Xeni styler saga

Xeni styler from Gašper Bratina on Vimeo.

Schizoline

photo by Mojca Žerjav

From spanish sandstone to austrian granit. Schizoline 7C: this long traverse in Maltatal seems endless. A lot of matching and heel hooking with a cool mantel to finish. Nice&pumpy. 

Venga!

Albarracin from Gašper Bratina on Vimeo.

ALBARRACIN

Finally October was here and so was our flight to Spain. It all started a bit strange. We arrived to Valencia airport and it was sooo hooot. Yes, we took a cheap Ryanair flight and I had almost all my clothes on...many many layers:)) So we were like ohhh noooo we didn’t bring any shorts.

Albarracin was not that hot. One cold morning I  did some warm ups in my down jacket.

Next thing was car rental. Off course we didn’t take any extra insurance and we made a nice scratch as soon as we drove out of the parking. Well, it happens. Then the rain started and the next day all the shops were closed because of a holiday we didn’t know about. And I caught a bad cold. So what else could go wrong? Nothing.

Nice bloc to start a day. Here is the last move on 6B, pretty committing! Luckily, Andrea and Petra had lots of crash pads with them, so we could climb anything we wanted. 

After a not very promising start of the trip we got to the boulder area. And it looked amazing! We forgot about the scratch on the car and my cold got better instantly. We took a walk around and met our swiss friends Andrea and Petra who also just arrived and planed to spend two weeks in Albarracin like us. The rock dries extremely quickly so after the morning rain and a nice walk the perfect sand stone was dry and we were ready to climb.

Gašper on one of the mantels.

Arrastradero, Techos, La Fuente, Entre Aguas or something else, there’s so many good problems and so many different styles on one place. This was our first visit and because we liked everything a lot, we didn’t bother looking for a project we could do in 2 weeks, we just wanted to climb all day on everything we walked by.

Beautiful arrete in Arrastradero. Arista de los belgas 7B.

Life in Spain is pretty much easy going and sometimes you get a feeling that the time stops a little bit. The whole atmosphere seems pretty relaxing which is perfect for climbing holidays like this. We kind of got into that spanish mood and this is how our climbing days looked like: after a nice long sleep we had breakfast from the famous bakery/panaderia. Fresh bread called rodondo and all sorts of croissants, coffee and then we were ready to climb ‘till dark.

Playing tourists for a rest day. The old town looks really nice from the top of the hill.

I don’t remember the last time I climbed this much. I had a pretty bad climbing year and now I feel like things will change. It’s always cool to be somewhere you’ve never been before. Beside climbing you also get to explore the new place and it’s so exciting to climb on new stuff.

Ineschakra, a hard crimpy 7B, pretty much different from anything else we tried. I needed the whole afternoon to find the beta. Thanks to Petra who didn't give up on it, I did it at the end.

In 2 weeks I did many problems between 7A and 7B which is a perfect difficulty level for me if I just want to climb a lot. Still, I had to try pretty hard on some problems. Usually the mantel is the crux (like in Tetris 7B for example) where you need to bring your hips over a bulge and it can get pretty tiring  For me it was also a good training for my dynamics  Many roofs with big moves from jug to jug and then a rock over. It's pretty physical and the guys were just playing with it, when Petra and I had to try pretty hard. But then you can also find crimpy problems with strange positions like Ineschakra, (a hard 7B which just us girls did) or very Fontainebleau style technical things like Sale huevos, 7A+ (I can't believe how many times I fell on that top out on our last day).

Popeye

I'll come back to Albarracin for sure. I can say it's one of my favorite areas now. The red sand stone, the lines, the variety of the climbs, the whole scenery and the experience is worth coming back to.

You think it's over once you get the jug? Not really. This roof is pretty tricky. One of those  I'll need to get back to next time.

Sometin's cooking...

One afternoon's project: 8house home made plum jam. Delicious!

New hot stuff

Another weekend in Trnovo...

Video by Marko Bratina/Lost Planet

New hot stuff:

- The killer inside me 7B (FA Katja)
- Vročinski val 6B (FA Gašper)
- Roxy direct 6B (FA Katja)
- Neznonsa gladkost gibanja 6A (FA Gašper)

HIGH UP IN THE MOUNTAINS

Refreshing new place is what I really needed and Silvretta sounded perfect. After weeks of bad forecasts and changing our minds whether to go or not, we were finally there.

We were staying at the camp ground by the lake. The lady who owns it was shocked when we arrived in the evening and didn't know where to put us. I think there was more than enough place for us considering how crowded Magic Wood usually is in this time of the year. Gašper and I, we have the smallest tent you can have for two people, the smallest by far in the whole camp ground and the next day it was us who had to move because we were supposed to be the ones making things crowded for our neighbour. I thought that was a bit funny.

Postcard from Sivretta (photo: G)

The setting between the mountains is mind-blowing. The fresh air feels nice even though I kind of felt the lack of oxygen in it, walking up to the highest sectors.

I didn't have any plans about what I wanted to do. First, I wanted to escape the impossible heat back home. Second, I really needed to go somewhere. It's been a while since our last trip and I kind of lost the psyche to train or climb or to do anything really. And third, the place seemed highly appealing watching the videos and pictures on the internet.

Too young to die 6B, good warm up high ball (photo: G)

So those few days in Silvretta were a true refreshment! We wanted to climb a lot but the sharpness of the rock shredded our skin pretty quickly. The next day we decided to go check out the place called Tumpen which was supposed to be like a little Magic Wood. And it's totally true. The rock, the woods and the style of climbing resembles quite a lot.

On the way back we stopped in Imst to watch the World Cup finals which was part of the plan for the day. We didn't want to be hungry during the finals so we stopped at the first place we saw - Bosna Burger :) where we had the worst burgers ever. Luckily I wasn't hungry enough so I avoided the whole thing. Gašper said it was just as sharp as the rock in Silvretta because the bread was so hard and that he felt like he had just flashed a 7C boulder problem when he finally finished eating. The finals were pretty cool to watch. We were waiting for Mina Markovič who performed as last and finished strong with 2nd place. Go Mina!!!

The original crew got bigger day by day. First it was just our car with Gašper&I and Boško&Urša. Then Mojca and Brecelj came and after them our friends from Croatia and my Moon team mates Sandra and Lija. Then we also met Thomasina on the parking lot and spent a cool day climbing all together.

Gašper in his project: British Airways

For me, this trip was more about exploring a new place than sending. The day before our last climbing day I was reading an interview with Shauna Coxsey in a Climb magazine and she said something like: Let's try really hard today. And I thought OK, when was the last time I tried really really hard? I couldn't tell and I decided that the next day I will try really really hard no matter what. I was very tired when I came all the way up to the last sectors but finished the day trying really really hard in my project from the first day Niviuk, which I didn't do at the end but I was happy with my climbing. Anyway Silvretta isn't that far for us so the next time we'll be there it will be a sending trip.

Niviuk: first on my tick list... (photo: G)