Brrr in Paris

After a quick flight to Paris and a minor epic in Charles de Gaulle Airport (can you fly through there without some issue?), Theresa and I are back together!  We headed into Paris and checked in to the Hotel Saint Christophe in the Latin Quarter of Paris.  We were very pleased with this hotel, friendly, clean and great location.

Jet lag be damned, we headed out into the city, first stop the Eiffel Tower.  The only other time I was in Paris was 21 years ago almost to the day and the tower was closed for the 100th anniversary celebration.  This time everything was open but apparently we weren't the only ones who thought today was a good day to visit.  The line to take the elevator to the top was ridiculously long so we opted to take the stairs to the first two levels, much cheaper and the lines were short.  It was cool to be able to head up into the tower this time, seeing the construction details up close and seeing the nice panorama of the city from the 2nd level.  The 2nd level is somewhere around 450 feet high so walking up there is akin to taking the stairs up to the 50th floor of a building. 

We then headed to the Arc de Triomphe  and wandered down the Champs-Élysées.  We did the tourist thing and had a drink, people watching the tourists and Parisians wander down this famous street.  From the Obelisk at the end of the street we headed into the theater district and had a drink and a hot dog (!?) at Harry's New York Bar, a famous old bar that Hemmingway among others used to frequent.  They clearly took their name to heart, charging prices worthy of both Paris and New York!

The next day we had a Louvre tour scheduled.  I'm not a big fan of guided tours but we had used one to skip the lines when we visited the Vatican and been very happy.  We  were again pleased to use a tour as we got to skip the lines to get in and learn a great deal more than we would have just wandering the museum.  We saw many of the highlights including my favorite statue, the Winged Victory, and the underwhelming Mona Lisa.  There's still a lot I'd like to see there, especially the Egyptian exhibits, but that will be for another trip.

 After the Louvre tour we headed down the Seine and had a nice but chilly picnic of bread, cheese, salami and some wine in a nice park on the Île de la Cité .  Paris was experiencing record low temperatures which weren't that cold, just colder than we wanted or had planned for (highs in the low 60s and windy I think).  After the picnic and a nice warm crepe we headed to Notre Dame.  If you visit, I recommend skipping the relics exhibit.  It's not worth the few Euros that it cost.  Better just to wander around, checking out the amazing gothic architecture.  From Notre Dame we headed back to the room for a quick nap.  We ended the night with a great dinner at a restaurant right around the corner from our hotel.

The next morning we headed to the Palace at Versailles under grey and threatening skies and chilly temperatures.  The Palace is very much worth the slight hassle to get there, stunning in its size and opulence.  We wandered the inside apartments and the grand salons before venturing into the gardens.  A little rain has us moving quickly toward the exits but it stopped quickly, not really hampering our visit.  Right by the train station was a restaurant advertising tex-mex.  We got lured in and tried it....suckers!  It was pretty bad and the service was worse, our one bad meal in Paris.  From Versailles we moved back to Paris and visited Montmartre and the iconic Sacre Couer.  While touristy, wandering around this neighborhood is pretty cool.  We also took the winding staircase to the top of Sacre Couer, and took in what must be the best view in Paris.  Tres Bien! 

We had a great time in Paris and both liked the city more than we had planned.  The Parisians were almost all extremely gracious and helpful, very much unlike the stereotypes. 

Off to Mallorca tomorrow.

Movin' On Up

A quick update.  I'm in Barcelona now, flying to meet Theresa tomorrow in Paris.  Very psyched!  The only way I could be more psyched is if she had the furries with her and maybe a 32oz drink from QT.

In a weird way it was nice to wrap up one stage of the trip by leaving Rodellar.  That part of the trip seemed a bit snakebit with lost bags, injuries, bad weather, seepage, and oh yeah, I got some sort of intestinal funk for a few days that was highly unpleasant.  Sick and living in a tent = not such good times.  On the plus side the weather has slowly been stabilizing with less rain each day and routes starting to dry.   Hopefully when I get back the area will all be dry but the summer heat won't have arrived yet.   As far as climbing goes, I managed a very nice 35m 12d second try and did a 13a after a handful of tries.  The route has an extension at 13c that I dogged my way up that's doable but one section is wet and nasty.  I may spend some time on this if it's dry when I get back.

My friend Mark from Kennesaw was in Rodellar for a little bit and left yesterday.  He climbed well on the new stone and new style, adapting to tufa climbing in fine fashion.  He finished up his trip in style with a last day, last go send of a 13a at Las Ventanas that was impressive to watch.  Under pressure he was totally solid and left on a high note, George Costanza style.

Sorry but no pics for this post.  I've been avoiding taking the camera due to the unpredictable weather.

Have fun out there!

For any climbers reading this, you might want to watch this video about the dangers of taping open slings.  Be careful!


Safety Video - The Danger Of Open Slings from UKClimbing.com TV on Vimeo.

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!

Let it rain, Let it rain!

The skies have opened up here in northern Spain in a most impressive fashion.  High winds, big rain, flooding, the whole shebang.  Thus far my tent has been up to the task so things aren't all bad.

My hand continues to heal, albeit slowly.  The swelling is gone, it seems to function properly, and there's no obvious signs of infection so I am hopeful to be able to climb at some point in the near future.  This will involve lots of tape and lowered expectations but it'll be better than nothing.

Some random pictures:

The Rio Mascun.  Yesterday this was a little creek that you could easily walk across.

Mark falling off the Kings of Metal (13c)

Andres? from France on El Corredor del Muerte (13b).  He's the small white dot.

Las Ventanas and La Surgencia seen from the top of the Ermitage hike.

No Bueno!

Yesterday while making lunch at the cliff I had a small accident with a knife.  The knife was sitting on a rock and started to slip.  I reached to grab it at exactly the wrong moment and stabbed myself in the palm.  The wound isn't long, just the width of the knife blade, but it is fairly deep.  A nice spanish guy brought over a first aid kit and we cleaned it out and got the bleeding to stop.  Needless to say, climbing was done for the day.  I waffled about going to the hospital but, after some consultation with others, decided to see what it was like tomorrow.  Today it looks clean, no signs of infection, but my hand is quite sore and feels swollen.  I'm goin to watch it very carefully and will head to the doctor if anything looks amiss but for now I'm optimistic that no medical care will be needed.  I'm hoping to be able to climb again in a week.  Typing is hard with my right hand at the moment so I'll end here with some random pictures.  As Pawel would say, I need some Dairy Queen for a morale boost.

Random Bridge along a hiking trail.

Artsy Flower Picture

The town of Rodellar and the gorge from the opposite side.

Diana on Juan y Fran se nos van (12a)

Brian on the same route.

A Day of Rest

After 3 days of climbing it's time for a rest.  My internal clock seems to finally have adjusted to European time which is nice.  The lifestyle here is pretty interesting, the tranquillo mindset dominates.  The average days goes something like sleep as late as possible (9ish for me), then lazily drink coffee (which I don't do), maybe eat breakfast, read and sit in the sun, until 2P or so.  Then everyone heads to the cliffs as most of the good climbing goes into the shade in the afternoon.  Then it's climbing until 9 or 10P and hiking out at dusk.   Finally there's dinner with a beer or red wine (by the bottle, decent Red wine can easily be found for a dollar).  I find the whole hanging around for several hours in the morning painful but I've been occupied by a book that my friend Frank recommended called the Big Short.

 

I've found this book super interesting and finishing it this morning was a little bittersweet.   The book chronicles the sub-prime mortgage debacle and Wall Street's involvement.  Very high recommended.

Random thoughts:

1.  European food is awesome.  Artisinal food, so hip and pricey in America, is the standard here.  A block of goat cheese made down the road and locally produced chorizo, combined with fresh bread made in town equals fantastic sandwiches for cheap.

2.  On the other hand, I'm missing some food already.  Mexican food and good pizza seem non-existant.  Fountain drinks are unheard of, particularly 32oz ones.

3.  Europeans know a lot more about Americans than vice versa.  I talked with a kid yesterday from Bulgaria, maybe 22 years old.  He spoke flawless, unaccented English but had never been outside of Bulgaria before coming to Spain.  He asked where I was from and I said the US.  He then asked what state and I told him Georgia.  His response was, "oh, there's a good song about Georgia, Georgia on my Mind by Ray Charles".  Meanwhile I racking my brain trying to think of anything I know about Bulgaria.  Anything....hm.  Wait, the capital of Bulgaria is Sophia, right?  Correct!  He knows crazy random facts about Georgia and I happen to know one world capital.  Ughh.  

Oh yeah, we've been rock climbing too.  Wednesday I climbed with Mike and Dan.  Mike I know from the Red River Gorge in Kentucky while Dan is his friend from California.  I tried a very long 13b at La Surgencia called El Corridor del Muerte that goes on forever at about 40degrees overhanging.  Sort of like climbing in the Madness Cave but longer.  With a 70m rope you have to skip the last bolt and jump to get down.  I liked it a lot and want to spend some time trying to send it.  Mike and Dan crushed with mike doing a 13c/d and Dan finishing up a 13b.

We then headed to Las Ventanas, a very steep, tall area that has tons of hard climbing. I managed to do a 12a and a 12c but didn't get on any of the hard routes.  Dan continued his good with 13a and 12c redpoints while Mike fell off the very end of a long 13d.

Yesterday I again climbed with Mike and Dan.  We started at Pince Sans Rire where I punted off a 12c onsight called Maria Ponte el Arnes but managed to climb it 2nd try.  We ended the day at the Gran Boveda, one of the best cliffs at Rodellar that is just starting to dry up.  I climbed Comando Cono (12c) there, again taking 2 tries after making shambles of my first attempt.

Some Pics:

Mike on Botanics (13d) 

 

Dan on Evasion (13b)

Dan on El Delphin (13a)

Random Spaniard on Kings of Metal (13c)?

 

Brian on Pince Sans Rire and Vasco on Maria (both 12c)

Hanging out at Kalandrakas, a climbers hostel with a bar and restaurant poised at the edge of the gorge.

Vida es Buena

I'm here in Spain, finally. Travel wasn't so so bad....with one small exception. My flights here went something like Atlanta to DC, DC to Madrid, Madrid to Barcelona. I made it safely to Barcelona but my bag decided to hang out in Madrid for a bit. I talked to the luggage folks at SpanAir who had no idea where my bag was. I told them where I was headed to, which was comical because I didn't know the address (Rodellar....you know, the climbing area. You don't know? Huh, that could be a problem.) but eventually communicated where I would be. They promised to send my bag along whenever it was located and I headed to Rodellar.
Once I arrived in Rodellar a nice lady called SpanAir for me where we learned that my bag was in Madrid and would hopefully be delivered the next day. Because my tent and sleeping kit where in my delinquent bag, I spent the nice but slightly spendy night in a hotel 20km away.

They next day (yesterday), I met up with Thomas from Switzerland and Noah and Chris? from America and went climbing. We started at El Camino, a very popular crag that I hated. Crimpy and polished and blah blah. I didn't fly over here to climb on this junk! We then headed to Aquest Any Si, a much better area right on the Rio Mascun. There everyone did a very easy 12a on the right hand side that climbed tufas and jugs for 50 feet. Muy Buena! I next tried to onsight the classic namesake of the crag, Aquest Any Si (12c) but failed at the crux. Here's what I learned...classic of the crag at a reasonable grade means chalk on everything and polished feet! Another try and the route was in the bag. After that we headed to Pince Sans Rire. Pince has one of the best 12cs in Rodellar, climbing 25m of tufas after 10m of weird slab. I wanted to try to onsight it but really felt tired from travel. I sucked it up, tied in and cast off. A nice 20 minute fight and the onsight was in the bag. One of the goals of the trip achieved.

We quit for the day as I wanted to check on my bag. Got back to the campground and no bag. No bueno! A phone call to the airport revealed it was en route and would be here by 8P. As it was 730P I had little faith but at 755 it rolled in. European efficiency at its best! One of life's weird pleasures, getting your stuff back.



Finally.



La Casa and my rental car.

 Breakfast of champions.  How could I not but a cereal called Choco Crack?

A finally a climbing picture.  This is Noah on a very famous route called El Delphin.