Friday 19 October 2012

Hola...err...bon soir from Spain...err...France.



Desperado Red Edition, random French lager, and Kwak 8.4% this evening, so this blog post might be even less coherent than normal...

We are in France. Not Spain. Nor Glasgow. Spain was the plan - inspiring Pyrenean granite up at Cavallers. Slabs and features and all the usual granite goodness (not my favourite rock but I find it intriguing enough especially on sport climbing) all scattered close to a mountain reservoir. A cheap apartment in the local village and plenty of winter sun limestone nearby if it got too cold or rainy up in the mountains. Plan A seemed infallible...

....except for a swirling miasma of hurricane strength low pressure grinding it's way across Spain and spewing it's torrential rain showers over the Pyrenees like a bukakke shoot on a Ferris wheel. Arse bugger wank etc etc.

So Plan B has been to cancel the apartment and retreat to a climber's B&B in Ariege, crossing the border which was characterised by an ancient outpost in a random village and an incredibly fluffy rug dog on the French side, into an area forecast to be sheltered enough to escape the worse of the deluge.

Maybe it has, but there has been enough of a mild deluge today to restrict activity to a recce of rather good looking granite slabs at Auzat, and then some bog-standard Euro-lime at Sinsat. Still we did some climbing, it's quite muggy which while unpleasant for climbing is beneficial for my elbow and shoulder tweaks, and got some inspiration....

Since Cavallers looks to be getting a lot of rain and thus might take some time to dry, we might extend our French border crossing for a couple of days into next week, then head South. Or we might end up rotpunkting polished bollox in chossy ever-dry caves and watching more Starcraft 2 videos WHO KNOWS.

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