The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, with a lot going on in a relatively short period of time.

I left Innsbruck for a hectic week of sponsor related activities, but not before having one final day trying my project in the Zillertal. Armed with a hand-warmer in my chalkbag, I hoped that I might be able to find just enough to get me through the top crux. Unfortunately the rock was colder than I had ever felt before, and even the comforting heat from my chalk bag failed to hold off the unbeatable numbness. 2 moves from the top, with all feeling lost, I barn-doored off the technical crux and once again found myself dangling in space.

Dundee was the first place on my tour, for the 2nd stop of the North Face Speaker Series in the UK. The talk seemed to go down pretty well, and I got a lot of questions/autograph requests at the end, which tends to be a positive sign.

With spirits high, I headed down to the opposite end of the country for my 2nd North Face event, an open Coaching clinic at The Climbing Academy in Bristol. The climbing academy is a great venue and one I would certainly be more than happy to have as my local venue. Set out in a similar way to the Climbing Works in Sheffield, TCA has various colour coded problems, well set and suitable for all levels of climbers, as well as a dedicated circuit board, campus board, fingerboards, stretching area, cafe, treatment room etc etc! The Open Coaching clinics they hold run from around 2pm until 9pm and are a very informal affair where users of the wall can come and ask the coach of the day for advice on any aspect of their climbing. The atmosphere on the day was great, and I particularly enjoyed helping out with the youth squad who had a couple of very talented young members. Keep up the good work guys.

After a few days hanging out in Bristol, It was time to head off into the sunset again for the annual North Face Athlete Summit in San Francisco. The Athlete Summit is a chance for all of TNF's athletes to get together, talk about the past year and future plans, as well as learning what’s going on behind closed doors. The highlight of the trip for me was the final party, which took place on what looked like an old Mississippi river steamer (just obviously without the steam) which sailed around the San Francisco Bay, pumping out quality dubby-breaky-electropop thanks to Ana Sia.

TNF athlete summit, another snippet from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

The party finished way too early, but for the 4 or so hours it did go on for I had great fun dancing with the usual suspects with one important addition to the team - Yuji Hirayama. Before this trip I had loads of respect for Yuji, based solely on his climbing achievements, but after meeting him that respect has gone through the roof. Not only is he a genuinely lovely guy, he dresses fly and can dance like a daemon. Yuji is my new hero and when I grow up I want to be just like him ;)

The Legend That Is...

Right now I’m in Fontainebleau, France where life is good. When I have a little more time, I’ll let you know what’s been going down...

Route climbing seems to becoming more and more out of focus, which is a shame as it was originally the main reason I came to Austria. The main reason is its getting too cold, and even if you can find people as crazy as you who want to do routes in this weather, when you get on the rock your fingers become almost instantly numb. After warming up, things improve a little but there comes a point in difficulty that just seems impossible to overcome. When the holds become just a little too small, and the moves become just a little to hard, and you step just a little outside your comfort zone then BOOM – suddenly you have frozen candles where fingers once were.

Perhaps I should have considered this time of year a little more carefully when making my original decision about moving. The trouble is, when things are way off in the future, you either don’t think of that time as important, or simply cant accurately imagine what it will be like. Until you are living in that specific moment, how you will feel, and what you will do are relative mysteries; well they are to me anyway. You just have to do the best you can when the time comes.

Whilst racking my brain to think of ways to keep my endurance without climbing routes every day, I remembered reading something a few years ago that some old school hero (possibly Jibe) wad said about pull-ups and their equivalent route grades. Now I don’t remember much, and there is a chance that what little I do remember is wildly incorrect, but I think the statement was “30 pull-ups on a small campus rung is equivalent to F8b+”. The thought process that followed was something like; I have a small campus edge under my fingerboard, and surely climbing an 8b+ whenever the mood takes me will be good endurance training, why not give it a shot?

The man who started it all!

So the first time I tried, it felt like the living end. The first 3 pull-ups felt good, only 10 sets of these and it’s in the bag. At about 10 pullups I hit the wall, and it wasn’t many more before all I could do was hang limply from straight arms. Before pulling on I had thought “it will be ok, whenever i get tired ill just shake out one arm and then continue” and for some bizarre reason it didn’t hit me that dead-hanging one arm is tough at the best of times ( I certainly can’t hang there comfortably) so why on earth would I be able to do it when my arms are too tired to do pull-ups!

It was over, at a number so low no one needs to know what it was. I was genuinely shocked at how hard it was, how such a simple, relatively easy movement, could become so impossibly difficult after doing a few of them back to back. But if there is one good thing about trying something new, and failing hard, its that the only way is (hopefully) up. The next day I tried again, and was marginally better, and a few days later I tried once more. Every time I tried, it felt a little easier, until I was getting close to the magic number. Finally 30 came, and the next time I did one more, then a few more , and before I knew it, I was heading towards the next mile stone.

In probably 6 or 7 sessions, I have seen almost a 200% improvement in my max reps which I find quite shocking, I wonder how long it will be before this progression begins to slow and eventually plateau, and also what the maximum amount will finally be (depending on if I can stay motivated and my elbows don’t explode). Most importantly, I wonder what (if any) impact this will have on my climbing.

Over the last week or so I have got to see a selection of Austria’s hardest and finest boulder problems and been lucky enough to climb a few of them, even getting in a first ascent for an added little bonus.

Sundance Sit is quite simply stunning. By far the best boulder I have seen in Austria and definitely up there with the best I have climbed – anywhere!
I first tried the problem at the end of a busy day in Ginzling. I fell at the crux on my flash go, and after working the moves for a few minutes I still could not get past this point on the link. The problem felt really hard, and I didn’t think I had a chance at doing it, especially since the easier top section felt desperate in its own right.

Sundance Sit - Photo from www.chalkjunki.at

Three days later I returned, ready for a battle. After warming up elsewhere, I sat down and fired off the problem first try, well at least to the no hands knee bar which you can reach the finishing jug from. Then for some reason I tried adjusting my knee, off popped my foot and down went I! What an idiot. Another message sent by climbing to remind me to always focus, respect the rock and don’t think it’s in the bag until you are stood on top. Fortunately my next try found me back in the kneebar, this time with my full attention which happily resulted in topping out for real. Its always nice to come back to a problem that felt desperate, only to find it not too bad; much better that way than the other way round, wouldn’t you agree?

Emi slapping The Faginator

On the same day I tried Ground Zero and Sundance Sit for the first time, I alsp put up a new problem on the Incubator boulder. Starting just to the left of the Incubator, the Faginator starts from undercuts on the back wall and climbs out and left (with a real faggy sequence) to reach the left arête. Its a nice little problem, not much to look at but fun to climb and certainly puts up a bit of a fight. You climb most of the problem from a series of baggy toe locks and requires a good amount of core tension to stay on the rock, and also control your laughter when watching someone fall off and backwards roll down the pads. Being on the Incubator boulder, a lot of the holds were mysteriously soggy so its hard to know how difficult it is to climb the problem, rather than how difficult it is not to slip off the holds (which was quite a high level of difficulty).

Emi on The Faginator

Despite the cold and the damp, Keith, Emi and I made the short treck to the Zillartal in the hope of finding dry rock. The higher we climbed, the whiter the ground became and my hopes started to fade. Emi on the other hand was confident that we would find something climbable, and since he was the only local among us, I gave him all my faith.

The initial choice came down to 2 options, the Sundergrund or the Zillergrund. The former was the safer bet in terms of dry rock as the boulders were more in the open, however the walk in was long and probably very soggy from all the snow. The latter is almost roadside, except the boulders are in the forrest so more likely to be damp. Decisions decisions...

We decided to check out some lines in the Zillergrund first, the idea being that if they are dry, we climb, and if not, we move on, having wasted little time with a long wet hike. The first few blocks we checked out were unfortunately a little moist to the touch, but just as hope had almost gone, Emi remembered a different line he had tried a few years ago.

He described Mother Firestarter as one of the best 8a’s in the Zillertal, which imediatley got me psyched and on first contact with the boulder it didn’t disappoint. Big Boulder, tall steep face, one line of friendly holds, cant really ask for more. Emi talked Keith and I through the sequence which was as I imagined it would be with the exception of the starting few moves. These, it turned out, were best solved via a crazy cross around the arête, then falling into an upside down backhand sloper, before extending out into the face edges. Wild!

Warming up was proving to be tricky. With no other problems around, it took the form of deadhanging and pull-ups on what other individual holds you could find. Keith and Emi moved on to trying the problem and i was just about to join them when Keith said he thought I could flash it. Another 10 minutes dead hanging and watching the show, and I felt ready to give it a burn. The first two holds were fortunately jugs, but led right away into the aforementioned strange sequence. I was pleased to find these few moves ok, but as I continued upwards on reasonable edges and gastons, contact with the rock became ever harder to keep. With two moves to go, I was almost certain I would slip, and as I placed my foot on a terrible smear and looked up at the final hold I did consider stepping off. An interesting character once said “Until you give up, success is always on the cards.”, and it is so true but something I forget too often. But not today. I pushed with my foot, threw out my arm, my fingers found the edge, my foot stayed on, I was at the top. Success!

Its nice to feel like I am getting back in the game. I had begun to worry that my, as yet, unsuccessful attempt to morph into a sport climber had also had major negative impact on the other aspects of my climbing. Whilst I’m definitely not playing my bouldering A game, I can now see a path to follow when before there was none. Incidentally, I am also closer to my sport projects than ever before, so perhaps the year will be a success after all?

The cold weather has arrived making route climbing even more difficult than I was finding it before. Whilst single moves on the harder routes are now feeling a little easier because of the better friction, I have been really struggling with numb fingers when trying to string more than a few of these moves together.

I have been getting out quite a bit with Gerhard and Emi to places like Schwarze Wand and Dolby Surround, and whilst managing to get a lot of individual moves and bolt-to-bolt sections done, I have failed to clip the chains on a single successful redpoint of anything notable.

One man’s fear is another man’s fantasy, and so whilst the cold may not be beneficial for routes, it does mean that the bouldering season is on its way back. Over the last few weeks I have taken a few short trips to Switzerland and Italy in order to dust the cobwebs off and find out just how much of a punt a year of ropes had made me.

Amber - A lovely photo of a lovely little bloc in Ticino - courtesy of Emi Moosburger

The answer was quite surprising. In terms of single move power, I don’t feel much worse than at my past peaks, however, when it comes to power endurance I am way off the pace. With all the stamina work I have been doing over the last year I would have put money on it being the other way around, but once again climbing continues to confuse me.

As soon as the moves drop below about 50% of maximum then I feel ok and can link a good few of them together, yet once I am actually pulling or squeezing my tank feels almost immediately empty. I really noticed this on a problem called Frogger in Ticino which is a steep 10 move problem I had first climbed about 2 years ago. I originally climbed Frogger on my second try (after my foot slipped on the 1st move on my flash go) and at the time felt that it was pretty soft for the grade. This time however, it took many tries and much grunting to get to the top, feeling instead that it was rather stiff – yet another indicator of the subjectivity of grades.

Yesterday I went to try one of my route projects up in the Zillertal. On the drive up the valley, the temperature gage in the car was losing a digit every minute or so, finally settling at a nice round zero as we arrived at the crag. To shorten what could be a lengthy and boring story, I fell a couple of times about 3 moves from the top due to fingers closely resembling icicles. After the main section of hard climbing you arrive at a mediocre rest where it is possible to recover a little before the last technical boulder problem. The problem was as each shake brought new life to my forearms, my fingers died a little – a frustrating little catch 22 that seemed destined to always end in the same way.

Perhaps hand warmers in my chalk bag might help?

Time flies when you’re having fun, drags by when you’re waiting for the call, and merges together into one fuzzy haze when you’re busy buys busy – well what do you expect, it is relative after all!

If would hardly believe almost a month has passed since my last post if the proof wasn’t there in black and white. I feel a little ashamed for not writing even a single syllable this whole time and am currently trying to work out why I have been so rubbish of late.

And there you have it, looking at my calendar and slotting in activities for individual dates leaves me with a hell of a lot of blank space, and blank spaces tend not to lend themselves to interesting blogs.

Blank space occurs when I don’t leave the house, which is something that has been happening quite a lot recently for reasons the smart ones among you may have already guessed. Keith has been working day and night to finish 2 films (as any of you who read his Blog will know) and has barely left his room in weeks, and since he is the only one who can drive out here, by proxy I too have become a hermit. Its not as bad is it sounds though. Occasionally, between bringing Keith cups of tea and being locked back out of his room, I have been lucky enough to catch a fleeting glance the masterpiece in progress. One time, I swear I saw the whole of Tylers left bicep, but I guess that was just too much as Keith now demands I leave his tea at the door. Oh well... It was worth it!

Conveniently however, as our house arrest began, a beautiful gift was sent from above (in terms of latitude) in the shape of a Beastmaker 2000 . I recently discovered that at some point over the last year someone had robbed me of all my finger strength. Im not sure how they did it, or why they chose me (surely Gaskins or Graham would have been a better choice?) but It was gone none the less, meaning not only had I evolved into a mediocre sport climber, but a poor excuse for a boulderer as well! Things needed to change, and so since its install I’ve been plodding away with 2 sessions a day on the beast and an happy to report a gentle improvement.

The few days out at the cliffs have been pretty good, as have the days in the gym, although I should point out that “good” is a very versatile word and can be used to describe lots of occurrences. In this case I am using it for both “ticking projects” and getting “pumped out of my mind and burnt off by teenage girls” – all you have to do is work out the order.

One particularly positive day was spent trying Dolby Surround, a great bouldery route at the top of the Zillertal. I had tried the route at the beginning of the summer but couldn’t manage one of the moves at the start of the boulder problem – a long lock off a diagonal right hand gaston, so when recently went back with Gerhard Hörhager and Emanuel Mooseburger I didn’t have high particularly high expectations. After watching Emi and Gerhard do the move, I was a little worried about trying it and looking like a complete punter but thankfully, to my surprise, the route felt a lot easier and the Gaston move was no longer a problem.

After the warm up inspection I had one redpoint attempt (with no expectation of topping out because the route in its entirety is really hard) to see how far I could get and made it passed the Gaston move which I was really pleased about. From this point there are still 8 hard moves (and one clip) before a reasonable (1 ½ pad, 6 finger) edge where you can shake and hopefully climb the last easier boulder to the top. Whether or not the route will go down this season I don’t know (especially as its probably covered in snow now) but its nice to think that its no longer impossible.

Here is a Video of Adam Ondra trying the route (starts at around 7 min), the gaston move is 2 moves before he falls. http://www.vimeo.com/6747749

If you aint got 4 wheels then 2 will have to do! I have to be honest, I had started to get a little disillusioned with Mountain Biking. I’d owned the bike since about June, taken it out for 2 proper rides and as a result, spent about the same amount of money fixing and tweaking it as it cost me in the first place. Add to that the gash on the back of my leg, which was infected for over a month and cost me another 100euro in medical expenses, and I was starting to ask whats the point?

Keith has some intel on trails on the other side of town that were supposed to be fast and flowwy, with big drops and jumps, so I decided to give it another shot. I met some other riders at the Bus stop who kindly offered to show me around and spent the rest of the day riding long fast woodland runs, with the bonus of not even having to push back to the top. I got back home complete with a giant grin and took back all the bad things Id said. I’d had fun, my bike was fine, I was fine, what a great sport.

The next day I headed out again and met a different bunch of guys waiting for the Bus. Again they let me tag along, but these guys were a little more advanced than yesterday, which was great for me. Once you have seen someone ride a certain terrain, then that terrain instantly appears more approachable. If there wheels can make it over at that speed, yours can too, and very quickly you are riding steeper, bumpier and faster than ever before. Sure there is lots of skill involved, which definitely makes the unwanted less likely to happen and gives you more chance of correcting it when it does. But if you can; let go of the preconceptions, come off the brakes and let the amazing machine do what its designed to do.

The same elated feelings from the day before came flooding back as I sat in the Bus on the way back up, looking out at the snow capped mountains. Something that should not be there caught the corner of my eye. A second later and I still couldn’t quite work it out, it looked distinctly the bridge of my forks was slightly offset, it two pieces, but that’s not how it’s meant to be. Sure enough I had somehow managed to break my forks, and that was the end of that.

As I write this I'm currently waiting on a call from the Austrian dealer to tell me what the damage (financially speaking) will be. I really have no Idea,, just that there's no way on earth I can afford to buy new lowers at the RRP of ~£250! My fingers are crossed for another one of those gifts from above...

P.S I just saw Cedar has posted another PsicoBlog over at Vertical Carnival so if you haven't already seen it then you should check it out.

For the remainder of the trip the blue skies graced us only briefly with their presence. Most mornings were damp from thunderstorms during the previous night, some of which were so bad that Em declared she thought she was going to die, when one of the bolts exploded a little too close for comfort. This left the rock a little out of prime condition until mid to late afternoon, but no-one complained too much as it was the perfect excuse for a lay start.

After a few days we decided to venture to less familiar territory and explore Cala Sa Nau. This slightly lesser known area is actually home to two incredible features of which both played a major role in the rest of the trip. The first is the Hupolup Kempf cave – a rather intimidating place with a selection of the islands hardest and highest routes. The second is the Cala Sa Nau beach bar, which is a significantly less intimidating place, full of some of the islands friendliest and nicest people.

Hupolup Kempf Is described in the guide as “Showing the way of things to come... Prepare for some serious air-time!” and was first climbed at by Klem Loscot and Chris Sharma during 2003. Whilst the full cliff is not as “tall” as the actual top of Porto Colom, the hard sections of the main routes all climb a completely horizontal roof, way, way up in the air and are a little intimidating to say the least. Climbing that sort of terrain at that sort of height is scary enough on jugs, but throw in some small holds and some heel hooks for good measure and you have a recipe for a bit of spice.

Vadage was the first route to go down and was a pleasant introduction to the cliff. The upper crux is at a similar level to the roof of the harder routes and so gives you a bit of an idea of what to expect. After a brief look at The Weather Man, and a long drop to the ocean when I got too scared, a thunderstorm put an end to the antics and we retreated to the bar for some well earned Sangria. We returned a few days later to tick the route and Tim shot some amazing pictures as the sun just started to set.

The bar at Cala Sa Nau is a great place to hang out after a day’s climbing and had some of the tastiest food I ate on the Island, especially the calamari and the goats cheese salad. They also hold fairly regular parties there and we were lucky enough to catch two of the electro and funky house varieties. One of the best things about these parties is due to local restrictions, the music can’t go on much past 12am, but to make up for this the party normally starts in the afternoon. I really like this way – you get your full quota of dancing, yet still get a good enough sleep to feel fresh the next day. Next time you are on the Island, pay them a visit and you won’t be disappointed.

Matt agrees that Cala Sa Nau is the place to be!

We took a little break from Cala Sa Nau to check out Balam at Cala Llombards. This massive roof is fortunately only 8 or 9 meters above the waves, meaning the 10m+ of upside down, heel toe, bobble slapping action is not too intimidating. I had tried this route on my last trip, but not faired too well, getting super pumped as I struggled to find the right holds in the upside down labyrinth. Miguel originally graded this 7c and so I figured I was just having a bad day, but on speaking with Miguel later that night he told me “When I climb this I try many times. I climb and feel the holds, tap tap tap with the chalk, fall in, then try again. When you know where is the right holds, it’s easy, but if not, it’s very difficult. I try so many times, eventually I know all the good holds and when I climb I think it’s not so bad, maybe 8a/+ but I think others will find it easier so I write 7c”.

It seemed like the key to this route would be in watching someone with the beta, or taking part in a group attempt, so the good holds get chalked leading to (hopefully) an eventual ascent. Alex, Matt and Cedar seemed like good company for this and we systematically set out in turn from the back of the cave, aiming for the light.

The dream team...

It looked like once you reached an obvious jug at the lip the main difficulties would be over but after both Alex and I failed after reaching this point it was clear there was a sting in the tail. The sea was getting pretty rough, making swimming to the exit a little worrying but I got psyched and chalked up for what I thought might be THE go. Through the roof everything felt great and I arrived at the lip surprised at how fresh I felt. Maybe it was the over confidence that made me careless. I pulled too hard on one of the bobbles in an attempt to skip some holds, my left hand gave, and I hit the ocean square on my back, shortly after the piece of broken rock.

Under the water I knew something was wrong. My chest felt all wrong and as I kicked back to the surface, panic took over, and visions of being tossed about in heavy seas unable to breath filled my mind. With what I feared might be my last breath I shouted (well, mumbled/garbled) “help” as I broke the surface and immediately swam for the rope with all I had left. In only a second or so my head had cleared enough to know what had happened. The wind had been knocked out of me, but I could still force a breath if I tried really hard and so wasn’t going to die anytime soon. I reached the rope and signalled to my friends that all was OK. Feeling like a bit of a wimp, I hung on to the knots as the waves crashed over, waiting for the strength to climb out.

Everything in my torso felt tight, a strange un-placeable feeling unlike any other injury I can remember. I was surprised at how the sea could cause this from such little height, and thankful that the hold had broken hear and not at Cala Sa Nau. I sat on the side to watch Alex try again. He seemed a little more nervous, just like the rest of the team, but pushed on and after another couple of falls from the top wall he topped out.

I was torn; I wanted to climb the route, but I didn’t want to hurt any worse. Back and forth, back and forth. I didn’t know what I would do until I was putting my shoes back on and chalking my palms. It felt like someone had stolen some of the magic of Psicobloc and I began to worry that if I left today still feeling like this, I may never get it back. I needed to crush this daemon before it crushed me.

Play safe children!

I felt worried the whole way, paranoid a hold would break. Because I was worried, I found it hard to control the panic, and the panic made me get pumped faster, which in turn made me panic more. It’s a vicious circle I know all too well from previous adventures, and as I arrived at the jug on the lip I felt pretty spent. A few scrunched shakes allowed for a few breaths before pushing on into the groove. Suddenly the climbing changed from thuggy horizontal jugs, to techy vertical slopers. Alex was shouting beta at the top of his lungs, I knew what to do but just couldn’t imagine myself doing it. Fighting the urge to quit (which is a strange kind of urge, wouldn’t you agree?) I grabbed a hold I didn’t think I could pull on, and stood up on footholds that seemed way too high. All I could think of was the relatively comfy position I thought was coming next – stood up tall with a fingerlock/undercut in your right hand. As I started to fall, I pushed more with my legs, slapped with my hand and miraculously I stayed on.

One more tricky move found me on the home stretch, and I cautiously followed the positive edges to the top of the wall, watching the little daemon on my shoulder grow smaller and smaller. He is still there, but I can only hear him if I listen well. Whilst it was a ball-ache at the time, I can look back on the breakage as a positive event – one that I feel better for. It forced me to realise just how serious this game can be, without actually being in a super cereal situation. Whilst Psicobloc may seem like a perfect game, we must never stop respecting it – just like the other disciplines of climbing.

Where better to test your head after a bit of a scare than at one of the hardest and highest roofs on the island. Back to Cala Sa Nau we went, with eyes on the prize of Hupolup Itself. I was really nervous, and Alex confessed to me he felt the same which made me feel a little happier in a strange sort of way - maybe there is still strength in numbers even if the individual numbers feel weak?

The day was overcast at best and descending into the shadows of the cave did nothing to brighten the mood. The easy option at times like these is definitely to run away, but just like before a run, you need man up and get on with it. I put on my boots, filled up my chalk and started climbing. At the rest before the roof I felt ok, but the thought of questing out into horizontal blankness wasn’t that appealing. I decided to just feel the first hold, which turned out to be pretty good, so I reached for the next and before I knew it, I was halfway through the roof looking at a big slap. The fear took hold and I let go... Splash

I needed that first fall to remind me all would most likely be cool. On the next go I made it 2 moves further but dropped from an awkward cross handed position. By this point, Alex was also trying the roof moves which gave me a little more encouragement and some ideas for the next try. Arriving at the roof for go number three, I messed up the sequence a little but still made it to the cross position. I adjusted my feet, un-crossed my arms and began to stare at the unknown. I knew it would be a big slap, crossing over yourself from an undercut sidepull to a slopey pocket way above your head. The wild nature meant failure could cause an uncontrolled fall, but giving up would cause failure indefinitely.

The hold on the lip was shit, I tried to adjust, adjusted some more and then splash. Tim shouts down from his ab line that I had missed the hold by one hand width. It’s comforting to know the bad hold is not the one to use, but also frustrating to have to do it all again. I tell Alex all I know and he sets off. He slaps the lip and spends what seems like an age adjusting his left hand. Everyone holds their breath; he does an awkward looking match before reaching a good looking hold he can shake on. A few more spicy moves find him at a jug where as long as you can stay chilled, it’s in the bag – not a problem for Mr Cool!

Mr Cool

Alex comes down from the summit and I tag his fist. All that remains is to emulate, which suddenly seems a little harder than before as Alex tells me “the only hard move is matching the lip, all the rest are piss in comparison”. I smile at his honest good will, whilst kind of wishing I hadn’t heard him. Thankfully The hold on the lip is fairly good, and a marginal bicycle makes it even better. I make it to the “thank God” jug and after a prolonged shake and a few words with myself to calm down, eventually to the top.

With everyone’s projects in the bag (Matt also bagged “The Weather Man” after a massive lob of the top jugs!) what better way to celebrate than at the end of season party at the bar on the beach. Good friends, groovy tunes and great Sangria.

Cala Sa Nau beach scene :)

Emily and Matt - Stepin' Up!

My time in Mallorca is over again, so now is probably a good time to repeat something I wrote a year ago, after my very first trip... The week has been nothing but a pleasure and has introduced me to the wonders of psicobloc which I can see playing a big part in my future climbing!

Cedar after yet another all-nighter...