Six weeks bouldering time in the sandstone awesomeness that is Albarracin, Spain, gave us a seemingly endless amount of time to find, establish and send boulder projects. Naturally, it flew by and we left without having climbed everything that we wanted to, and without even having visited all of the areas. Many of the best days we had were those that we spent climbing any boulder that we saw, regardless of the grade, but working and climbing the routes that were harder for us was also pretty special. Some of these took a lot of work, and others breezed by, but nearly all of them felt like quality routes. It took us a while (me, especially) to get going as it was just so bitterly cold at the beginning of our stay there. We weren't prepared for the cold, and I think we expected the grades to feel a little easier. Some of the lower grades felt more straight forward to climb than their equivalent in Fontainebleau, but often a bit physically stronger too. The harder grades felt pretty much on the money for the most part, especially when supplementing the NoRop.es guidebook, nicely done but now slightly out of date, with the more current grades on their website. As the weather warmed up slightly, so did our climbing, and we fell into an easy routine of climbing whenever skin, weather and energy allowed. We would try to get in some stetching and crosstraining when it didn't - although living in a van during cold, wet windy weather can make it difficult to muster up enthusiasm for this, it also makes these extra efforts all the more important to avoid getting all scrunched up. Our existence during this time was pretty monotonous although fun, being slaves to good conditions and needing some routine to pass the time. Sleep, eat, climb, stretch, eat, shower (1 out of 7 days?), eat, sleep, eat, rest, eat, eat, eat, sleep, eat, rest, eat, eat, eat... etc. We definitely got some funny looks during hangboard sessions in the car park. Because Albarracin isn't huge, and we weren't straying too far from the beaten track, we rarely climbed by ourselves and met and spent time with so many lovely, passionate people amongst the boulders, so many thanks to everyone for spotting, beta, Spanish lessons, and especially the company. Sam mashed together this video of our time in Albarracin, which hopefully captures some of the fun we had climbing in this beautiful area, and shows a few of our favourite problems (or the ones we remembered to film)...
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Albarracin is considered one of the most beautiful towns in Spain, has a long and colourful history of human habitation and has been proposed as a world heritage site by UNESCO. During our first few weeks there, we had spent most of our time between the (also very beautiful) Piñas Rodenas forest, climbing on the boulders, and a small, windswept car park outside and above the town. Thus far, the majority of our cultural appreciation of Albarracin had been from this car park, which does provide a cracking view but is a little lacking in intimacy. We were running low on skin, money, friends, and food. It felt like a good time to do the tourist thing.
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