The last six or so weeks have flown by in a blur of wheat
fields filled with red poppies, limestone tufa caves, rest-day dips into cold
aqua swim holes, afternoon thunder storms, scenic walks with mum, Spanish
joviality, lazy mornings in the carpark waiting for shade, vulchers soaring
overhead, and knee-bars. Rodellar deserves a blog entry of it’s own, but
somehow, between all the climbing, resting, crocheting and socialising, I just
haven’t had time to make use of the unusual dirt-bag luxury we had...wifi in the car
park... and write a post.
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| The many limestone tufa caves that fill the Valley below Rodellar, Spain. |
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| Mum the mountain goat. |
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| One of the vulchers that stop off to check out Rodellar whilst on their flight path from Africa. |
And now we are in France, driven from Spain by the ever increasing temperatures, and wet tufas from a week of persistent storms. After two days of driving we found ourselves in Ceuse.
Ceuse is almost perfect….it would be if you liked Goat’s
cheese and had a way to exterminate flies. The limestone outcrop stands proudly
at the top of the 2000m high mountain of Ceuse, sweeping out of the ground to
form a perfect concave surface of pale yellow rock striped by the blue water
streaks. The surrounding fields of lush green grasses dotted with an array of
different wild flowers are the perfect foreground to the backdrop of the Alps, still speckled with the last of the winter snow. Down the road from the parking is a
little goat farm where they make homemade French cheeses from the hand milked
goats milk. Across the road is a picturesque little cottage, complete with a happy
fat dog on the front step, and they sell hot chocolates where you get to add
the cocoa yourself, it seems the French understand what a perfect hot chocolate
is, I love it here!
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| The perfect walls of Ceuse. |
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| The view from the crag. |
The one-hour uphill walk to the cliff provides the perfect
complimentary exercise to a day of climbing, and the make-up of the rock
requires every climbing skill in the book, and all on the one route: power, technique,
endurance and confidence, making it the perfect training ground for overall improvement.
The barrelling shape of the wall usually means a climb begins on steep rock,
with powerful moves through pockets, and gradually as the gradient eases, the holds
become smaller until you find yourself on a technical slab, pumped, and run out.
The bolting ethic here means the bolts are often placed sparsely (but generally safely),
meaning you often find yourself facing a crux relatively high above the last
bolt, calling on mental strength, which is equally as important as
the physical. All of these features, as well as the renowned tough grading here, make
Ceuse an ego crushing place, being both mentally and physically intense…it’s the real deal.
As evening falls, the last light hits the mountain opposite, Petit Ceuse, illuminating the white bounders against the smooth green
grass, the Alps fading to blue in the distance. Nearly everyone at the crag
pauses for a moment to admire the view, and think, as they do everyday, that
there is nowhere on earth they’d rather be right now….until a rampage mosquitos
relentlessly harass their faces. At least when the mosquitos come out, the
flies begin to die down. For some reason there is an almost biblical
proportioned plaque of flies here, and their favourite place to hang out seems
to be in our van. They also like to rest on the rope while someone is climbing,
making the grigri a fly mincer when the climber is being lowered off. But this
scarcely detracts from the beauty of one of the best climbing destinations I’ve
ever been to (on par with Cochamo, which coincidentally is also full of flies,
at least the ones in Ceuse don’t bite)!
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| Petit Ceuse |
