El Chorro Smells Like Rosemary

I've been putting off writing a blog post because it means I'm back in the real world.

I don't wanna be in the real world.

Mostly because El Chorro is beautiful and has mountains and smells like rosemary. This is because there are wild rosemary bushes all over the hills. It's kind of amazing.

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Last week Ev, Jesse and I went to Spain. We flew in to Malaga (about as south as you can get without being in Africa), then took the train to El Chorro. For those who aren't in the know, El Chorro is famous for two things: the Caminito del Ray, and the rock climbing. We went for the climbing.

And it was awesome.

Looking through the climbing guidebook before leaving Rotterdam, we (well, mostly Ev) picked out a multi-pitch that looked pretty good and is a top 50 route for El Chorro (always a sure sign of a good time). Upon some additional research, it came to our attention that this 4 pitch, easy grade (4+ to 5) climb was extended another, oh, 130m and is now a 10 pitch climb with a 6a+ crux at pitch 10, followed by an 11th "pitch" that is, and I quote a review of the route, a "superb scramble to the summit, really worth while." To each their own, I guess.

Escalada Arabia: Rogilio is kind of in the middle of the wall between the two small peaks

So we had an objective: climb a 250m route with the hardest pitches at the very top (5, 5+, and 6a+. Fun times.). We ended up with a half day of beautiful weather and, more surprisingly, time on Wednesday when we arrived, so we checked out a crag near the place we were staying, a mere 10 minute walk away. To be clear, that's the dream.

The crag we ended up on is pretty new (as in the last couple years) and not in the guidebooks. So we did what Ev and I end up doing a lot of the time anyway: eyeball the bolt lines and pick out something that looks fun and doable.

After a couple hours of climbing, we scoped out the big objective, were told it was an hour hike away, got some dinner and sacked out.

The plan was to get an alpine-ish start and hike out to Rogilio at 7am. We were up and ready to go, but the weather wasn't being decisive about what it was doing. It was a) dark, and b) lightly raining when we woke up, so we crawled back under the covers and checked the weather every 15 minutes or so in the hope that it would stop it.

Around 8:30 we decided to risk it and headed out. The rain gods were with us, and the skies started clearing as we approached the wall.

250m is kind of intimidating when you're standing at the bottom looking up.

We drew straws (well, blades of grass) to decide who got the first lead, then proceeded to have Jesse link the first three pitches since they were super short and easy. Ev lead the next two, then it was my turn. After my lead we started leading one pitch at a time, since they got more technical moving up the wall. To my chagrin, there were several hanging belays. Fyi, hanging belays are not a great time for prolonged periods of time.

there are a shocking number of pictures of me in this hanging belay (I was sitting there for almost an hour). This is, amazingly, the most flattering by far.

I got the second to last pitch (5c-ish), which was a fun little corner. And then came the crux.

Climbs are graded based on the hardest move on the route, so theoretically a climb can be 4a 99.9% of the route, but the 6a move means it gets a 6a grade. In the case of pitch 10, the crux move was the first move off the belay. Jesse worked it for a bit but couldn't pull it, so Ev took a shot.

He made it look easy.

I kind of hate him sometimes.

But the view of the valley from the belay was beautiful.

There was a bit of an adventure hauling the backpacks up the pitch before I climbed it, since we had decided it was too hard to climb the pitch with a pack on. Apparently the boys had a pretty elaborate setup at the top, but they weren't able to document it. Something about having Jesse on belay.

I was pretty excited to pull the crux my second try and top out. I was almost as excited to go pee after spending 6 hours on the wall.

As is often the case when you're at the top of something tall, the view was worth it.

The walk off was pretty fun, too. We saw an ibex! Actually, we saw 3 ibex. They might have been a family of some sort.

The next day we checked out another crag that happened to be full of Brits. I love listening to British climbing slang. The best was "it's a right proper jug fest central*, mate!" The American equivalent is "it's a jug haul!"

We climbed a couple routes, but it was getting hot and the crag was crowded, so we decided to hike out towards the Caminito del Rey to get a closer look. Plus, our feet were not thrilled about being stuffed back into climbing shoes the day after a big climb.

So we hiked, and it was beautiful.

The big bridge of the Caminito del Rey. Quite impressive. We actually looked into hiking it, since it reopened at the end of March after being closed for repairs for 5 years or so, but it's booked until July. JULY. That's a lot of planning ahead.

Objective of the hike: check out the big cave. We almost made it. There were bees. Lots of bees.

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Saturday we did another half day of climbing and took lots of pictures, since there weren't many taken during the multi-pitch. So, without more ado, have some climbing porn.

And now I present..... my favorite picture of the trip:

Ev does crazy eyes in a way that's, well, crazy.

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This Monday is King's Day (literally the monarch's birthday. Until recently, it was Queen's Day, and when they got a new King who's birthday is in winter it was decided to keep the date of the holiday the same since holidays with good weather are better. Or so I've been told. I didn't actually bother to do research on this), which means no school for me.

Of course, that's meaningless, since I already have lots of homework and not enough hours to do it.

Shocking, I know.

But we have a long weekend in Paris with Colin coming up, then my kid sister will be here for a few days, then Tae, and then we get to go back to Alaska for a month-ish.

YAY PEOPLE!

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* Jesse has corrected me. It was "jug central," not "jug fest." My bad.