Silly Sicily!

[IF, somehow, you don't want to read all my rambling, scroll halfway down for more succinct details...]

Actually there was nothing remotely silly about it, unless one counts driving through the night to Liverpool airport to fly out there, or Ryanair deciding in their infinite wisdom to leave my bag sunning itself and no doubt ticking big numbers in my abscence when I flew bag into Liverpool.

First things first, the World Famous Helen Rogers asked me to take loads of pictures, so here is a picture of a goat:


And here is different picture of a different goat:


Hope that helps. It was quite cool to have herds of these moseying around beneath the crag, merrily clanking away in discordant disunion. To borrow the legendary George Smith's phrase, an ascent without goatbells is an ascent without dignity.

So, unsilly Sicily. Lots of people have been asking about this so I'll try to give some useful information. Firstly, my trip: Last minute plan, following the usual "doomed to failure" attempts on UKC and email to drum up some interest in more diverse climbing areas, which the Titt brothers (Portland and Swanage veterans) had seen and suggested I join them in Sicily. Very kind of them but not nearly as kind as their hospitality, guided tours of the best climbing, interesting old timer debates / ranting and Scott's supplying of good coffee. Thanks guys. Despite an initial "ho hum more Euro-Lime" thought, I had an ace trip, 21 long routes in 3 1/2 days. No huge numbers but some great - and surprisingly diverse - routes and some good challenges. Plus plenty of sleep and some nice food....trio of smoked fish with olive oil parsley and lemon nom nom nom.

The vaguely informative bit:

Now then, some info. The area we were climbing in is San Vito, this is the local town:


Not bad eh. That "crag" in the background is a few hundred metres high, almost roadside, and has a mere handful of routes that go all the way. The photo is taken from a peninsula that juts northwards into the sea between two spectacular bays each flanked by such mountains. On the peninsula there is a very good campsite which has a load of facilities and is....well put it this way if you got some of the closest pitches, you could belay from the tent although you might get ropedrag. Otherwise you have to brave a 1-5 minute walk. Brave a 10-15 minute drive (San Vito town is 5 mins) and you have dozens more varied crags, including the world class Never Sleeping Wall which had the best F6a+ and F6b+ I've ever done - 30m of pure tufas and blobs up a sheer wall.

Trying to keep it succinct:

Pros of Sicily:
+ Great campsite with choice of pitches, caravans, and nice wee bungalows, good showers, bar, pizzeria, swimming pool, kiddies swimming pool, and climber-friendly owners.
+ Coast is 2 mins walk away.
+ Nice town and great beach 5 mins drive away.
+ Local crags are IN the campsite.
+ Loads of crags nearby.
+ Very varied climbing for Euro Lime, all types of lime style and angle, and length from 15m cave routes to 300m mountain routes.
+ New routes being put up all the time - and all well bolted by the Titts & Co (I did the second ascent of great F6c crack that had been bolted the week before).
+ Loads of great easy routes - the Titts like putting up good easy ones (I did the second ascent of a cool F6a slab that had been bolted the day before)
+ Good diverse harder routes.
+ Masses of new route potential - including some very hard potential.
+ Crags facing sun and shade.
+ Good climate throughout autumn / winter / spring.
+ Much less crowded and polished than Choada Blanca. Plus no Benidorm in sight.
+ 50 mins easy drive from airport.
+ Cheap direct Ryanair flights.
+ Apparently there are porcupines near the campsite.

Cons of Sicily:
- Coast next to campsite is mostly jagged limestone.
- Some of the crags next to the sea can be greasy on still days.
- Choice of airports serving Trapani / Palmero is limited.
- The very newest routes can have very sharp rock.
- I didn't see any bloody porcupines.

Basically as Euro-Lime goes, it's pimp. The Titts want people to visit (nice people, not mindless hordes) and even as a sceptic I concur they have a good point. So there you go.

Defeat.

This morning I drove back from Font after our 4 day New Year trip there.

30+ hours driving
£180 in fuel
1 ½ days climbing
2 days walking around in drizzle and clag
5 peeling finger-tips
4 hours of bad sleep this morning

Was it worth it?

No.

It was the most promising start to a Font trip ever - driving down from Dunkirk to Paris it was -5°C all the way (apart from when it was -6), even when the sun came up, and Monday was a perfect winter sun day. There had been a last-minute forecast of "30% chance of snow showers" on Tue/Wed, which in theory shouldn't have been a problem given the icy temps and bone dry rock. But the reality defied all theory and indeed all common sense. Despite Monday night being at least -2°C if not colder, it somehow rained overnight, which promptly froze, completely fucking up the next few days. Thus Tue and Wed were spent reccing a damp forest - useful for future visits but little consolation really. We managed to find enough dry rock for a few hours bouldering before the ferry on Thu, but it was too little too late.

The company was good, the gite was good, and the food was pretty good. The one ambition I achieved was not bouldering but eating: I finally cooked myself some horse - with Sloper's recommendation on the cooking method - and it was surprisingly mild and melt-in-the-mouth tender. Hurrah. But having an exciting, celebratory, New Year's bouldering trip in the Forest dissolve away into grey, damp, retreat was pretty shit. I'd like to be more philosophical about this but a combination of frustration, cheesemares, long late night drives and general knackeredness has left me feeling pretty bleak today.

When this passes, I'll be able to take in the New Year more, and have some positive, productive thoughts on it.

Uplifting update!

I have a friend who is a good, strong, dedicated grit boulderer with a particular penchant for hidden gems and new lines. In his honour and occasionally in his company, I sometimes scout out for new projects and problems in the Peak district, and surprisingly, despite the popularity of the area and the predatory teams that lurk around with similar intent, most of the time I (or we) find something fresh and worthwhile. Most of these are too hard for me, but not always.


On one such scouting mission in the rainy summer we found this neat little wall at Chasecliffe crag near Cromford. The lack of any chalk in the overhung slots indicated it's virginity, ripe for the taking. It was left for one side until....well....today. I'd planned to go out with the chirpy Shauna, but early clag and general mizzle promised very little. A hunch that the Cratcliffe area might be drier than the main peak was soon de-hunched as it was just as dank there, as it was at Chasecliffe itself.


However! The wall itself was just dry enough, and some judicious heavy chalking (soon to be washed off with tonight's forecast) made it climbable. A brisk bit of warming up and on with the action... The lines turned out to be much easier than they'd looked before - reassuring for me and my elbow - and a few attempts saw the problems below dispatched. Only an obvious eliminate remained, but proper drizzle encouraged a tactical retreat to Wirksworth's excellent Le Mistral cafe/bar (good croque monsieur and fine cappucino - strong enough and plenty of froth). Not bad for a pissy day!


^^^ above photos are on Mistral V3 6a, up the centre of the wall. The left arete is Geek Passion V2 5c/6a ( Video here ), an eliminate line just right of Mistral will go at V4/5, and the right arete is a steady V1 5b (no bridging), traverse V2 5c-ish. All from obvious sitters off jugs.
Directions: Approach Chasecliffe from the parking at the first bend on Chadwick Nick Lane, the wall is just above the Chasecliffe boulder.

Anniversary.

Saturday was my birthday.

(Last year's birthday was pretty amazing - Pavey Ark ... glorious sunshine ... stinking cold ... scarcely less stinking Pylon King ... sitting on the belay of the classic Cruel Sister with my throat burning, staring out at the amazingly expansive view ... rushing round to Bright Beck crag after the rest of the team had gone back down ... ordering food from the New Dungeon Gyll pub by mobile phone from the crag and rushing back down to collect it well after last food orders ... spending 3 days afterwards hardly able to move after burning up all my cold-healing energy on that one day out... )

This year, I felt little like celebrating, mostly due to my elbow, and a hint of general malaise. However, surprisingly and against my better (bah humbug) judgement, it was still a good fun day, in fact one of the better "days out" I've had recently. After a rather plethoric quantity of (good) presents, we headed up to Simon's Seat in Yorkshire, somewhere that had been on my wishlist (for Easy Trad(tm)) for a while. A long, tedious drive, and a long-ish, tiring hike gave an important feeling of "being away from it all".

The crag was in great condition, almost all clean and bone dry. We climbed several routes, I pissed up an E2 5b and had an epic fight on a HVS 5b, hmmm such is the nature of things (those things being rubbish grading in both Yorkshire Grit and Rockfax Northern England!). The rock quality is excellent up there, it's rough, but not in a nasty crystally sort of way (which I usually don't like with harsher grit), but in a compact pitted sort of way. And liberally splattered with a smattering of pebbles, and more unusually, vast herds of millipedes. For future reference there are some amazing looking highball ankle-snapping solo micro route things...

Finally, we yomped down well in the dark and well after pub-food-o'clock, and decided a quick, simple curry in Skipton would suffice and restore moral fibre for the journey home. However this quick, simple curry was not to be as we stumbled across a branch of the acclaimed Aagrah and had one of the best curries I've had for ages. Tasty, consistently good, very clear ingredients so the dishes were all distinctive, all served smoothly and promptly. This rounded things off rather nicely :).

So happy birthday me, I guess...

Bank holiday shenanigans.

Shenanigans is a good word. Well maybe not a good word to read but it sounds good and has a good meaning. It was one of my brother's favourites when we were younger. Possibly 'cos he kept getting bollocked for his shenanigans.

So, Bank Holiday. I'm not a particular fan of the "necessity" to get away and do something spectacular on BH weekends (apart from destinations that need 3 days to justify the journey, of course). Traffic jams, hordes of bumblies, lack of accomodation, etc etc. And the usual British guarantee of the weather being unguaranteeable. Better to save the special trips away for quieter weekends and let the weather dictate the timing rather than fighting against it. All about successful trips rather than fitting in with the status quo.

Anyway I have no idea what the weather was like in the UK this weekend because I wasn't here. I had a cunning plan and nipped over to Valencia to visit Fiend 2 before it got too hot. A long overdue and fun visit and naturally I managed to sneak in a couple of climbing days at Costa Blanca crags that were just over an hour from the city.

The hot sunny weather dictated shade, my elbow dictated some moderation in what routes I climbed, so I chose Bellus and Pena Roja. Both had good shady sectors and plenty of nice F6s. Last time I was sport climbing in El Chorro I was on top form and managed to push myself to flashing a few F7as (SMALL NUMBERS! :)). This time I had a vague notion of flashing a couple more but common sense got in the way and I stuck to 6s. Led 9 routes including several nice 6b/6cs in a couple of afternoons....there would have been a time in the past, pre-Chorro, when I'd have been happy with that. And indeed I was this time too. Good climbing.

(I was thinking of ranting about how - having been on several Euro sport climbing trips - the feel of climbing over there is getting pretty samey. Because, to be honest, it is. I felt that quite strongly on the first day - all pretty familiar. But on the second day, again the same stuff, I didn't notice it. It might be homogenous, but it's still FUN in it's own way.)

Mmmmm elbows...


Incidentally, just like going to Font, it might have seemed stupid to go sport climbing when my elbow is tweaked. It probably is somewhat stupid, but careful icing, massaging, warming up, not pushing too hard, and listening to any warning pains alleviate the stupidity a bit. Plus, it was only a couple of days, and I really want to take advantage of climbing in different places.

More pertinently, now it's getting too warm to boulder effectively and to sport climb abroad much (restricting the options anyway). So this will be my last strenuous climbing for a while - back to trad and choss over the summer, and hopefully the reduced physical intensity should help my recovery.

~ * ~

Another highlight of the trip was a fantastic meal at the Submarina restaurant in Valencia. This restaurant is part of L'Oceanogràfic Aquarium complex, itself part of the surreal collection of organic sci-fi buildings of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, all situated in the giant ex-river-bed-now-public-park that snakes through Valencia and is probably the city's best feature.

The restaurant....well the food was very good (my scallops were large enough to have their own gravity and came with a lobster and sea-urchin reduction, my lamb shoulder was succulent enough to make chewing obsolete and was garnished with an intense thyme froth), the wine was very good, the service and decor was very good... But I've had a few meals to compare on those grounds. The restaurant itself however, is spectacular. It's situatated underground in a circular pit beneath a huge shell-like canopy dedicated to the restaurant alone, and the dining floor is surrounded by a giant fish tank with thousands of fish circulating the whole thing. Mostly anti-clockwise but a few deviant fish and anarchic manta rays insisted on going clockwise. Truly a James Bond setting and quite amazing sitting beside this constant stream of fish - memorable!

Some fucker eyeing up my main course:


~ * ~

One slight sour note to finish off an otherwise great fun trip was quite probably earning myself a speeding ticket coming back from Stanstead. In the interests of common sense I was sticking to a steady 80, but unfortunately kept at a steady 80 passing a speed camera in a 50 limit through roadworks. You know the score - it's dark, the camera isn't visible, the roadworks don't actually start for another mile, there's no other sodding traffic in the same county, the lanes are exactly the same as usual, and the 50 is entirely unjustified, blah blah.

Okay, so, my fault, I sped, I probably got caught. Hands up and I'll pay it if it comes through. What I don't like and what leaves a sour taste in my mouth, is this being an example of the constant battle drivers have in this country against the country's infrastructure - road regulations in particular. Yes there are many cases where regulations are good, useful, justifiable, and it feels exactly right to stick to them for everybody's sake. But with the increase in regulations, limits, restrictions, and generally fucking around with the roads to make them harder and harder to drive on (as if traffic, bumblies, and petrol prices don't do that enough already), it just feels like a war of opposition. Very much "them" and "us". Instead of working together, it's like they just want to make it a pain in the arse to drive around, and naturally we don't want that, and resentment abounds.

Still I'll just have to be more dilligent about cameras in the future.