2 blog posts in 2 days… this makes a pleasant change. This one will be pretty short but I just wanted to share a few excellent pictures from my friend Francisco Taranto Jr, who is here in Spain with Caro and I.
Approaching the rest on Esclatamasters 9a
Francisco is a freelance photographer who is living a lot “on the road” with his girlfriend Sandra, 2 beautiful children, and his cheeky dog Filipo! Home for them is wherever some interesting action might be, so if you happen to see them at the cliff, or their giant 80′s Mercedes Westfalia, make sure you say hi! You can check out his website and blog at FotoVertical.com
The last few days have been spent trying a couple of harder routes, one of which got sent, others still a work in progress… Topping out on Mind Control, one of the longer routes up the centre of Oliana was a nice moment indeed. Mind Controll is famous for being one of the 8c+’s onsighted by Adam Ondra last year, and so it was interesting to finally see the route in person, and try to comprehend what onsighting something like that entails, especially in the wet.
With Mind Control in the bag, I moved on to my planned “long term project” in the form of Esclatamasters at the little visited cliff of Perles. I cant speak highly enough of the quality of this route, so will let the pictures speak for themselves.
The steep first section of Esclatamasters 9a
The route is going well so far but is certainly a step up from anything I have tried before. I have managed to drag myself up the thing in overlapping halves which is confidence inspiring. However, the final crimpy wall feels so hard after climbing the steep and powerful initial section, and with the holds being as small and specific as they are, any mistake from fatigue is likely to be the end. Still, having a long term project is a big change from my recent adventures and will be fun to watch the progress.
The final crimpy wall…
