Albarracin 2011

Spain was great to me this year. I headed off feeling pretty fit for routes after training hard in Naas for about a month solid. I had only done two training sessions in the Co op as I was still afraid of re-injuring my finger. My goal for the trip was to try and do my first 6c route and then try for my first 7a route, however things changed, once I started to climb on the beautiful red sandstone of Albarracin and realised that my finger was 100 percent better my harness and quickdraws stayed in the bag for the whole trip. Just like broken hearts, finger injuries do heal eventually and I was on the rebound, it was a bouldering orgy !!



Things seem to be taking off a bit at Albarracin. Last year when I was there it was fairly quite at the campsite with only a few boulderers knocking about and not a lot of atmosphere at the campsite. This year the place was buzzin' and the craic was 90 !! Keen boulderers from all over the world where there in droves. Everybody got together at the end of a long days climbing to have a bbq in the communal kitchen and down some beers or wine. I consumed a ridiculous amount of vino and I met some really great people, good times :) There is now a climbing shop in the town too, renting mats and selling gear. There is also a brand new guidebook, it's a brilliant hardback guide with 8 new previously undescribed areas which more than make up for the total climbing ban now imposed on sectors Sol and Masia. Especially considering that one of the new areas, Tierre Media, is the biggest in Albarracin.



From the very first day 6bs were getting sent everyday along with lots of brilliant 5's and 6a's, my finger never even gave me a twinge. The grades are all over the shop though. There is two guidebooks both usually having a different grade for a given problem. There are 6bs which are actually 6as and there are 6c+s which are actually 6b's. We came across a Spanish website called norop.es which has an online topo for most of Albarracins main sectors and it has the most accurate grades, which seem to be arrived at by consensus from the local climbers. Highlight problems for me were a big 17 move long traverse which finished by exiting a roof on underclings, the quintesssential lovely Albarracin roofs, a 7a which I worked for two days but couldn't finish called Frambuesa, the stand start is 7a and the sit is a hard 8a, we had a great day with a bunch of lads all trying the problem and shouting encouragement at each other, it didn't matter if you were flailing on the 7a like me or crushing the 8a sit start everbody was having great laugh.



I spent a few days trying and failing but having fun  on 7as that I didn't really have a chance of getting so I decided I should concentrate my efforts on a nice 6c, so I found a sweet line in sector Techos 2 which was a 6c in both guidebooks and online so nobody could argue I was taking the tick on a soft touch problem. I was a cool line called Trampoline, an egg shaped boulder with a steep start, short and sweet, two powerful moves on tiny crimps leading to jugs and glory. It suited my style and on the last day in Albarracin I got it after two days working it, I was delighted with my second ever 6c done on a trip I had expected to be struggling on 6bs the whole time, result !!

Albarracin is a magic place for bouldering, meeting cool people and exploring the areas history and atmosphere, so stop going to Font for once and check it out my fellow boulderers, happy climbing folks :)