoom in) Living in Catalonia and having access to basically unlimited amount of climbing is, as you can imagine, just amazing. One cool thing is that we very seldom go to famous areas and sectors. Instead we focus on smaller crags and areas that most of [...]
Il Domani, 9a, by Iker Pou
Iker Pou has made the 2nd ascent of Il Domani, 9a, at Baltzola, a mega resistance route according to him. Quite different to his previous two 9a-range 2nd ascents, Demencia senil and Victimas Pérez. Obviously this was a challenge for him, as it doesn't really suit him that well. The all natural ~70 move route was opened by Patxi Usobiaga [...]
Foreplay?
Despite complaining about feeling sick yesterday, and being generaly miserable due to bad weather, Dave Graham pulled one out of the hat today by doing Open your mind, 8c+, at Santa Linya. "KING OF THE CAVE TODAY!!! HOOORAYYY!!!!!!! One more route of the list in the cave, which is just GREAT". Now... is it just me, or is there just [...]
Interviews with Chris and Daila
Pierre Delás from Kairn interviewed Chris Sharma and Daila Ojeda while he was in Catalunya a while back. You can find the English versions here (Chris) and here (Daila).
The latest sends
Tom Bolger has fought his way up Open your mind direct, 9a, at Santa Linya for his 3rd of the grade: "After a couple of familiar boulder problems at the base of the crag to warm up, and waiting for the good conditions to arrive I found myself clipping the chains. Looking up at the extension shaking out I wanted to continue [...]
Bouldering in Sant Joan de Vilatorrada
Working us through the E-Bloc guide, we of course had to try some conglomerate bouldering in Sant Joan! A bit tricky to find the way though, and the old sign that said "Fiasa" was very old. This pretty small area offered a nice parking lot (read: campsite), some really cool lines and, believe it or not, a whole bunch of [...]
Yesterday, Markus Jung repeated Richard Simpson's A Muerte at Siurana, 8c+/9a, a route that's quickly becoming a hard core classic. After the FA, Richard described the route: "The route I climbed is about 20 metres long. It starts with a nasty one finger pocket, on a wall that overhangs about 25 degrees. You climb 10 long moves on pockets up [...]
The Chaos of Targasonne
Although situated at almost 1600 metres above sea level in the middle of the French Pyrenees, bouldering in Targasonne is still possible, and maybe at its best, in the beginning of March. We didn't expect that when we drove from the coastal area up in the mountains, passing several skiing resorts in their peak of the season. Bare ground, a few [...]