Rockin' Rodellar

Before our trip back home we drove from Siruana to Rodellar, Spain, another world renown climbing destination in our crazy Space Invaders van. The trip was a twisty three hour drive to the Sierra de Guara National Park and climbing area. Rodellar's climbing sits inside a long gorge on both sides and crossing the cool river was sometimes tricky...thankfully I only got one soaker.
The climbing is much steeper than Siruana and there are many crags to choose from. Each sector has its unique character and climbing style and we sampled routes from most areas. The weather was still unusually cool and although we had some rain it never really stopped us from climbing.

On one of our climbing days we spontaneously took a trip to Riglos, a small town and climbing area most people told us to go to on our trip in Spain. We were told the climb was like "climbing on potatoes", very steep, 250 meters tall, and very pumpy...all of which were true.
From a distance you could see the clean line meander all the way to the top so our approach to the cliff was easy and we ended up climbing it in 5 hours from car to car. I don't think either of us has experienced such forearm pump before...we we're almost "coming off" and almost took some big whippers.

Back in Rodellar we reconnected with some of our friends we met during our travels. We met Miguel, a climber we met in Ceuse, France six years ago; Masha, a girl we met in Kalymnos; Kent, an Aussie bloke we met in Thailand; Jess, an old friend from Toronto who was on her honeymoon with her new hubby John; and we were still climbing and hanging out with the South Affi's whom we met in Siruana.


Our last two weeks in Spain were spent with our Space Invaders van camping in the town parking lot. Life couldn't be much better. "Don't worry about the bylaw signs, the area is there for people to camp in." Rainy evenings were spent with the eclectic mix of world climbers at the Kalendraka Refugee, or in the van playing Cribbage. Erin and I were a bit sad to give back the van but are well over it now that we have Sylvia (our Dodge) back.