Let it rain, Let it rain! Part Dos

Remember, it never rains in northern Spain in June.  This is what we keep hearing yet it keeps raining  everyday.  The last few days have been decent with only a few hours of light rain but the heavy rains have returned today.  My tent continues to do yeoman's work so at least I've got that to be happy about. 

My hand has healed enough to climb on using a fair amount of tape which is nice.  We've managed to dodge the rain the last few days and find some dry rock.  Rodellar is in general very steep which is a good thing during periods of heavy rain but the tufas are now all completely soaked from seepage.  For those who aren't familiar, think of a tufa as an attached stalactite that forms in the same way as those in caves, via slow mineral deposition of groundwater drips. 

 These big pipes are tufas.

They are incredibly fun to climb on and Rodellar is one of the best tufa crags in the world.  When heavy rainfall raises the water table and increases hydrostatic pressure, the outlet valves are the tufas.  So while a lot of Rodellar has remained dry, the features that most of the routes climb on are soaked.  At this point I'm just hoping that the area dries out before I get back in late June.

Because of the wet tufas, we've been confined to the few areas that are somewhat dry.  I've managed to do a fair amount of easy 5.12s and yesterday somehow managed to do one of the few 13As that is dry on my second try.  It's easy for the grade but it was a nice suprise!  Today is a rest day with hopes of drier conditions tomorrow.

Some random pics:

Compare this pic with the last post.  Taken from the same place, some of the boulders have disappeared with the latest rain.

A little positive vibes...blue sky!