Spain

I'm writing this at my parents place so we didn't manage to leave for Fontainebleau today as originally planned. Still the ferry's is booked for tomorrow morning and I'm chomping at the bit to get out there. The 2 months in Font I did earlier in the year was really great but naturally I left a load of projects that I'm keen to have another go at. Plus i arrived late March and it quickly began to warm up as we moved into April. This time at least it should, in theory, be cooling down as the weeks go on, making the climbing that much easier. So that's the plan till December plus ill probably duck over to Magic Wood if I can for a week or so in between.

So why the slightly later departure for the magical forest? A combination of factors to be honest, some a bit personal to go into here but playing a big part in the delay were my old friends; paper pushing admin that needed to be done (tax disc, ferry booking blah blah) and also; another cold/man flu episode. Still the admins almost all done now and the man flu appears to be abating slightly hence the green light to go.

The man flu/cold episode has definitely been self induced this time so I cant complain, burning the candle at both ends until the candle is nothing more than vapour would sum it up well I think. After I last blogged on the Friday I went up the Castle wall again on the Saturday. Better session than the previous Wednesday so I decided to celebrate and go out with one of my old uni chums for a few that evening. As is often the way with old uni chum beer ups it quickly turned into a massive booze up that ended late. 2 hours sleep and I was up to hot foot it over to Gatwick to get the Pony Jet out to Madrid for my mates 40th do.

After arriving in Madrid early afternoon I was still a mess but had to step up for more alcohol as we headed out for a birthday bash for my mate. By Monday morning I was in pieces but we were up early again driving 3-4 hours east to Albarracin. Albarracin is a great tourist spot with an old castle/fort thing on a hill overlooking a remarkably well preserved village but we were going there because its also meant to be the "Spanish Fontainebleau" and offer superb sandstone bouldering in a forest setting.

Now Ive voiced my opinion previously that perhaps the South African Rocklands do not quite deserve the title of the worlds best bouldering spot but acknowledged that they are certainly on the podium. With Albarracin I feel anyone who hasn't been and hears talk that's its like Fonatinebleau combined with Hueco need to tone down their expectations a fair bit. The setting is beautiful, there is a fair amount of rock there but a large amount of it is pretty poor in my view. Its not a Font and its not really close to the Swiss granite areas in terms of problem quality, volume of problems, rock quality etc.

However considering by Monday evening all of us had started to get the dreaded scratchy throat, (a well known indicator of potential man flu to follow), and we were all still drinking a load of booze nightly, (subtle shift to red wine in rural Spain instead of beer did not improve morning hangovers), we did enjoy our climbing out there. I managed to flash a few 7b+ graded problems, I also did a LOT of mantling which hopefully will help in Font and with our door mat size bits of foam to land on we had plenty of scary moments at the tops of boulders trying to roll out that should help my head game.

I don't think id go back to Albarracin, not because I don't think its pleasant but because I didn't really find any superstar problems that really screamed out to me that I must climb them. Certainly not in the higher grades where by you might try it and fail and in that way have a long-term project to go back to at a later date. To me its just too enticing to go to Font or the Swiss granite if moving around Europe. Unfortunately it seems many people have been enticed by the rumours of a Spanish Font/Hueco and now you have bog roll left everywhere in the woods and loads of broken holds on problems. The rock here is not that much better then High Rocks in my view so that means large things coming off in your hands if you pull too hard after rain for sure.

Anyway the cold fully kicked in on the flight back Thursday night and then I had an early meeting Friday with some ex banking colleagues to discuss the current state of play in that industry (pretty good again by all accounts) It amazes me how quickly that industry has bounced back from the doldrums. Do I need to start thinking about a job again or risk missing the recovery boat? perhaps we'll see. This post has been very sort of nothing I know, but the next one should be much more climbing focused I hope and ill try and get some pics up of project attempts. Its time to climb...