Europe

We spent a month climbing in France and Spain, from September 5 to October 5, 2010.

France

The best food I have ever eaten in my life, with Estelle in France.

Ceuse

Map of Ceuse France. We camped at Les Guerins near the center of the photo, and hiked up a massive hill for an hour and a half to reach the climbs.

Our first rental car, the Ford KA. "Where's the KA?" we would ask.





Les Gorges du Verdon, France. We climbed Dingomaniaque, a 6 pitch route with a crux pitch of about 5.12a. The routes are approached from the top, and you have to rappel down into the canyon and then climb out.


Susie on Super Mickey, Ceuse France.


La Petit Illusion, 7a+. (about 5.12b+). Susie redpointed on her second try.



Another great sunset at Ceuse.


We spent a lot of time rigging ropes to take good climbing photographs on this trip. It takes a lot of work to get good photographs, and at least three climbers. We would make friends with other climbers at the cliff in order to get one of them to belay Susie while I took photos hanging from a rope up above. In return for the belay, I would take pictures of them as well. This worked out great because everybody wants pictures of themselves. Every time I pulled out my camera with the big looking zoom lens, we made new friends. I would usually practice taking pictures of the other climbers first, to test everything out, then take pictures of Susie after I had worked out all the kinks and found the best angles. There were plenty of days where I would spend 3 or 4 hours taking photos of beautiful climbing babes that Susie had recruited to help out. Not a bad job.

Katia (Zurich Switzerland)

Andrea (Zurich Switzerland)
Anna (Catalunya)

Trisha (Salt Lake City)

Blanca (Girona, Catalunya)


Dani (Rodellar Spain)

Ann (Texas)

Susie and Ann.

Katia, Susie, Andrea.



Most of the time I was the one taking the pictures. However, from time to time I had to also take it upon myself to show everyone how to pose for climbing photographs.


I got a blister that became infected and was a huge pain in the neck.

Rodellar, Catalunya Spain

Delfin, 7c+ a crazy arch feature.





The Gran Boveda, a wall in Rodellar with lots of tufa climbs.

Susie is crushing another route onsight that I had to hang in the rope twice on.



These are some Catalan guys we met in Rodellar. I got a cold so I spent the day hanging out with them at the cliffs and taking photographs. They were awesome.

Mallorca, Spain

Psycobloc (Deep Water Soloing) on Mallorca, an island east of Barcelona. This is the Diablo Wall. I am climbing Afroman, 7b+ (5.12c).

Siurana, Catalunya Spain

L'escamarla, 7c+, Siurana.


This is our friend Toni Arbones. He runs the campground in Siurana. We met him in Yosemite this spring and he told us about Siurana.

Climbing bolted cracks, Euro style.



Susie redpointed her first 5.13 in Siurana Spain. La Ardilla Roja, 7c+ (The Red Squirrel). It took her about 6 tries. She redpointed it in the last moments of our last climbing day of our trip, just before dark. It was amazing to watch. I had tried the route a few days earlier on toprope after she first got on it, and I had to lower off at the crux because I could not even hold on to the holds.

Sector El Pati. Susie's route La Ardilla Roja is about the center of the wall here.
Siruana has pretty rough rock.



In Siurana we camped at Toni Arbones' climbers campground.

Our last night in Spain we stayed in a campground near Barcelona. It was overcast and the city lights lit up the clouds. This image was a 30 second exposure. This is straight out of the camera, no photoshop.


La Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona.

We had about an 8 hour layover in Geneva Switzerland on the way home, so we spent the night on the Airport floor.