Days 4/5/6: The Final Battle

All mashed in to one because not a lot happened:

Day 4:
Patones limestone of no real consequence although I did do a really nice route with a proper deep mono crux and a big undercling span finish. I spent most of the day feeling sick because I'd had too much coffee and not enough food, and Antonio twatted his A2 pulley on the 2nd route of the afternoon. Mierda.

Day 5:
F6b - succeeded - F6b+? - tenuous 6a smearing crux
F6b - succeeded - F6b+? - continuous 5c for many metres

The perfect continental winter sun day: climbing at 1200m, in the shade, on frozen rock, with a icy NW wind howling down from snowcapped peaks at 2200m.... ummmmm. For a brief moment, while there was a briefer respite in the gale, the conditions felt like the best friction conditions ever, perfectly dry and perfectly crisp. Which made if all the more galling to have to walk away from a well bolted sheet of F6c-F6c+ slabs after just one "warm-up" route. So we went around to a sunny face on the far side of the massif and did one route in very pleasant temperatures, clipped the first bolt on another route, and then it snowed. Mierda.

Day 6:
V5 - succeeded - slab in 5 goes - classic bloc problem
F6b+ - succeeded - F6b+ - vertical face, sharp
F6c+ - failed - F6c+ - vertical face, jump crux for the short, silly
F7a - failed - F7a - vertical face, mis-read crux
E1 5b - succeeded - E1 5b - offwidth, good fun
F6c+ - failed - F6c+ - did all cruxes but slipped off scrittle at top

The forecast for Pedriza itself so we diverted to a small local area at an outskirt town, a mini-Pedriza....a Pedrizita! This was okay and we climbed most of the day whilst god knows what sort of precipitation hit the main area. The highlight was a beautiful slab boulder problem, with either good handholds (1/3 pad single crystals), or good footholds (1/3 pad micro-smears), but never both. The F7a failure was disappointing as it was a good climb and a simple mistake, the F6c+ was also disappointing as I'd done some proper Pedriza desperation on it and just got too casual on the top - it would have been a good punctuation to the trip. Mierda.

Today would have been Day 7 and the current weather is cool cloudy and fresh, just a pity about the big dump of snow on Pedriza last night. Skiing down the slabs would be more feasible than climbing up so that is the end of that. Mierda....but it's still been a good trip...