The Biscuit (or Arch 2)

Yesterday Ellie and I went to the Biscuit, the Arch's brand new bouldering site. It is located quite close to the first wall, and turned out to be quite a pleasure. The problems seem to be right on the dot with their grading, and there is something to suit everyone, with problems ranging from easy good old V0, all the way to ungraded impossible-looking puzzles on their comp wall. A great variety of brand new holds, good volumes and an amazing amount of space made it a really enjoyable session. There are slabs, overhangs, vertical walls, and all manner of combinations in between. It was good enough that Ellie completely forgot she was climbing on a slab and actually enjoyed it. She is climbing good, but, like me, needs to spend some more quality time solving these plastic beasts. A lot of the problems were that good old inviting "wtf, this doesn't go the way I thought it did!" and forced me to take a second, third, or fifth look to try and find a way to weasel my way to the top.

Which goes to say, unnecessarily, that I'm back climbing!!! Had a great time bouldering there yesterday and today I'm back on it at Westway, pulling on plasting, hooking my heels round horribly positioned volumes and generally getting used to falling splat on my bum all over again. It feels good to have my arms complain a bit again, they were beginning to get soft!!! Grade has fortunately not gone down too much, but because I did lose some strength, I do feel like I'm placing more emphasis on good footwork and elaborate methods of placing my body in juuuuuuuuust the right spot to push up. Climbing agin in a minute whooooooop!!!!

Updated system

The blog has recieved finally recieved a bit of a very long overdue renovation! I believe it will be easier to read and comment, and following our progress should also be quick and simple now. There are new links sections where you can get to catch up with the latest on cool gear and other awesome climbers.

I have also decided to post at least 4 times a week, therefore boring you with the sketchy details of my training and plans to climb under the great big blue (or cloudy, mostly) sky, outside. I promise cool pictures, and maybe you'll get to meet a few of the people I work with and climb with.

Have a cool weekend!

Back in "civilisation"

Haven't updated the blog much. I guess that was pretty obvious. Two things happened. First, while we were still at Todra, we came upon a paradise made up of climbing and brilliant food. It became routine, we would wake up, eat, climb, eat, climb, get back to the hotel, eat, and sleep. Repeat. So it came to be that Ellie and I got used to it and it seemed no longer remarkable. I wish it could've only stayed that way!!! But it had to end, so we went to Marrakech for a couple of days. OH THE HUMANITY!!!! It was good preparation for London, SO MANY PEOPLE! It was a crazy hub of absolute craziness, so much fun but a bit too city-like for our taste.

I have another apology to make. I didn't lead a 7b+. It was a 7a+. My bad... I will correct the previous post as soon as I can. What I CAN say is that I climbed another two 7a+'s while we were there, and top-roped a 7b. Still damn proud. Could NOT have led that just then though.

Getting back to London is strange. I am lucky enough to have got my job back at Westway, which I love. Tried climbing there and instantly got splatted down on my face. The holds have no edges!!!!! You can't feel them. Very strange. It took me a few sessions before I could begin to feel confident, and then try and see what actually changed in my climbing. A lot did.

Five months ago, on the first round of the Superleague bouldering comp, I somehow managed to dislocate a rib, simply by pushing in an awkward position. I managed to climb another two problems and snatch first place on points that day, but that was the end for a month. Since then, because at first I was careful about my movement and apprehensive of further damage, my climbing became very static, few dynamic moves, no jumping, swinging, all that fun stuff. I didn't let my arms lock off and mantles became dreaded horriblenesses.

Just as I was getting to work on fixing these shortcomings, I got broken again. This time, it was a treasonous wine-glass that decided to stab me in the arm. I could look inside and see my tendons. SCAAAAAARY!!! So until the middle of March, I'm off climbing. I'm about to go crazy. I WILL go crazy once I can climb again.

So, until further notice, my blogging will include a lot less of my own climbing and a lot more of Ellie's. We shall see each other soon!

Todra Gorge continued... climbing up to 7b+[correction, 7a+]!!!

Todra Gorge is all charm!!!! The Gorge itself is about 15 kilometres away from the local "big city" of Tenhir. Or Tinerhir, or, Tinherir... spelling seems to be as variable as cat colours here. Anyway, it sounds like quite a distance away, but it's an amazing road weaving in and out of the skirts of the High Atlas, with incredible views down to a spectacular valley richly populated by the local agricultural endeavours. Palm trees, olive trees, alfalfa, brussel sprouts and all sorts of funky plants give the arid landscape a beautiful contrast, dotted with villages filled with friendly berbers who speak fluent broken English, French, Spanish, Polish, German, Arabic, Berber, and probably a bit of Japanese. Veeeeeeeeeery broken, lost in translation is a most common occurrence here.

We moved out of our first accomodation because the place depended on a diesel generator for electricity, turned on at 5 sharp and going on for however long the people here decided to let it chug away. Rooftop camping to the echoing engine was not our idea of fun. The hotel we have happily settled into, Hotel Panoramique Chez Moha, is brilliant! It has a very nice family feel, a stable with a cow, calf and donkey, cats and kittens, and a very friendly Berber-hippie family running it. They've started to teach me to play the jambe!!!

Talking about friendly locals, this place rushed us into the busiest social life i've ever had! There is not a single day we aren't engaged to go have tea, a Tagine, cous-cous, or have someone try and show us the local workshops, or stables, or plantations, or whatever. Generally at the cost of trying to sell us something we will definitely not be able to carry away with us. It's got to a point where all we can do is rush off in the morning deep into the gorge to escape any commitment and get to do some serious climbing.

As to the climbing here... WOW. There is EVERYTHING you might want or dream of. Fully bolted sports climbs of every grade and type, from single pitch IVs all the way till multipitch 7b+ type things. Trad climbing for all grades as well, I gather, but seeing as I'm not into that type of thing, I'll not presume too much. Ellie and I have had a bit of a rough time with the local weather though. From a raging 25 degrees (which feels more like 35 if you stand still in the sun) at noon down to a -1 at night, this place is a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of horrible fluey type nasties. So we haven't had as much climbing as we had hoped in the first few days, but we're up and at it now with a vengeance!

The rock over here is reaaaaaaally grippy. Rip your fingers, knees and shoes abrasive I mean. But it's our beloved limestone kind, so you get all sorts of features, from tiny one finger pockets, to ledges, jugs, crimps, pinches, eeeeverything. Overhangs, slabs, vertical climbs, it's all on here, with over three kilometres of awesome walls, boulders and cliffs, it's the playground I've dreamed of most of my climbing life.

In the past month, we have felt how my climbing has improved by the constant contact with outdoors goodness, and here in Todra it has payed off with bonuses. Both Ellie and I are climbing harder and higher than we had ever before, putting together the sheer pumpy pull-up technique we started doing when we got outdoors with the fine-tuning bouldering had given our technique. Ellie has gone from having had a couple of 6c's under her belt to cruising up them whenever we come face to face with one, daintily finding tiny pebbles to push her feet from and really annoying me holding on to crimps and pockets my fingers just have no way of even attempting to grab on to.

Today I had a climbing epiphany. Guiding ourselves by the local topo, a hand-made affair with more mistakes and confusing mixups than I imagine you could ever pack onto a sheet of paper, we went off and started up what we thought was a nice juggy overhanging 6b+. The view was magnificent, massive cliffs all around, halfway up the 300 metre gorge, completely isolated and in the shining sun. Off I went leading it, only to be completely stumped by the fourth bolt, the holds were tiny, sharp, and further off one from the other than anything I had tried before. I came back down to let Ellie have a go, maybe little fingers and dainty footwork were the way forward. Apparently that wasn't so, and the rock kicked her off just as it had done with me. We had a closer look at the topo, and concluded that it wasn't a 6b+, it was a 7b+[7a+ sorry] 15 metre climb designed to make you leave your fingers wedged inside the awkward sharp pockets. As I was beginning to consider maybe leaving behind a maillon and leaving it with my tail between me legs, Ellie up and decided to suggest doing that very thing. One thing is deciding to accept defeat yourself, another is to have your girlfriend encourage you to do so. Obviously, I immediately decided I was going to finish the damn thing if it took me the rest of the day, I was not about to leave gear just because we'd misread the silly topo.

So up I went again, heelhooking to the side in a way I'd never known was frogally possible, pulling on all my hardest bouldering tricks, taking advantage of my height, and generally giving it my all. Bolt by bolt I was encouraged up by an incredibly ecstatic chicken on belay, never had I got such enthusiastic cheering. Finally, I got up to the anchor!!!! I had finished my first 7b+!!!! WHOOP!!!! Torn and ragged, Ellie brought me back down, both of us jumping in glee, I had just climbed something one whole grade above what I had thought I could actually do!!!

So tonight is splurging night, we're off to hunt for beer, tagine, and people with proper English to celebrate with!!! Might even have a jambe session to celebrate :P

On a separate note, if you are Agus and Pablo, add us on facebook!!!! look for Ranaz Bautista and Ellie West, we idiotically forgot to get your number/facebook/email.

See you soon, lovely people.

Berber cliffs, land of the headscarf!

So after touring around cities and smelling the rich wonderous smell of civilization, it was well overdue that Els and I had a go at a bit of a vertical challenge. Not that we didn't have an amazing time in Fez, but cities are just not the natural environment for climbers... you feel out of place, hassled, tired, busy... We needed some relaxation, time to take our time and just cling on to rocks for dear life.

So, off to the world-famous Todgha Gorge we left. Nice CTM bus, with heating and reclining seats and all the trappings, friendly smiling locals, and distrustful, frowning tourists. At four in the morning, freezing weather, out we get chucked into Errachidia, right to the hands of the desert-tours hawkers. I have never had to face such persuasive people with so little energy in such a confusing frame of mind. A delicious mint and green tea later, much refreshed, we boarded another nice little bus going directly to Tinghir, the "big city" right close up to the gorge.

After being dazzled by the amazing landscape being slowly lit by the rising desert sun, we dropped off at a town nothing like anything we'd seen in the northern parts of Morocco. The architecture here is much more straight-forward, practical, and, to my mind, looks a wee bit cozier. As we boarded a taxi with a hilarious Syrian-Canadian man we got climpses of the ancient villages and their old-school adobe-built houses, crumbling away in abandon, as new villages rose up to take their place. Shame, the old adobe houses look so much friendlier...

No camels around. :(

I knew you were wondering about that.

As for the entire reason for us being here, the Todgha Gorge... WOW!!!! It is beyond description... three hundred metre walls facing each other for 6 kilometres (I was told, others said more, others less) of winding awesomeness. Slabs, overhangs, verticals, single pitch, multipitch, sport climbs, trad lines, beautiful ochre rock with splotches here and there of white, brown, black and pink. The sun is an occasional visitor in this place, coming and going as it pleases, either roasting you or chilling you, so you can choose where you'd rather climb (Mexicans favour the sun, English seem to settle more comfortably into the shade). The rock is as abrasive as was promised but comes in a variety of forms, from sheer featureless behemoth till scramble-easy chunks of boulders massing up to the heights. The sky is a blue so amazing it does deserve to be called turquoise, and the combination of wind and sun I find amazing.

So far we have only begun to flex our muscles a tiny bit on the rock, however, since we have been caught up  in a whirlwind of a social life we didn't have even back in london. We have been asked for tea by any number of people, talked about the climbs with at least five of the locals, been treated to dinner and pizza-breakfast, given dates and advice on most about everything. The people here are remarkably nice, but there is still sometimes a gritty feeling of tourist-local that leaves a bitter taste. Anyway, we are foreigners, and that means business. We don't just camp out on the hotel's rooftop because it's fun, we do it because we can't afford these awesome travels staying in nice cozy rooms all the time... ok, we do kind of love staring up at the stars last thing at night. They are amazing!!!

Tomorrow is the day we attack the hard climbs, then, we have been recommended a good choice of overhanging 7a beauties, with soft grades around to warm up on. Here we go!!!!

Hot and Sweaty

Ellie: It's very dry round here. Not much green stuff.
Ranaz: It's a desert you muppet
Ellie: oh yes...
Ranaz: I think Star Wars was filmed here.
Ellie: Geek.

16 hours after leaving chaotic Fez we watched the sunrise over the Atlas Mountains as we chundled across the desert to the Todra Gorge.  And what a spectacular sight it was...purples, pinks and oranges all merging together with the odd blob of star still hanging in there, sparkling away, the mountain ridge jutting out of the desert with unbelievably snowy peaks.  That soon shut our bickering up.  It certainly was a sight that ain't common where I come from! I've never seen a desert before and I think the best word to describe it is intimidatingly wild. The dry land with the odd shrubby thing stretching for eternity without seeing a building, a person, a beastie or even a pylon. I think that no pylons is the distinction between wild and really proper wild.  My thoughts at this point inadvertently strayed to an episode of Bear Ghrylls I'd seen, stranded in a desert and drinking his own pee for survival and began to wonder if I would do the same in that situation. Normal thoughts that run through the brain at 6:30 in the morning.
Climbing hysteria soon kicked in.. this was going to be incredible, but nothing prepared us for the sight of the Gorge itself...cliffs towering above for miles, millions of routes you could dedicate years to exploring and selfishly only a handful of people to share it with.  My English skin was soon turning tomato, perfect excuse for me to wrap a scarf around my head in a poor imitation of the Berber style, much to the amusement of Ranaz who pointed out various protruding facial features which caused my face to look like a red chequered cloth.
We are now encamped on the roof of a hotel in the Todra Gorge, beautiful during the day but a wee bit chilly at night when the wind rips through the valley.  By a string of coincidences we have made friends with Jamal, a Berber guy from the local village and last night we experienced our first proper introduction to Berber hospitality. Jamal lives in a 400 year old house in the midst of a labyrinth and we dined on a Berber couscous recipe, which was incredible. The food is served on one big dish and we all ate from that. The couscous at home in Sainburys is a poor comparison. Tonight is party night and tagine is on the menu. Yum cannae wait.

We started climbing yesterday, there are so many routes its hard to know where to start. Unfortunately looks like I'm being a little affected by the altitude, which I didn't even consider! Not too bad but its weird being out of breath after wandering up some stairs or running a couple of metres, tres bizarre.
The route we did was about 30m, and unfortunately wasn't that exciting, but I'm sure there are going to be hundreds out there. The rock is awesome though, back to monos and sharp little points to rip the fingers on, and its do nice to have sticky feet again!!!

Looks like we may be here a while... Oh and we have met the infamous Hassan of climbing legend, he's so the man to know!
If you ever need him he's at the hotel mansour or la vallee every morning.

Impromptu partying and climbing craving

Had a fantastic night last night. Having found the bus out of Fez full we decided to stay an extra night...lucky for us! We were randomly wandering around the medina trying not to spend money when we bumped into some guys we had met on new years eve, who had been strolling down the streets playing the guitar. It was awesome to see them again, really friendly guys and incredible guitar skills! They invited us to join them for tea and to indulge in their vice...music and art.  They led us off into the medina to a cafe called Le Scorpion du Desert, which is a fantastic hidden away place. We entered and behind the curtain was the most incredible music that makes you want to let loose and go crazy! African drums were being pounded until the walls shook and two girls were dancing like their lives depended on it, twirling and spinning and stamping and clapping.  As our new friends said this music was for banishing negative spirits and healing the mind. This was the Fez we had been looking for! The atmostphere was buzzing with people having fun, laughing and chatting.
Followed Hussein, Mouad, Fahtah, Fahtah and Yassini to a little alcove, settled down, slurped on our mint tea, guitar was brought out and had the best night in Morocco so far. Mouad did an awesome Ray Charles rendition.
Heading off to Ar-Rachidia tonight...closer to climbing time! Have loved the time in the city but cannae wait to feel the rock again!
Ranaz's Mum has sent us a Todra Gorge topo (climbing guide) that she discovered online.  We can't believe it! We had been looking for this info for weeks and have found nothing...very very grateful and has fuelled our anticipation even more. WWW.tinghironline.com Looks like perfect grades for us to really push ourselves. Mainly in the 6s and 7s and it boasts the first 8a route opened in Africa. Whoop we can always dream!!
The rock sounds perfect, bye bye glassy polished limestone, hello abrasive, hard rock. 
On the exciting side the routes start at 25m and up to 300m Bring it on!

Hopefully our next blog will be written post climb, exhausted, battered, pumped and ecstatic!

Whoop!