Expedition Archives

While I've been unable to leave the quarantine confines of The Cottage, I've been looking back thought some of the past expedition journals. Here's a memorable day in the Picos de Europa of Spain back in 2008 that makes comes from the Van Bivi Logbook that I'm currently writing about...

Picos de Europa Bivi Scenes

JOURNAL ENTRY:

“The eighth day of the eighth month in two thousand and eight! Bivied in the cable car car park in preparation for an ascent of ‘Divertimento’ on the North-East Face of Pena Regaliz. A monster three hour walk in to get to the climb. Five hours on the route. Ten pitches of climbing, then two more hours for the return walk back down back to the van. Solid stats.

Left the van at 07:30 and returned just after 19:00! We were going to bivi again, but instead drove to the campsite near Potes for showers and red wine. Amazing day. Two cheeky pitches of grade V+ (HVS, 5a) – one through an over-hang and the other up long water runnels and over a bulge. We rock!”

 

Looking back at this journal entry, it’s partly with admiration and partly with disbelief. To hike this peak in a day would have been a respectable achievement, but to throw in a difficult and committing ten pitch climb, gives an idea at our level of fitness, as well as the astonishing level of psych, dedication and desire we have for seeking out a good adventure. We have a few photos of the day, but mostly, the memories are firmly etched into our minds. From the outset, it held all the key attributes of an expedition experience, requiring us to use our skills, both physically and mentally to ‘complete a journey with an unknown outcome’.

One of the main difficulties of climbing and mountaineering in the Picos de Europa is the accessibility of drinking water. The nature of the region’s limestone geology cause any rainfall to run off and disappear into the extensive network of caves that lie hidden beneath the mountains. Hence, the main features on the rock are water worn runnels and while there are plenty of stream beds, in the summer these tend to lay dry as the water finds easier passage underground. We had been shown a few ‘springs’ and watering holes hidden in caves, by locals and had a few others marked on our map, but the general consensus seemed to be that they should not be relied on. The long and short of this snippet of local information was that, for any journey, hydration needs to be considered and planned for. In this particular instance, climbing the ascent involved my carrying of three litres of water to ensure that we stayed hydrated. A not insignificant additional weight to anyone’s rucksack, but a necessary one.

 

Just a three hour walk-in...

It’s a straight up zig-zagging track of 800m ascent to get to the meadows of Vega de Lourdes – unless of course you want to pay for a lift in the nearby cable car. The financial debate was tossed back and forth but while we would dearly have liked to have had some mechanical assistance, the decision was taken out of our hands as the service was closed for maintenance. The ascent was going to cost us in sweat rather than Euros.

Not that anywhere was particularly busy that summer, the closure of the cable car meant the absence of almost any tourists or climbers the high mountains that day. Except of course the few who were both willing and able to access them like us, via paying the obligatory 800m climbing toll. We felt like we were the only people in the entire mountain range. Wild horses, cows, goats and ‘rebeccos’ roamed around the surprisingly green pastures as we hiked across them towards our peak. By now, we were getting used to the style of climbing and having previously written this climb off as too big, too hard and too far away, our tally of recent climbs had now provided enough in the way of experience and confidence to be making an attempt. We couldn’t have asked for a better day and our early start meant that we had plenty of time, fine weather and the route to ourselves.

 

North-East Face of Pena Regaliz

The first few pitches were worryingly steep for the advertised grades, but we managed to keep our heads together and after four good pitches of climbing arrived at the ‘Grand Terrace’, where an escape was possible if required. With the knowledge that we could abort at this point we felt we had a good psychological boost when setting off but having arrived unscathed we decided that we both felt ‘in the zone’ and having come this far should continue upwards. Refreshed by a sip of water and a flapjack, that’s exactly what we did.

Through the overhang

The higher pitches provided some breath-taking balance moves, but the protection was generally good, so our confidence remained buoyed. Pulling through the crux overhang involved the kind of exposed position that we joked really ought to have involved bringing a photographer along with us. We were both experiencing the kind of flow state that climbers and any performers or athletes aim to be in. With the level of challenge remaining high and the exposure wild, we seemed to be climbing on auto-pilot. Every hand hold seemed to be just where we imagined it would and each cam or wire we selected to slot into any given crack was the exact size and placed without fuss. It was climbing bliss.

 

'The' Cam-Tastic Pitch

The final difficult pitch fell to Clare to lead and I paid out the ropes as she disappeared up over an overlap. Things began to slow down after a while, but little by little the ropes inched through my belay device until after a tense few minutes of inactivity, there was a jerk on the ropes and a ‘woop’ drifted down form somewhere high above. I was more than grateful for the tight rope as I followed up the drainpipe of a water feature. Without much in the way of hand holds, the rope led me past our whole rack of cams up an ever-decreasing sized runnel. It was a stunning lead which led me up to justifiably happy Clare who was pulling up the ropes and me on to the summit.

Having spent the day north east face of the mountain, my eyes squinted into the bright light of the summit. More food and drink was consumed as we sat there gazing happily around the multitude of horizon lines around us. Somewhere below us was a van with our bed in it….

Back down at Basecamp