The year, as we on the so called earth (and in the s.c. ”west”) call it, is coming to it’s end. For me it means the end of a cycle and soon the beginning of a new one. The climbing cycle. I usually take 2-4 weeks of, in the end of the year, from climbing to recover 100% and then start the training for the new season. But after climbing just so much this year I still felt I wanted more. As I already started to feel tired from all the climbing this year I put in a last effort to try to do one more route. I had tried this route ”Esclatamasters” in Perles (Catalunya, Spain) in october and felt I didn’t want to save it for next year, but give it one last try. It wasn’t too hard to leave a cold and snowy Sweden for some climbing in the south. But it turned out to be really warm (for being december in the pyrenees) and humid, and the route quite wet in many places. I desperately went to Andorra and bought a blowtorch (which I’m an expert with after trying this wet route in Sweden this past summer) to try to do some miracles. And it worked well. Also, the last day the weather was perfect and the route was 99% dry. Just before the sun set entirely I set of on my last try. And you know how that last try always end up being -desperate. And somehow I managed to fight my way up this amazing line of 40 meters with all styles (exept maybe off width), doing all the trix I’ve ever learned. This is what matters. But as climbing has turned into as much of a controlled society (I guess thats what climbers ”back then” tried to escape from) as modern western civilzation it also has the fictive grade of 9a. I’m NOT going to take up the grade debate here but let’s just say I rather climb than discuss these kinds of subjects… we then finished the day at the club Jazzsi in Barcelona (always live flamenco on fridays). This place would be reason enough to come to Catalunya.
