2010 in pictures

While I was sorting out and backing up my old photos this week it brought back some great memories from last year. 2010 was a fantastic year in many ways, so I thought it might be a nice idea to put together a compilation post with photos of some of the highlights of the year.

Climbing wise, I succeeded on my Siurana project and my first F8b+, as well as on-sighting a few F8a's and doing some F8b's pretty quickly.

Travel wise, I explored and got to know the local area a lot better and also visited some fantastic new places in the Pyrenees and the Alps during the summer.

And 'normal life' wise, I moved in to a great flat with Tash and finally felt a bit more settled here.

Hope you enjoy the photos...

The year started with a snowy drive back to Spain, via Fontainebleau.



I tried to get a little bit of climbing in despite the snowy top-outs! It was so nice to be back in the forest and to show Tash around a bit.
I've spent A LOT of time here over the years and it still remains one of my favourite places to visit.
Although we were gutted to find the best restaurant ever (Chalet Jobert) closed for good...one of the best things about Font trips possibly gone forever? :-(

The snow had even made it as far as Spain, and Siurana was buried under a metre of the stuff!! Unheard of!



Despite the snow we still managed to get some climbing done in January - mainly at the laboratory in Margalef!
Here Ben's on 'Photo-shot' (F8b)

 



Miha on Darwin Dixit (F8b+) at the laboratory, Margalef.

The snow melted and Ben persevered with 'Photo-shot' - finally ticking it in February before moving on to 'Darwin Dixit' next door.

In February I then switched my attention to Siurana, together with this protein addict....

....and this Harry Potter lookalike (a.k.a Adam Ondra - the best sport climber the world has ever seen)
Here being filmed and watched by his entourage on 'Golpe Estado' (F9b) - the hardest route in Siurana.

This particular spot became very familiar to all of us over the next few weeks as we persisted with our respective routes.
Me with 'Kalea Borroka' and Will with 'Zona O' (and Ondra on 'Golpe Estado' of course!) at El Pati sector, Siurana.

Will succeeded first on 'Zona O' (F8b)

And after a lot of training, dieting, stress, nerves, dogged persistence in some pretty awful cold and damp conditions and some blood loss....

....I finally succeeded on mine in early March. 'Kalea Borroka' (F8b+). I'd wanted to do this route since the first day I arrived in Siurana and saw it.
I still think it's the best-looking route in Siurana and probably the most perfect single pitch sport route I've ever seen (but then I am slightly biased!!)

German dude on 'Kalea Borroka' who was trying it at the same time as me - what a route ;-)

After doing my project, the Easter holidays came and I could relax with good food, beer, wine and a bit of no-stress bouldering in Albarracin.





A little bit of bouldering...

...but mainly slack-lining...

...sitting...

...reading...

...good food, beer and wine...

...and some sightseeing.

After Albarracin I started going up to visit Tash more often in La Garriga throughout March and April. She'd been coming down to me every other weekend throughout Jan/Feb so that I didn't have to leave Siurana and my obsession, so it was only fair that I went the other way once I'd done the route. The climbing went on the back burner; replaced by some amazing weekends exploring new places, pic-nics, BBQ's etc, coinciding with the temperatures going up.

Santuari de la Mare de Déu clinging to the cliffs at Montgrony.

Some places were better than others...at this crag you ended up being lowered down above the train tracks!!

"Team crush" came out to Margalef in April too. Main objective was for Ben to finish off 'Darwin Dixit' - unfortunately it wasn't to be on this trip.
You can just see the psyche oozing from them!

This little guy was wandering around Margalef too!

The house pet.

Pretty awesome little climber he was!

And I finally visited Montserrat. Nice place - shame about the Americans.

The circus came to Reus, in the form of the Trapezi festival. I missed it last year so wasn't going to do the same this year.
This man just bounced around on the trampoline taking his clothes off and reading his book!

And these guys took their clothes off and played with flame throwers!

More BBQs and home-made burgers :-)

The local 'hanging church' in Mont-roig del camp.

At the end of May, with the temperatures soaring, we planned a long weekend in the pyrenees to do mine and Tash's first multi-pitch route together in preparation for the summer. It didn't go altogether as planned, but it was still an amazing weekend. Destination was Cavallers, and we arrived about 1am on Saturday morning after driving up straight from work. Other than its location we had no more information about the area...

...but we managed to take a few pics of someone's guidebook early on Sat morning and set off walking in with no real expectations or idea of what we'd climb...

...the walk-in was longer than we'd been led to believe...

...and there was still quite a lot of snow around (most people we saw were skiing or snow shoeing!!)...

...our aim was these amazing needles of granite (the Agulles de Travessani) and hopefully we'd find somewhere to bivi for the night...

...but we had a lot of snow trudging to get up there...

...and amazingly we found this perfect flat bivi rock - it just needed a wind-break to finish it off.
And despite being surrounded by snow the sun was really hot and yes I got badly burned...

...it was unbelievably cold the next morning. I had frost on the outside of my sleeping bag when I woke up :-(

...trying to dry off and warm up in the morning...

...unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the climbing apart from us 'sheltering' under a small rock when we were hit by a rain/hail storm. The climbing was amazing, but maybe a little optimistic for our first multi-pitch together ('Vulgaridades en privado' - E4 6a), so it took a while for Tash to second!

...we made it to the top, soaked through, at about 7.30pm having set off at 11am!! And made it back down to the car at 11pm. We found an amazing campsite down in the valley and had one of the best showers of my life at 2am before crashing out in the tent...

...next morning it was amazing weather and we stopped for lunch at this church on the way back for work...

May ended with a long weekend at the amazing Tres Ponts, where I on-sighted my first 8a :-)

After a few weeks in June of doing very little climbing due to the heat (mostly going to the beach!) term ended and we were able to revisit Cavallers.

This time with less snow, but more cows!

The weather was just amazing, and we found some pretty nice camping spots.

A snowy approach to the Paret de l'Estany - Travessani.





But on the routes it was perfect (Note our footprints in the snow below!)

And the views across to the Agulles de Travessani were stunning.

There's even some nice looking single pitch stuff that we didn't have time to get on.

A reminder of our favourite tuna & cous cous slop - better than it looks actually!



Lots of tea drinking in nice places :-)



And strange evening skies.

More tea drinking!

And more amazing camping spots.





Tash and her massive bag looking down on the beauty of Cavallers.

We revisited our bivi spot from the previous trip - hardly any snow now (it was completely surrounded by it last time!)

Topping out on the Agulles de Travessani - better weather this time!

Abseiling off the pinnacle.

After being up in the relative cool of the mountains we drove down for a day of sightseeing in the baking heat.
Here at the gorge of Mont-Rebei.

Tash looking over the gorge.

Then Tash drove back to the UK for a week while I met up with Javier in Cavallers again.
This time for some routes around the dam.



Here on the awesome Agulles de Comalestorres - perfect granite climbing.



And some single pitch sport stuff closer to the dam

Then disaster struck. I came back to my car after our final days climbing and one of the suspension coils had snapped plus the stabilising bar. The AA were called and after a few days waiting in a hotel in Tremp (thankfully it had a pool!) I found out it wouldn't be repaired for at least another week so I got the train to Tash's to collect my driving license and a hire car. Then we drove back to Cavallers and our new 4* hotel that the AA were putting us up in while we waited in Vielha.

And it had a pool, jacuzzi and Turkish baths - nice!

We shamelessly took our fill from the buffet breakfast every morning to do us for lunch!

We did a bit more climbing, but also got rained off some routes!

And did some sightseeing.

Then I found out the quote for the repairs was close to €600 and even the nice waterfalls didn't excite me.

Some more sightseeing in Taüll - one of the many Romanesque churches in the area.

Nice beer garden in Taüll.

But finally the car was fixed and we could leave Spain - bound for Ailefroide in the French Ecrins (via the best pizza shack in the world in Ceuse!)

Ailefroide was nice enough, but after Cavallers it seemed very busy. And the climbing just didn't cut the mustard.

So we left for the Orco Valley in Gran Paradiso NP, Italy - home of steep traditional crack climbing!!

And tear-inducing offwidths - scary without big cams!

Also some great slab climbing - this was one of the best multipitch trad routes I've ever done (Itaca Nel Sole + Rattle Snake), combining delicate slabs with steep thuggy cracks.

Cooking dinner before walking in to the Becca di Valsoera.

The Pantonneto hydro-electric dam - Becca di Valsoera in the background.

Very beautiful but horribly windy camping spot before the Mellano-Perego route on the Becca di Valsoera.

Amazing climbing on the Mellano-Perego.

Ibex posing for a photo in the Gran Paradiso.

Wild camping in the Orco Valley to get away from the Slovenians who pitched their tent six inches from ours in the campsite.

Having a much needed wash in the river.

Our massive tarpaulin that we had to cut down to more manageable sizes!

Tash caught her first fish at the campsite.

BBQ trout.

Beer and curry in the sunshine - happy man!

We did actually climb every day though!

Then we did a bit of sightseeing on the drive to the Dolomites. Here at Lake Garda.

Amazing how nice you can make it look in a photo - in reality it was an overpriced and overcrowded tourist hell hole!

Much like this place - the Dolomites!

Some cretin obviously used google translate to write this parking sign - it provided some amusement though!

€5 for one of these tiny fruit punnets anyone? Cortina is expensive!

Then we picked up this guy - obviously excited to be on day release from the institution!

The weather started off nicely in the Dolomites.

One of the amazing looking peaks in the Dolomites.

We found a nice camping spot in the forest - most importantly FREE!

Baby marmot in the Dolomites.

The good weather didn't last long though! Here the Tre Cime shrouded in mist.

But we had one day of good weather forecast so scoped out the approach for the climbing.

And next day, with a 4.30am start, we did the 'Comici route' (E3 5c) on the Cime Grande, one of the six classic Alpine north faces.

The Tre Cime in all their glory, with the Cime Grande in the centre.

And then the weather turned again - the joy of being in the mountains!

After a few days of mixed weather we travelled to Val di Mello and the weather improved.

We got some amazing routes done, including most of the mega classics of the valley.
Here on pitch 4 of 'Oceano Irrazionale'.

Having a bit of an organise.



And some nice camping/BBQ spots in the valley.





Work for men in pants - making some burgers.



Pant tree after doing some washing.

Then we moved on to Switzerland, where the road had been washed away by all the rain in the previous days!

And it continued to rain solidly for the next week...

...and rained...

...and rained some more....but at least we found a shelter to spend our depressing days in...

A dry place to cook at least!

Raining so much Matt couldn't even bring himself to get out of the car to fill the water!

Eventually it stopped raining...

And we got some climbing done. Here on the mega-classic 'Motorhead', Grimsel Pass.

And more perfect granite on 'Metal Hurlant'.

And a great camping spot down by the lake. Worryingly, the water level rose quite a lot overnight!!

We walked out from Eldorado and then the same day me & Matt drove over the Susten pass and walked in to Salbitschijen.

The impressive suspension bridge to get to the base of the ridge. After walking 1.5hrs out from Eldorado in the morning with all the camping gear and then walking the steep 3.5hrs up to the base of the ridge we were absolutely exhausted and found there was no water around!! :-( Had to walk another 45mins uphill to a dirty snow patch to melt some for water - 30mins later we had a few litres of brown water to drink the next day! Back down to bivi spot around 10pm. Really heavy dew overnight and sleeping bags were soaked at 4.30am when we got up.

Some climbers behind us on one of the towers on the ridge.

The spiky Salbit West Ridge. It follows the ridge line all the way, up and down six huge towers.

Matt on the impressive final summit tower.

Me & Matt both on the final summit needle at 5.30pm. Exhausted and dehydrated after 35 pitches of climbing but happy to have finished. All that was left was a 2hr descent back to the bags and then another 2hrs walk back down to the car. Arrived here at 9.30pm. 17hrs on the go. Fried eggs for dinner before collapsing and sleeping in the car!

Pancakes for recovery!

Then another bivi before climbing Kingspitze NE face. An easier and more relaxed climb but followed by a really nasty descent!

Tash following on Kingspitze NE face.





A week or so back in the UK just to get the car MOT'd and see the family - plus a day of climbing up at Simon's seat.

And a day admiring the 'art' in the sculpture park! Obviously I wasn't impressed...

Then back to Spain. I was slightly more impressed with the Gaudi buildings in Barcelona.

And some of the street performers on the Rambla

How cute is that! While I was taking this photo someone was having their bag ripped from them by one of the many crims on the Rambla!
Seems like criminals outnumber tourists in Barcelona!

Overlooking Barcelona.

The olympic pool in Barcelona. Great positions over the city but used more by the birds than competitors these days!

More sightseeing in Barcelona.

Then Tash made a last-minute decision to look for work and move down to Reus. A week later and we had a flat together :-)

Just in time for a visit from Tash's parents

In Siurana as sightseeers instead of climbers.

We practised a bit of freeganism...

And got plenty of limes for a lime cake :-)

Plus almonds!

And grapes.

Which we made into grape juice. Maybe wine next year?

And finally, after what seemed like a long time away from it, I got back into climbing.
Here on 'Fiesta de los Biceps' (F7a) at Riglos - probably the best multipitch sport route in the world.

And we explored lots of new sectors along the fantastic Montsant ridge.

As well as visiting the more classic sectors - here Raco de Missa, probably the best of the lot.

Montsant in the evening light.

Matt and Jo came out for a brief visit at the end of October.

Summer turned to autumn and the leaves changed.
We had some great visits from friends through November and I got more and more back into climbing.
In December we were both ill and the weather was a bit mixed, so it felt like a fairly lazy end to the year, before term ended and we flew home for Christmas.

If you've made it this far - well done and I hope you enjoyed it! That pretty much takes us up to the start of this blog...