Pisinale

Today, we left Bavella to make our way to the coast for a small crag right by the ocean. Mareike had seen it in our climbing guidebook and immediately loved the look of the climbs as well as the setting. Since there are just a few climbs and only two of them within our skill level, it was going to be an easy day with plenty of time to rest and enjoy the scenery. So far the theory :)

We got there mid-day and immediately loved it. The climbing was mostly crack climbing. It looked super fun and hard at the same time, so we decided to set up a toprope (Leo was able to hike from the other side of the climb). Since the falls in toprope are so much shorter than on a lead climb, it is a lot less scary to do hard moves and makes climbing a lot easier mentally.

Yet, this kind of climbing was totally new to Mareike - a lot of jamming your feet and hands in the crack and moving up one move at a time. She (and Leo from below) really had to push herself to trust those moves and keep climbing. So much fun to figure it out! She ended up climbing the harder climb three times and got more "graceful" each time :)

Feeling great and well protected, we decided to venture out of our climbing comfort zone and try a 6a+ route, two levels above our hardest climb so far. It was a super challenging start but once Leo figured it out, he sent the route! Trying all sorts of moves for this hard route, we had totally lost track of time and realized the sun was setting already - what a full day of climbing fun! And we realized that we also finally learned what it means to run out of skin on our fingers ;)

Since it was so late and we were tired, we decided to stay in a Bed and Breakfast. Such a good decision! It was an apatment attached to a lovely house up in the countryside. The owners Claude and Marie-France were the best, most friendly hosts and we had a few nice conversations in Mareike's broken French :)Read more