Costa Blanca (part 2)
After completing an outdoor lead climbing course in May 2018, I was hooked! Back home in the Netherlands I decided to start sport climbing once a week at various gyms. Soon I realized that climbing routes requires quite a different mind set than doing boulder problems. The climb is much more of a 'process' requiring efficiency and fast decision making. In order to 'automate' this process as much as possible I decided to go on a coaching week in Spain (see also Part 1).
After a long active rest day
we were back in business. Rich drove us to a new crag and told me that I probably wouldn't climb that many routes today because they'll be all 30m or higher. So I already started lowering my expectations despite the fact that I felt much fresher and more confident because of my sends on day 3.
Rincon Bello (Spanish for Beautiful Corner) was the name of the crag and it was quite a long drive (around 1 hour) from Finestrat but definitely worth it! It was the most beautiful crag I had seen so far in real life. Standing underneath this massive palette of colors ranging from dark copper to light vanilla was simply overwhelming. It dind't matter weather I was going to climb a lot of routes or not, my day could only get better.
The crag remains in the shade during the whole day, which is of course perfect, but we arrived early so it's was still a bit chilly. I did a 6b and a 6c to warm up my fingers as I didn't want to get a flash pump (thanks for the tip Rich!). On the first route I couldn't really feel my fingers but fortunately the second one went much better. The third route I did was a nice 6c+ which actually felt easier than the 6c where some of the holds were quite negative.
Then probably after 1 hour of climbing
we got company from the UK. A very friendly climbing couple who apparently knew Rich joined us at the crag. It turned out that the girl did the same course as I was currently doing 2 years ago and since then she was hooked.
After warming up Rich jumped on a rad 7b route which I really wanted to try on top rope. It was quite a power endurance route with only 1 rest at a tufa just before the crux. Even before reaching the crux I was completely pumped so had to rest a bit. Then I messed up the crux the first time but on my second go I stuck it! From there on it got a little easier but still very sustained so I had to keep climbing. Coming out of the overhanging section I was exhausted by managed to find a few ok rests and pushed it all the way to the anchor.
It was definitely a battle
but reaching the end was so rewarding. It was by far the hardest sport climbing route I've ever tried and I managed to do all the moves on my first go with only 2 rests in between. Needless to say that I was really happy with my performance but also pretty much done for the day.
Now it was Rich's turn. He hadn't tried anything hard for more than a few months so why not trying the 7c next to the previous route. He climbed really well but got too pumped after sticking the first crux. We ended the session by climbing some easier new routes just to the left of the main sector.
The next day we returned to the same crag because of the weather conditions around Sella. Obviously I wasn't fully recovered yet and I still felt wrecked. After 2 hours or so it started raining so we decided to call it a day and drive back to Finestrat. This was also the end of my first real sport climbing trip and I can't wait for the next one!
Go to Part 1.
