Christmas Climbing

We had a great Christmas day. It began with a leisurely start (as most days seem to) and we headed for a local crag. I was getting particularly itchy ‘fingers’ as we had only clocked up four very chilled days of climbing in the first 3 weeks of the trip (My biggest climbing drought for months, maybe years!). This was mainly due to some cold/wet weather and lots of days driving south. We found a crag with some good climbs for Jon and Helen to play on and Claire and I started with some nice F6’s in the sun. I soon got inspired by an awesome looking route taking an improbable line up a gently overhanging white wall. The F7b+ was a great climb on pretty small holds. I went for the onsight, but chose the wrong sequence on the crux moves, and came flying off. However, I later dispatched the route on the first red-point attempt. The video of the crux sequence is below – the main challenge was not getting blown off the wall (look at the extenders swinging in the wind). It looks like I’m having a tough time crawling along the floor! We don’t have any video software yet, so please find a way to rotate your head/screen by 90 degrees!

Naughty Christmas dinner…

We were determined to have a roast dinner on Christmas day. This took some planning and culminated in an effort to roast a chicken. We acquired a roasting tin and some charcoal and planned to roast said chicken in tin (raised off base of tin) over an open charcoal fire. We weren’t quite sure if we were supposed to have a fire, but (perhaps recklessly) proceeded anyway. We made an effort to keep the fire some distance from the tinder dry flora and had many litres of water on standby. The vans were parked on a lay-by next to a small country road and we stationed our fire about 50m metres down a neighbouring dirt track. All went well and after two hours we had an amazing roast chicken.

After dinner we began the mammoth task of opening all our (four of us) Christmas presents! This took some time and we were all grateful for the tasty and thoughtful presents!

The next morning, however, didn’t go quite as smoothly as we’d hoped. Two 4wd vehicles pulled up and seemed quite annoyed that Jon and Helen’s van was partly blocking the dirt track off the lay-by. They could’ve easily driven past, but were trying to make a point by being awkward. It then dawned on me that there was still an obvious burnt out fire fifty yards down the dirt track (possibly their land)! I told jon to take a little bit of time moving and discretely (ish) headed down the track. I didn’t have much time, and began to frantically launch charcoal, rocks and semi-burnt wood in the bushes. Not sure if the Spanish guys were watching, but there was nothing subtle about my wind milling arms and debris flying off in all directions. I returned to the vans, whilst trying in vain to hide my soot covered hands! The Spanish guys looked suspicious, but headed off down the track and no questions were aksed…

Merry Christmas!

HOLA TODOS!

Sorry about the drought of blog updates - the weather has been clear and sunny and we've been spending lots of time climbing and cycling. This has left little opportunity to update the blog! Jon and Helen have been with us, and we've had a great Christmas.

The Christmas special will be coming soon... In the meantime, see if you can guess what this is...?

Jon and Helen

After leaving Toulouse we drove south of the border into Spain. We headed for Siurana where we met Jon and Helen. Jon and Helen, also with a van, had got the ferry to Santander and driven across to join us for two weeks. It was great to see them we had a fantastic Christmas and New Year with them. There trip started with two days of bad weather, but things soon improved and we spent lots of time cycling and climbing.

Jon putting Helen in her place…

Toulouse

We stopped in Toulouse for three nights to catch up with Adrian (Twitchy), Delphine and their young boys Liam and Luca. I (Jase) used to work with Twitchy and it was great to see them again. Delphine and Twitchy were fantastic hosts and made us feel very welcome. By chance, our visit coincided with a wine tasting and cheese party – could there be a more fitting party in France…? They had procured an amazing cheese board from a world renowned cheese vendor! Yes, there are world renowned cheese vendors – this particular shop had literally hundreds of every type of cheese - it was amazing but did pong a bit! The cheese was lovely and the wine top notch! The wine tasting was blind and engineered so nobody (using the special double decant method!) would know which wine they were tasting. Of course, as is usually the case at blind tastings, there were the ‘wannabes’ and the ‘pretenders’. In all we numbered 14 and we were blind tasting 7 different wines. We had to pair the empty wine bottles with the anonymous tipples in each decanter. The joint winners (not us) both correctly guessed 3 wines out of seven. Not bad, but the overall performance was poor! The total tally showed that we had only managed 12 matches. This was pretty bad when you consider that we’d have got 14 right if we all guessed the same wine for every decanter – but where’s the fun in that!

Cycling with 12+ items of clothing

We were determined not to be beaten by the weather, so elected to don the Lycra and take the bikes for a spin by ‘le Tarn’ – how cold could it be!? We togged up and ventured out. My hands were freezing and numb (even with two pairs of gloves) for the first 20 mins, but eventually warmed after a quick blast on the bike. After 50 mins our water bottles had virtually frozen solid and Claire’s wasn’t sure whether her feet still existed. We decided that this was a good time to head back for tea! I wouldn’t recommend cycling in -4C (with no sun), but we are glad we ventured out! On the plus side, Claire still has two (slightly smelly) feet!

Halleluiah for sunshine!

Fortunately, the cold didn’t stop play. We had a very comfortable (bordering on warm) day climbing at a crag in full sun. The views were stunning and the rock was indeed warm! One route was rather adventurous… For a warm up we chose the easiest route ay the crag – a 6a up a corner. The line looked good, but the rock not so good. Fortunately, the loose rock remained attached and we survived the experience! Subsequent climbs were much better.

Gorges du Tarn

We gave up on Font and headed south to find warmer conditions - we had been tipped off the southern France would be hotter! We were greeted in Gorges du Tarn to a beautiful sunset, and clear blue skies. This made us feel happier, but the reality soon dawned that the nights were gonna be cold! Sleeping in the cold wasn’t the main problem – we had lots of warm clothes, two blankets, two sleeping bags and a thick duvet. We soon realised there were other consequences with the extreme temperatures, when we awoke in the morning the inside of the van was encrusted with a layer of ice. The ice isn’t a great issue, but the freezing cold water dribbling down your neck is! The other issue was the lack of any cooking facilities. It was so cold that the gas wouldn’t evaporate and the stove didn’t work. Luckily, the hot water bottle from the previous night was warm enough to slowly perk up the gas!

Friendly Robin

We seemed to gain a Robin friend in Font. Not really sure if actually liked us or the food we fed him. I know it looks like it, but we didn’t feed him a whole apple!

Tigger – AKA Simon

We were blessed with one sunny day, and then the weather changed to cloudy, dreary and very cold. We managed a little more bouldering but found it tough to get warm and stay warm. Tigger (AKA Simon), however managed to send the problems in the damp conditions! [Tigger was won by Claire during a hotly contested game of musical chairs at the Christmas party. The nail-biting finish to the game ended in a fierce battle between Claire and Simon! Hence Tigger was named in honour of the runner up!]

Fontainebleau

On our last road trip (2008) Font proved to be a bit disappointing with one dry day, followed by relentless rain. This time was different… It started raining from day one! Day two… more rain! Fortunately, the rain turned to snow, which isn’t great but more fun to play in than the rain! Day three we got lucky and had deep blue skies and unbroken sunshine, although it was freezing. We grabbed and bouldering mat and headed out for some bouldering. The forest was beautiful and we had a great day walking about and enjoying the winter scenery. We even managed to clamber up the odd boulder! However, climbs were very limited by the snow melting down the boulders!

Trip ‘warm-up’…

Warm Rock 2010 began with a brief tour of the UK to visit our parents before heading over the channel. We starting in the Lakes and enjoyed a little bouldering on the sandstone at St. Bees Head. Most of you will recall the weather was (and probably still is!) pretty chilly in the UK at the beginning of Dec. We were a bit concerned that the snow and ice would hinder our passage south. However, all was OK and we made to our next (washing and feeding!) stop in Norwich.

After a hectic rush to Dover, we just made the ferry! An accident slowed progress and time had to be recouped by driving the van at record speeds!