More photos

We rested yesterday and today (my body was tired and I really didn't feel like climbing).  Instead of climbing, we ate lots of food, visited a chevrerie (where I'm now sitting using their wifi), and watched the movie Red.  I'm perfectly happy with that because I didn't want to walk up that fucking hill again.  So boring. Here are some photos I've taken over the last few days, starting with the home life:

Ethan got an 80m rope delivered to our trailer.

enjoying the delicious cheese

Here's some of the cheese we bought from the chevrerie.

Here are some pics I took of the goats at the chevrerie (I took the pictures with my ipod).

 baby lambs!

 nothing cuter than a boy and his goat.

I want to live at the chevrerie so that this is what I wake up to every day.

 There are a lot of cool fossils at the base of the cliff

 Power shot!

 I tried to take photos of this really cool bird called a wallcreeper.  Didn't turn out so well.

Here is a shot of its butt.

Tomorrow we hike up the fucking hill again and I'll try Super Mickey...maybe La Privilage. I don't know. There are some climbs that I'd like to try at Berlin or the Demi Lune, but they are all a bit scary... it makes me pine for closer bolts.  Oh well.

And some parting shots of food:

My first and maybe last french macaron experience. I didn't get a great one, but it was still pretty good. Truthfully I like the ones that I made better.

tired!

Well we've been in Ceuse a week and I am freakin' exhausted. This is about the time in the trip when I'm just tired and a little burned out on climbing.  It's good to be able to take a trip this long - it reminds me to appreciate my "other" non-climbing life.

The climbing is completely amazing here and the conditions are perfect. The crazy heat vanished and it is what I think is a more typical Ceuse spring - cold. The walls are nearly empty during the week (the other day it was Ethan and me and one other party in all of the Berlin, Biographie and Demi Lune.

I would LOVE to take about four rest days, but I have only a week left so I will solider on. Tough life, I know.

The food is great in France, and more and more I'm stoked on going to Gap and eating a lot of it. I'm glad that Ethan appreciates trying new food and eating delicious things as much as I do. It makes it a lot more fun.

My life in Davis is awaiting me, and all of the stresses and crap that it will bring. I don't know what's coming next for me, since I'm graduating in June. Where will I live? What will I do? It is very much a transition time now, and this trip has been a great time-out from those stresses. I came here thinking about data analysis and writing and school and finding a job, but I haven't thought much about those things in about two weeks. I've settled into the climbing life and accepted the stresses of this life as the normal ones. It's funny how that works.

It's been great hanging out with Ethan. He's a great climbing partner. I was a little hesitant coming here because my last trip was pretty traumatic, and the memories were giving me a cloudy head. Plus we'd only climbed together a few times. When you travel with someone, you definitely get to see all sides of them, and it is a risk. You can always split up, but the hope is that it will work out and you'll have a good time. Initially I was planning on going to Greece for the second half of the trip, but we ended up sticking together.  Haha hopefully this next week will be fun and I won't regret not going to Greece!

So this is my reflective post-trip post even though I still have a week left. Hopefully I'll send some rock climbs, since lately I've been feeling tired. I had a cold for a few days last week that wiped out my energy. Right now I'm sitting here and all I want to do is sleep and eat, and not hike up the hill! I have to say I'm pretty fucking sick of the hike. You get fit and all, but it's boring and long.

OK, maybe we'll head into Gap today and eat some more food - yay!

Thanks for all of the comments - it motivates me to write more.

See you all soon!

Just photos

Ok so my battery is dying, but they have just installed wifi at Les Guerins, which is cool.  Here are some photos from Gap and also the camping area. Spring!

Allez Ceuse!

We arrived in Ceuse three days ago after making a "power move" (not a "power decision" like I said earlier). Apparently power decision sounds super dorky. But hey I'm a dork so I don't really care.

Anyway, Les Guerins is almost completely empty now so we almost have the place to ourselves.  Interestingly though, the crag is pretty crowded. I think this might be because even though it's early season, the sun is on the crag most of the day (until about 5pm which seems to be the theme in Europe in the springtime) so people get concentrated on the walls for those few hours.

The first day we went up to the biographie wall and I did a couple of slabby climbs and Ethan put a toprope on La Femme Noir and it was fucking hard ("7c" apparently).  Ethan happens to be extremely good at this type of climbing and I happen to be extremely bad.  I can reminisce about my amazing day in Oliana where the jugs were huge and the routes were extremely onsightable.  No more of that stuff now that we are in Ceuse.  I should go to Greece and Turkey instead so I can restart my 8a and fluff my scorecard.  I hear that's what some of the pros do. Good thing I'm keeping my day job!  That means I can flail happily no matter where I go.

Hoping for some shade, we went up to the Cascade wall yesterday. We got there at 1130 hoping for some shade, but the wall was just going into the sun. I think we'll need to rearrange our schedules to be more compatibly with mornings at the Cascade. The problem is that there are a few hours of sun before the rest of the cliff goes into the shade, so you roast your ass of anyway.  I did find a project though - Super Mickey, a 7b+ that is miles of buckets to a hard boulder crux (at least the way I did it). I tried it in the full sun so I'm hoping that when we go back tomorrow and it's shady it will feel easy and I'll do it second go.  Doubtful, but totally possible. There is a 7c+ to the left of it that is recommended, plus I'd like to try the runout yet (everyone's first 7c+ route) Makach Walou (Ethan's translation: My cock, will you?).  Supposedly it's just resistance to the top with no moves as hard as the boulder crux on Super Mickey. I'd also like to do Petit Illusion and this awesome-looking 7b+ up an amazing blue streak.

Ethan is working on a project called Three Degrees that has not been repeated since Sharma did it.  Ethan has done all the moves in the past, but he'll definitely have to work on it to get the send.  Hopefully he'll do it while I'm here so I can see the glory.  Here are a few photos of him on the route, plus a view from the cliff. It looks fucking horrendous:

I have 2 weeks here (if we stay) so hopefully I can tick some routes. The hike is definitely long and tiring, but spending so much time in the sun is by far the worst part. It saps all of your energy pretty quickly. However I'm a lot leaner than I normally am, which is probably why I feel pretty strong. Hopefully all the butter, cheese, wine, pastries and chocolate that we eat doesn't cancel this out.

Today we are in Gap using the free Gap wifi, buying pastries (Financiers and croissants) and going shopping. Plus we are going to seek out Tourtons which Ethan has been gushing about for weeks. I'm psyched. This is my first real "French experience." It's cool, except that I REALLY don't like not being able to speak the language.  In Spain I could get around really well (all things considered), plus the Spaniards are friendly and are psyched to try to practice their English. French people, not so much. I'd like to get a phrasebook or something - I think I could pick up some basics fairly quickly, and that's all I'd need. Part of the problem is that French is not pronounced the way it is written, which I find annoying.  Spanish is far far easier.

As for the lifestyle, we wake up around 10, have a casual breakfast, coffee, lounge, get ready and hike up to the cliff, climb till dark (which is about 9 these days), hike down and then eat at 1030, and go to bed around midnight.  Basically it's the complete opposite of my life in Davis. It works though, especially with the timing of the sun on the cliff...you just can't get there any earlier (though we can and will for my projects at the Cascade).  You just roast your ass off. But then you can sit in the Cascade and cool off, which is pretty nice.

So that's it for the first update from France. I took some other photos but had to reformat my camera's memory card so I lost a couple.  I'll take more, and hopefully get some of me climbing at some point.

Au revoir.

American Invasion, and on to France

We left Margalef on Tuesday and headed to Oliana.  We had to stop at Chris's house because Ethan has some stuff stashed there.  We drove up and opened the gate and looked around but nobody was home and all of the doors were locked.  Apparently some Americans were staying in Sharma's guest house, but they'd locked up and there was no key to be found anywhere.  Since we had nowhere else to go we just decided to hang out.  These are some pictures I took there:

Spring is full-on here, even though it feels like summer.  I went back to our car to put on some shorts and I heard a car drive up.  Chris and Daila drove up and looked at me like "who are you and what are you doing in our driveway?"  I just said "uh...I'm with Ethan!" and then they were like "oh oh ok."  I'd met Chris before but not Daila.  It was an uncomfortable moment..I felt kind of bad.  Chris probably gets weird people talking to him all the time. Anyway, it was all good and we had some cold beers, chatted about climbing shoes (well, Chris and Ethan chatted, I zoned out and tried to tan my legs), and then talked about how hot it was. Unfortunately there was no key to the guest house, so Ethan still couldn't get his crap. We were offered a spot on the floor in a room attached to the guesthouse, but it's still under construction and neither one of us really felt like sleeping on the floor.  I mean, I have a job, I have money and I'm going to spend it on this trip.

We drove on to Oliana and looked for camping, but we couldn't find anything and ended up in a hotel in Coll de Nargo, the next town North of the town of Oliana.  The next day we tried to track down some camping but had no luck, so we drove up to the crag.  Lo and behold, an American invasion. The crag roasts in the sun until about 3, so that's when everyone shows up. I was a little taken aback to see so many Americans!  Clay and Rosi, Joe and Collette, Emily and Same...plus Andrew, Jen, Elly and Keith at Chris's house. It's a full-on American invasion. Our German friends from Margalef showed up yesterday and were like "I can't believe there are so many Americans!" Apparently we (Americans) say "like, like, like" all the time.  I know I do, and I'm not even going to try to fight it even though Ethan tried not to say "like" for about half an hour before giving up.  Like, it's what we do.

We drove BACK to Chris's house after not climbing (too hot, we wanted to rest) and stayed in a campground near his house.  After cooking dinner and relaxing it was already midnight so it was too late to try to get Ethan's crap.

Keep in mind the whole time we're talking about how we need to find cooler weather because it's fucking hot here. Oliana is awesome, but it goes into the shade so late that you don't get much climbing in - mostly just sitting around all day waiting for shade. Chris wanted Ethan to stay because he's working on his house, so it works out for him to work on his house and then climb in the evening.  But it's too hot. So we took Joe's advice "Power decisions man, gotta do it. Power decisions are the way!" and decided to go to France.

We decided to go to Oliana because Ethan needed to get his draws off of a route he was working on. So I got to climb at Oliana for an afternoon.  It is AWESOME! I'm so in love. Love love love.  Jugs, buckets, steep long routes. HUGE feet.  It rules.  In fact I had a great climbing day: I onsighted a 7a, flashed a 7a+ and then "pretty much" onsighted a 7b/+.  So after not climbing well at Margalef, this was great. I think that Keith Ladzinski got some photos of me on the 7a+, so I'll try to get some and post them  here.  Here are some crappy photos that I took of Oliana yesterday:

 View from the crag

 view of the crag

 Ethan eating yogurt and cookies and doing his best ET impersonation

 American shit show

 The obligatory Sharma shot. Everyone else was taking photos of him so I jumped on board.

 Another view of the crag

German astrophysicists. The guy studies black holes and the girl studies gamma rays

So that's it for Spain. I'm sitting in a cafe right now and we are about to pack up and head to Ceuse, which Ethan guarantees is the best sport climbing in the world. I am psyched. There is a big hike every day up to the crag so you get super fit. It's supposed to be awesome and beautiful and muy tranquilo.  I'm psyched.

Off we go!

I meant to blog more than this, but you know, I'm on vacation.

So this is our last day in Margalef (yesterday was our last climbing day). It was so hot that we spent most of the time at La Finestra, which sees quite a bit of shade throughout the day.  I put work into this 7b+ but didn't manage to seal the deal and didn't even try it yesterday, opting for mileage over failing at redpoint attempts.  Ethan fared better, onsighting a couple of 8a+'s and sending an 8c second go. It's so hot that we are going to head to Oliana for a few days so Ethan can get his draws off of something, and so that I can swing around on tufas.  Then we're considering going to France.  Ceuse, or St Leger possibly.

The living situation has been interesting. We've had Team Japan move into the Refugi with us.  I feel kind of bad because I know that terrible things are happening in Japan right now, but they are pretty funny.  They have plugged more shit into the outlets than I ever thought possible. I meant to get a picture but they started unplugging everything before I got a chance.  There are 3 younger people (maybe early 20s) traveling with Mr. Miyagi. This old guy "teacher" is probably about 65, plugs away on his ipad, and is generally just awesome...except that he snores, and his many electronic devices bling and ring at night and somehow he manages to sleep through it all. Still, I'd be psyched if I was getting after it as much as he is at his age.

We also got to hang out with a nice German couple...I was excited to learn that they are astrophysics Ph.D. students (well, the guy is, and the girl is still finishing up her M.S. I think).  We had some late night conversations about nuclear power, gamma rays and black holes over beers.  The best part of climbing trips is meeting and talking to new people. I can't get enough of it.

The other crew that I got to hang out with was a group of Spanish climbers from Cuenca and Barcelona. My Spanish is way better than I remember it being (it's still bad, but I know a lot of words). Most of the Spanish climbers I've hung out with on this trip have been super cool and very quick to laugh. One particularly funny moment involved me trying to remember the word for "throat". I remember in Costa Rica I always mixed it up with "gangreja" which actually means crab.  Garganta is the word for throat. Anyway, I was trying to explain that Ethan had a sore throat (he's had a cold for the past few days), and we went into "this is the word for throat, etc etc." in Spanglish. Then the guy that our friend was belaying said "GARGANTA PROFUNDO!" His belayer, who speaks pretty good English said "hahah, you know what profundo means? It means...deep."  It took me a minute to register, but at any rate now I know the Spanish phrase for deep throat.  Super useful.

The other cool thing about hanging out in Spain is all of the aromatic plants. Rosemary, thyme and what looks (but doesn't smell) like sage is everywhere. Plus it's spring so all of the fruit trees are blooming. It's strange (to me) that pretty much the entire landscaped is terraced and planted with olives and what looks like some sort of prunus trees.  Yet in such a made landscape, it still feels quite natural. It's very different from the American agricultural paradigm where anything that is planted is flattened and made square or round for irrigation, planting, and harvesting purposes, so that everything can be done by machine.  There would be no way to automize harvesting and planting here. It's interesting to think about.

Alright, we're going to clean up and get out of here. I'll try to take more photos.  I'm so bad at taking photos.