Team 8amyarse.com spring trip

Every spring for the last couple of years, Jo (8amyarse.com’s North Wales representative) has made the trip over to Catalunya for a long weekend of sunny bolt-clipping. Two years ago, we conquered the Cavall Bernat (see the celebratory video here), and last year we had a succesful trip to Rodellar, just over the border in Aragón, with Jo ticking a 7b+ and me redpointing my first ‘proper’ 7b. This year, Jo is coming back out here for more – as long as the airports aren’t shut again by volcanic ash! Although last year’s trip was great, we were having so much fun in Rodellar that we actually bailed out on one of our initial goals, which was to go to Riglos, a short drive from Rodellar, and do a route called La Fiesta de Los Biceps.

‘Biceps’ is reknowned as being one of the best routes in the whole world (quite literally). It is about 8 pitches long, and the final five pitches overhang at about a consistent 20ish degrees. The beauty is that the rock at Riglos is large-stone conglomerate (my non-technical term for it) which basically means that there is an abundance of enormous jugs, allowing ‘Biceps’ to get to the top at a relatively amenable grade of 7a. Everybody I know who’s done it, and everything I’ve ever read about it, all agree: it is a must-do route!

The only worry I have is that once you get past the first overhanging pitch, there is no way down, so in actual fact it is quite committing. However Jo tells me that he is redpointing 7b+ fairly easily at the moment, and I have been onsighting 7a consistently over the last few months (and have also bagged a couple of soft 7b+s), so hopefully between us we shouldn’t have too much trouble. Go to this link here to see tons of photos of the route (and, if you’re Spanish is up to scratch, read about it too).

My other goal on the trip is to have a go a a route called Pince Sans Rire in Rodellar. It is an uber-classic 7b+ that climbs two perfect tufas, up steepening rock. Apparently it is a reasonable proposition for 7b+, “but only if you’re fit”. WTF?! We’ll see, I reckon Jo will tick pretty easily, but maybe not me. There is also a nice 7c called Egocentrismo that Jo had his eye on last year. Apparently he thought it looked quite amenable, whereas I thought it looked nails. I guess we’ll find out!

Jo arrives on Friday morning earlyish, so the plan is to drive direct to Rodellar, have an easy afternoon on Friday and set up camp, go to Riglos and tick Biceps on Saturday, have an easy day on Sunday, then try and tick some things on Monday. Jo flies out on Tuesday morning. I’m knackered just thinking about it!