Saturday, September 13, 2008

Siurana - 9 Days of Climbing with James and Evan

Reunited with Evan and James after a big of baggage drama. The carrier from Paris to Barcelona lost Evan's bag. So we spent a day enjoying some Gaudi architecture and the Rambla.
By the afternoon we had received a phone call from the airline and Evan's bag was found.

We picked it up the following morning and set out from Barcelona destined for Siurana. The trip was not too long only about 4 hours but we did have to make a few pit stops along the way to pick up a map as the direction we got from Google maps were a bit confusing.

We got into Siurana with enough time to climb so I bought the guide book and ask Antonio which was the best crag to hit up for the grades we were looking for. After a bit of discussion we settled on of the crags that was nearby. It was only a little over a 1km but we decided to drive.

It wasn't long before we discovered that the trail marking and the maps in the guidebook were woefully inadequate. The scale was off, trail are not marked. After an hour or so of wondering we ended up finding a new sector but no the place we wanted.

Instead of carrying on trying to find the place we headed back to town to resupply and get a fresh start on the next day.

The following day headed to the opposite side of Siurana. Again we stumbled around looking for trails looking for sectors. We were looking for specific sectors that were out of the sun and had the grade range we wanted to climb. Eventually we gave up on the idea of finding a shady sector and braved the sun at sector Espero Primavera (36).

After warming up on a couple 6bs we were joined by Sarah who had a bit of disagreement with her partner on areas to climb so they had gone separate ways for the day. We now had even numbers of people. We all packed up and headed over to sector Siuranella North (34) which was now in the shade. Evan and James continued to climb strong while I Sarah and I teamed up to tick a few more 6cs.

Well alas, its been a little over a year since I start this post and so the memories have faded.

Of our time in Siurana I can say the best party was going to an out door party in the bush with Sarah where they had a DJ setup and the DJ let me bring my hard disk and play till 6 AM. The experience was amazing, and I got to enjoy playing some music for the first time on the trip.

Other memorable moments was my second 12a right next to the tower.

All in all a great trip. After Siurana we headed south for the DWS festival in Benidorm.