Rodellar

We spent the last week in Spain grappling tufas in Rodellar. Needless to say this place was just as amazing as the other areas. The pumpy type of climbing on long routes felt significantly harder to me than the climbing in Margalef and once again I got reminded that this is my week point and something I need work on. However I still managed to do Nanuk (7c) second go and my first 7b+ onsight.

During the six days we spent there I felt that I started to get the Idea of tufa climbing but unfortunately I got sick the last two days and had to realize that the trip was coming to an end.

My tick list for this trip ended up being beyond my expectations

• Llima del quatre                            7c+
•  
• Nanuk                                              7c
• Antologica                                      7c
• Tarragona                                       7c
•  
• Tros de soca                                   7b+
• Carcamal                                        7b+ 
• El Clan de los M’klau                     7b+  onsight
• Sopas de ajo                                  7b+
• Montrgronyeta                              7b+
• Ktploptr                                          7b+
• 
  
• Jam session                                   7b onsight
• ?? (tres ponts)                              7b onsight
• Bimbirimboies                               7b onsight
• Pitus I flautes                               7b onsight
• Mambo del ray                              7b onsight

Breakfast at the hut

Ted impresses with his send of Pince sans rire 7b+ on his second go.

Me working the crux of Nanuk 7c

Ted on the same route 

Ted resting in Gran Boveda

Ted working on Sopas de Ajo 7b+

Amazing tufas

The big hold is not a good rest hold :)

Last moves before the anchor

Kalandraka at night, a very nice climbers inn. Walking distance from all the climbing you need!

Margalef

Margalef is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to and especially the area around Raco de les finestres. I would recommend anyone to go here, climber or not. It just doesn’t deserve to go unnoticed!

The climbing is just as good as they make it look in the movies, if you like pockets. Because it is all pockets, pockets, pockets. I loved it though it is quite hard on your fingers.

After about three days on, me and Bengt decided to have a rest day and go and look at the newly developed areas that we had heard of... There were talk about tufas and we just had to check out if this was true.

We walked far in to the canyon and soon we were surrounded by a jungle-like forest. After a while our trail turned in to a small path and then in to nothing more than a vague evidence that people (or animals) had been there before.

Then, there we stood with a beautiful view over an enormous wall of limestone on the other side of the canyon. We could see a few people multipitching on the wall and… there they were…the Chorreras of Margalef! We couldn’t believe the size of the tufas, they were gigantic!

All of a sudden I felt something licking my hand, surprised I looked down and saw a lone black dog standing there looking at me. I couldn’t spot the owner at first, but then a guy with blond hair came around the corner and and after him a Spanish looking girl. He looked up, called his dog and said hi with a smile. As they came closer we saw that it was no one less than Chris Sharma himself and Daila Ojeda. Chris Sharma walked past me but when he saw Bengt he reached out his hand and said. – Hey I think I’ve seen you before? Bengt shooke it, a bit stunned as if he had just met his childhood hero he replied  -I don’t know.. probably here..? Chris Sharma realized that he had mistaken Bengt for someone else so the rest of our conversation was short, we wished them good luck with their projects and they wished us a nice stay in Spain. Afterwards when Bengt came back to reality he said - Calle, you realize I can’t wash my hand for the rest of this trip!

Cranking

Nice climbing in a nice scenary

David enjoying life

Ted is catching his breath

Part of the big wall

The jungle

A climber in the center of the picture

Megatufas!

Meeting up with Björn and Bengt

After two days in Tres ponts with very cold nights, up to -12, we continued to Vilanova de Meia were we found a supernice little crag. We spent another two days here and did some really nice routes! 

After seven days we had our freinds Björn and Bengt comming from Sweden to join us for the rest of the time in Spain. We stayd another few days in Catalunya before we went south to Margalef!

Base camp in Vilanova de Meia

Dawn at the same base camp with a big multipitch crag in the background

Björn is happy to be in Spain with us

evening at Ager

Playing with the camera

Breakfast with a nice view

filling up the coffe thermos

A beautiful crag in Catalunya

Base camp in Ager

Back from the dead!

With renewed motivation it’s time to start writing again. The past few months has mainly involved training, work and travelling. I feel like I’ve finally settled down in Stockholm and it starts to feel more and more like my new home base. To summarize what has happened I’ve started to work with climbing courses at Klätterverket which has given me a lot of valuable experience. I’ve become a certified indoor instructor which was a natural and fun step to take. Next step is to do the final test to become a certified outdoor instructor. To get some more experience as an instructor I am going to work for Guidebyrån this summer. Guidebyrån is a nice little company based in central Stockholm with a good atmosphere that is providing a vast selection of climbing-, kayaking- and ice skating courses with high quality instructors. Check out more about what they are doing here http://www.stockholmsguidebyra.se/.

Last week I came home from three weeks of climbing in Spain and what a beautiful place that is! I went with my good friends Sabine, David, Ted, Björn and Bengt. Bengt, our personal guide for the trip, showed us some very nice spots around Lleida and I will post some pictures here in the weeks to come starting today.    

Setting up base camp in a wineyard outside Lleida. The first couple of nights surprised us with cold weather down to -12! 

First climbing day at Tres ponts just north of Oliana, such a nice and cool day

,

David playing on a supernice7b named with a question mark!? I think that says a lot about the quality of the climbing in Spain.

Sabine enjoying the sun

I think Ted is enjoying to

//C

The south america adventure with Andreas and Bjarne

My god friends Andreas and Bjarne are living their dream in South Amerika. Their goal is to climb and ski some of the highest mountains in a number of countries. Everything is well documented on their blogs for us "ordinary Mortals" to follow in a sofa on a safe distance with a bowl of popcorn.

Adventure through the Andes. Peru - episode # 2. from Bjarne Sahlen on Vimeo.

Super Dupont

Another stunning day on the midi, this time we tried the route Super Dupont on the south face. Due to evil clouds in the distance we decided to only try the upper half of the route. I was mainly interested in the 7b crux pitch so it didn’t matter that much anyway.

Mike started up the first pitch which had a quite stiff 6a+ roof section in it. After that I tried the crux pitch which was a cool and pumpy undercling into a weird finger crack, I struggled my way up it and really wanted another go but the ever present clouds and the fact that it had snowed on us just a few minutes earlier made me give up that thought and we continued up the last two pitches to the top.

I knew my time in Chamonix was coming to an end and I wouldn’t have time to go back and try it again this year.

I guess it’s good to have some stuff to come back to as well :)

Purple Rain

Back in Stockholm again after a month of climbing in Bohuslän. Even though our timing with the weather has been horrible I must say we've had a very good time and my goal to get a hint of what I could do on trad was still quite succesful. I got to do some really nice onsights and redpoints like Torline, Masken, Afterburner, Mixing matrix, and Chapman. Bohuslän has so many beautiful lines and I think I'm mostly impressed by the grand wall of Hallinden which has so many perfect cracks that are really challenging and mostly well protected.
Häller in all it's grace is from a distance a very stunning peace of rock and even though it houses some great routes it's definately not my first choice of crag. I found crags such as Galgberget, Välseröd, Ulorna and Hallinden much more pleasent and charming with there lawns, open suroundings and the amount of world class routes.
I have already gotten myself some unfinished business here so I got to go back soon.To be honest I really don't see any reason for going anywhere else in the world for singlepitch trad climbing anyway.

I feel like I want to say something more about the extremly bad weather of september 2011.. But I guess it's just redundant to say anything more than that it wasn't favorable to climbing. This is also a reason to why the documentation of the trip hasn't been very substantial and that's why I'm now posting a clip of Prince doing a world class performance by soloing like no climber could ever do.