Margalef, sector Espadelles

I was back ‘proper’ climbing again last weekend, and it felt great. We went to Espadelles,  a jaw-dropping sector at Margalef. Recently, Margalef has been featured a fair amount in the international climbing press as one of the four ’super-crags’ of Catalunya for hard routes (the others being Siurana, Oliana and Santa Linya). Last year when we were here, we saw Dani Andrada bolting a new route, Tomas Mrazeck knocking around, and Chris Sharma filming with the BigUp crew. Wow.

This year things were different, the crag was empty. At first I was a bit puzzled but by midday it was crystal clear why: Espadelles comes into the sunshine in the afternoon, and this weekend marked the opening weekend of the ’shady-climbing’ season here in Catalunya. Even though the temperature was only about 25 degrees, the sun is so much stronger here than it is in Britain, and so from now until October we’ll be hunting out the north facing crags.

Still, we had a morning’s worth of shade and after warming up I onsighted a 7a which was undoubtedly the easiest 7a I have ever been on. 6c+ methinks but as always I’ll take the tick! Afterwards I wanted a crack at a 7b but PJ was hogging it :) , so I tried a 7a+ further left (see photo) which, according to PJ and Max, is a classic. What they didn’t tell me was that it is also the living end of 7a+, so my onsight attempt ended pretty quickly. I worked it to the top and felt that, actually, it was 7b at least. Funny grading at Margalef.

So after a lunchtime snooze we all got back on the projects and went for the tick. However by this time the sun was out in full-force and conditions were crap, the heat was just so draining. After a few goes at the early crux of his 7b, PJ nalied the sequence and cruised up, before muffing the final sequence and falling within spitting distance of the chains. I got back on the 7a+ but couldn’t get through the crux sequence. I rested and had one more go but it was a waste of time, the sweat was dripping off my forehead and both hands and feet were slipping off. Max had a couple of cracks at an 8b which, like many routes at Espadelles, has a crux pretty much right off the ground. Unfortunately he didn’t have much luck, but he had onsighted 8a the day before, so I’ll let him off.

So no real ticks, but a good day was had by all nevertheless. Espadelles will have to wait til next season though. Shady crags, here we come!