In reply to guy127917:
Thanks Guy,
So far I am pleased with making several short trips to El Chorro, and think this is a better strategy for me over one longer trip. With 3 day trips, I don’t need to take a rest day. El Chorro works as the journey time is relatively short, and conditions are usually reliable. Originally the plan was two trips lasting three days each, followed by a longer one over New Year. Ryan Air rearranged the flights such that both the shorter trips were extended to five days. Five days is a more challenging amount of time, and probably would work best with taking the third off.
On the first trip (last month) I did two 7c’s, and had an exploratory look at an 8a that I thought I could look at on the future trip. I didn’t take a rest day on that trip, but only climbed for half a day on the third day taking it fairly easy. This seemed to work quite well, but I was ineffective on the fifth day.
My goal for this trip was to try and redpoint an 8a. I feel like I've taken the easy option on previous trips and tried routes that I'm fairly sure that I can do within the time available. This time I wanted to try something that might not go within the timescale, as it transpired I didn't get the 8a, but I'm back on the 28th Dec.....
The first day (Saturday) was the only cloudy day of the trip. We decided to take advantage of the shade and look at some of the climbs in the Poemia sector. The previous weeks had been really wet with flooding in Malaga and Alora. The caves were seeping badly and the conditions were really greasy. I’m sure we could have done something here, but after fairly poor conditions on the warm up we decided to go to the Arab Steps as they were exposed to the wind and might offer better conies. Certainly things were much better here. I made a very slow job of redpointing
Rock the Kashbah (7b) (7b). I should have done it second go, but after a series of silly mistakes it took several more goes. In the afternoon, the sun came out and I ended up sending it less ideal conditions.
On Sunday we went to Bueno Sombre to look at
Paquistani (8a). The warm up routes on the slabbier side were mostly dry, although some of the pockets were full of water. After warming up we went to look at the steeper side, it was basically black with every tufa route dripping. Paquistani looked better than most, but would have involved pulling on some pretty wet holds. We walked up past Vida Mesmo and Cable, and again most of the harder lines were seeping in places. I tried
Akira (7b) as it looked dry only to find the middle part soaking wet. We ended up in Triangulo and got stuck into
La Conexión Pelirroja (8a) (8a) as it looked like a great line and was almost all dry! It has some pretty technical sequences, and we started to work the first five bolts. It was a really engaging line and became the target of the trip.
There is a video of the route here
The route is quite pumpy with no good shake out until the 7th bolt. Thereafter, it steepens up but the holds are very positive. The person in the video is pretty tall, and my sequence differs in many ways. In the database, the route seems to sit between hard 7c+ and mid 8a. To me it feels tough and about the level that I was looking for, I suspect it is somewhat soft at the grade though. The section between 3rd-5th bolt is pretty hard, but for me the crux comes between the 6th-7th bolt. The cross over that he does at 2.34 is on a small crimp and is really hard (although I have never tried this with my feet where his are). Instead I have a complicated sequence taking the highest pocket as a gaston and with a whole myriad of foot adjustments. Including minor foot adjustments, I have 19 things to remember. This is way more complex, but individually the movements seem much more secure. After this there is a shake on good jugs, OK feet and a steep romp to glory on jugs. I don’t think I’m likely to fall off the top part unless I do something silly or I am very pumped.
We were back at Triangulo and on LCP on Monday, we went bolt to bolt to the top. I got the sequence sorted for the bottom and found something that would work through the section between bolts 6 and 7. However, it wasn’t a very good sequence. I had two days of climbing left. If I wasn’t coming back I think I would have taken a rest day and tried to send it on my last day. I knew that the section between bolts 6-7, wasn’t great and needed more work, so I decided not to take a rest day. I realized that this meant that I was unlikely to send the route, but on hindsight I think this was the right decision.
On Tuesday on my first go, I made a great link from the ground to past the 6th bolt. I don’t have the same sequence as the guy in the video but I got past the hold he catches at 2.41m. Although I was really happy with this link, the next part felt desperate and it took most of the day to get a more suitable sequence where I could do this reasonably solidly. On subsequent goes I got past the 6th bolt, but didn’t have the beans to finish the route.
On Wednesday I decided to give it my best effort and see what happens. I felt really tired warming up and was pretty worn out. On my best attempt I got from the ground to the 6th bolt, but just couldn’t do anything more. However, I made a couple of links from below the 6th bolt to the top, which I hadn’t done before. I was pretty wrecked.
Overall, I’m pretty sure that properly rested I would do much better. The big positives from the trip are; I feel fit enough that I can work on an 8a for multiple days on, and that I managed some pretty good links, linking the route in two overlapping sections.
Tactically, it would have been better not to have spent the first day at Arab Steps. If I had got straight onto the project, and had a rest day in the middle then things could have gone differently. I do think that multiple short trips work well for redpointing a hard line, it also relieves the pressure to send. I would have done this differently, if I hadn't been returning in a couple of weeks.
Thurs/Friday rest at home
Sat - Bouldering on the home wall.
Sun – Very short fingerboard recruitment.
Goals for next week.
I'm not going to get much done in the 10 days before I'm in El Chorro next. I'm going to focus on quality rather than quantity for the Christmas week, with the aim of two high quality sessions. I think resting is probably more important than training, so I aim for no late nights, minimal alchohol intake and a fairly healthy diet. My family will be around for Christmas so this isn't too easy.
Goals for the week El Chorro round 3
Climb LCP. This would be my second 8a.
I'll be climbing with my wife for part of the trip, so I'll like to focus on doing some fun stuff with her, rather than chasing goals. For the rest of the trip, given that I'll be changing focus to bouldering when I'm back, then I want to just have fun. I really like doing very short redpoints (things that I can do in a day). I'd really like to climb Zepelin too, as I haven't done much multipitch recently. I also want to try and flash 7b. I'm not too worried if I don't do this, but I'd like to give it my absolute best on a few routes and see what happens.