Varazze

The journey to Varazze turned out to be a little epic... We planned to break the journey with a stop at the more esoteric bouldering venue of Prieure in South East France. However, it had rained prior to our arrival and the sandstone boulders were looking particularly green and damp in the shady, mossy forest. It looked like they'd take some time to dry so we continued East to Varazze.

We were almost at Varazze when the weather turned very ugly - very strong winds, darkness and heavy sleet made the journey very treacherous. The coastal motorway weaved around headlands, through tunnels and over extremely exposed bridges. We saw a few near misses and decided it was wise to stay the night in a motorway services. The following day was calm and we made more relaxed progress to Varazze.

Varazze is most famous for Gioia - one of the hardest boulder problems in the world graded at 8C+ (I'll try to flash it tomorrow...!). So far we have climbed at two areas and generally found the problems to be a great quality on good granite.  The quality is definitely in the 7th grade, with many sixes not seeing as many ascents - however, some gems are still there to be found.

I climbed a great traverse - Anime in Pena 7B VIDEO and Claire sent some great 6's.  We plan to check out some more areas in the next few days.

We spent two nights by a very beautiful mountain stream and were very lucky to see it lit by a full moon.  It looked magical and I took lots of pictures!

Working Holiday...

Three months of bouldering with only small rest periods was starting to take its toll.  We were both feeling fatigued, so thought it best to take an extended break to recover our bodies and minds!  We returned to Toulouse and stayed with Adrian, Delphine, Liam and Luca.  It was great to see them again and we were very grateful to have somewhere warm and spacious to rest and recuperate.

We also visited Margot (old work friend of Claire's) and Thomas who have just had a beautiful baby girl -Agathe - to join their other beautiful daughter Juliet.  Agathe was only six days old and probably didn't notice w were there!  All the same it was great to see them all.

To further aid my recuperation I (Jase) helped Adrian to build a retaining wall, steps and planters by their new swimming.  I did a whole two days of work!!! Yes, I did some work on holiday!  It wasn't actually too bad... I really enjoyed building something again - it was great to see the project progress quickly.  Toulouse even managed to provide some cold and wet English weather for the occasion.  Good luck to Adrian for the remainder of the work...! As a 'thank you' Adrian and Delphine treated us to a great five course dinner at a fantastic French restaurant - we all ate way too much - thank you!

We had planned to move on to Fontainebleau after Toulouse, however, the weather was looking poor, so we decided to stay South and moved East to Varazze in Northern Italy...

Slacklining rest days

 

We've been playing on the slack line a little, but wouldn't really class ourselves as 'good' yet. Videos will follow when we are capable of some vaguely average feats...!

Targasonne - round two...

After a long stay in Albarracin we decided to move on and begin our journey north to Fontainebleau. The weather was unseasonably warm so we stopped off again in Targasonne on the Spanish/French border. The first few days were stunning - almost too hot for climbing! It was quite surreal to be climbing in 18C and sunshine at 1500m in January. The climbing conditions weren't the best for friction, but it was a welcome change to be so warm.

The warmth didn't last long and weather soon became more typical for January. I took advantage of the cooler conditions and sent a great compression problem - Bob's your uncle 7C. I thought I was going to make quick work of the problem, but discovered the top out was more difficult than I'd first thought...

Bob's your Uncle 7C Video

We met some other intrepid travellers from the UK - Paul and Kay.  They have just began a one year trip in their very spacious van - 'Ivan'. It was great to spend time with them, but we had to bid them farewell and they continued their journey south.  We hope to meet them again towards the end of our trip.

Our stay in Targasonne was curtailed by the arrival of some real winter weather...  The temperatures dropped and the snow started to fall.  The winds started to pick up and were forecast to reach 100kph. We made a quick exit before things started to get ugly.

Couple of other videos:
La Baleine 7A
Legitime Defonse 7A+

So close...

Since Christmas my (Jason) climbing has generally involved being very close to boulder problems, but not quite sending them!  I went back to Pinturas Buldetres (sit) 8A, however, I fell from right near the top and tweaked my finger in the process (VIDEO).  You could literally say I was painfully close!  I was desperate to try again and send the problem, but decided to be sensible and walk away.  Although the tweaked finger is minor and I can still climb most things with caution, trying a very crimpy problem with awkward pockets is asking for a more serious injury.

Instead, I decided to focus on a great slopey traverse (Dizdira 7C). However, this also ended in heartache (but no injury) with repeated falls from right at the end. I had done all of the hard climbing but kept getting really pumped!  

Although a little sad to leave on a 'low', we decided move on to new challenges.