Today we leave Rodellar to attend the Petzl Rock Trip in France. These events are always fun, but Joe and I were hoping to dodge this one after we found out we couldn’t extend our tickets. We have exactly one week which means serious crunch time for my project that I finally found a few days ago. Of course this was a route I tried the very first days of our trip and deemed impossible only to find out a few weeks later that with a little beta and a big audience you can climb way harder than you thought. The route is El Delphen, a classic Rodellar route that goes out the big arch. Yesterday I fell on the very last move twice on my two final burns. Why I pick projects on roads trips at all (especially at the end) is a mystery to me. I know I should just do mileage and climb routes I can do in a few tries, but for some reason this never excites me for long. We’ll have a few days after the Roc Trip to come back to Rodellar where if I can withstand the pressure, I’ll have a fighting chance of sending.
Acravita 8a, one of the coolest in Rodellar.
Streets of Alquezar.
Walking on a warm day in Alquezar.
Jodie working one of the many super steep 13a’s.
Rodellar face climbs… nice.
Miraculously I’m still writing from Rodellar. Our biggest concern at the moment is whether to extend our tickets or not. I know, I know our flexibility is both absurd and obnoxious. Believe me, we know how lucky we are, and in affect we realize when our luck runs out. For instance a few days ago when we woke in our poached camp spot to the sound of the LaGuardia Civil. These fellows are known to fully dismantle tents and trash them while climbers are out at the cliffs. They also hit you with up to a $300 fine when they do catch you red-handed, like yours truly that morning. After Joe had done his fare amount of swearing, he exited the tent first to deal. I knew his confused puppy-dog face would work the wonders we needed. But apparently our day thought we hadn’t enough. As we drove to closest town-de-groceria, we got sandwiched by a couple of motorcycle cops. Immediately I began chewing Joe out for speeding, which he promised he was not. When we cops approach the window they explain the problem was that I had my feet up on the dashboard (my classic road-trip pose!) and this they explained was “prohibited”. They slapped us with a 40 Euro fine, which was to be paid right then in cash; yeah shady right? I suppose if karma had to have its way I’d rather the stolen 40 euros.
The weather went a little crap on us for a couple of days, putting the wet-tufa status back to it’s original dampness as when we got here. The past two days have been incredible though, and once again the forecast looks clear. At this point we’re just playing it by weather, Joe’s body, and bank accounts to decide if our Euro trip shall continue.
We left Cuenca!! It was harder than we thought to get out of that place. There are these vortexes with climbing and you just get stuck in places. Like you have a project then by the time you send your partner is working something. Then you’re both ready to go and some punt is telling you it’s raining everywhere and your entire drive will be in vain. Well you just have to tell them to piss off, you two are going solo again and that’s it. It’s lovely to be on our own schedule again. As much as it’s great meeting new people and taking advantage of them, in the end you feel like you owe them something or you feel bad not doing what they want. And this starts to suck. So we broke our convenient ties and headed to the beach down south. We rolled into Alicante, a pretty touristy city that looks much like any other Spanish ghetto but with coastal perks. When the overcast killed our session de playa and we continued our drive to Sella, a rad climbing area usually out of season, but do the random weather, possibly possible. As we arrived late that night rain started to pour crushing any hope we had of climbing the next day. The tufas would be soaked and now we had to set up camp in the pouring rain because the refugio wasn’t where our photographed map said it would be. These are the times when you’re on the road thinking WTF!!, all I want is a nice warm bed. The next day the absolutely rad cliff was wet. So drove back toward the beach because that seems like the only reasonable thing to do when you’re that close to it and made plans for the big move. We knew we could either drown our sorrows in a giant bag of herb and sit on the beach for the next month getting crispy, or we could make the 6 hour drive back to Rodellar, get a few things Joe had sent there, and then if/when it was still totally wet we would suck it up and go to France, something we’ve been trying to avoid the whole time since we’ve been here. Of course we drove to Rodellar! We’re climbers, not stoners!! We tried not to get too excited when it wasn’t raining as we drove in, because we knew it had done so everyday for the past two weeks. That night strong winds rolled through and the next day the forecast called for nice conditions all week. So we stay. We don’t have to go to expensive-ass France and get the stank-eye for not knowing the language. The stank eye sucks, especially from the French.
For two days straight the sun has been shining. But instead of brightening our psych for Cuenca it has giving us a new found motivation to try and leave. Personally I’ve been trying to leave since I got here, but the weather, some projects, and a convenient place to stay have kept me here. Today I sent my psycho-hard 12c project (can we say ego IS crushed), Joe’s tendons have had enough, and the house which has been hospitably offered to us has run its course. Joe and I always find when the energy gets this way one way to fix it is leave.
No trip photos… but here’s some MIA just cause…
Oh and you must read the pimpinandcrimpin interview of Alley. It’s hysterical!! I love those girls!!!
