Spanish Quixotry: A photo essay

There are certain things about a place that make it unique. Some places seem to have just a bit more of that magic...

The Alicante region of Spain is one for me. A combination of accessible history, grand architecture with plenty of Arabesque flourishes, craggy landscapes, slices of Old World culture - all in constant collision... Early March blooms of almond trees in 24 degree celsius heat, chicken blood sausage tapas and vino tinto rioja, ruinas across ancient terraced olive groves...

I never really got what the word quixotry meant until I landed here... That glimmering sheen of god rays strafing the Bernia Ridge, a late night drunken wander during Carnival through the tiny streets of Sella,  howling levantes swirling though the trees keeping me awake - there is a wild and surreal sort of luster that makes many moments here feel impossibly possible...

I will miss it.

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy

Spain Climbing, Costa Blanca: Photo Essay

Spain...

9 pitches up on a sea cliff, 7.5 kilometers across a ridge, climbing out a sea cave, watching the colors shift as the daylight fades...

Olta and the Peñon

Ryan climbing out of Parley, one of the top 10 routes of all time with its freehanging rappel

Luke on a 7a at Castallet de Calp

Sierra de Toix...

Crossing the Bernia Ridge, 7.5 km. Ryan soloed it barefoot.

The Peñon de Ifach, Calp, 300 meters high

The Puig Campana, 15 pitches and more

Parley: Spanish Sea Cliff Photo Essay

Sometimes we need to parley - with ourselves, with gravity... To disappear to some wild coast.

Sea caves, sea cliffs, sunshine and the distant Spanish shores have called for a while now and I am answering it. Costa Blanca is home to thousands of climbs, many trad routes on the limestone that can be hundreds of meters high in spots.

Sunburn, nesting territorial gulls and the sparkling sea...

The routes often require total focus - placing tiny nuts, wobbly cams, clipping rusted and untrustworthy bolts and sunbleached and frayed threads on wild traveses with sea spray coating you with its saltiness. Steeply overhanging pockets and curious jams and locks to carry you above the sparkling void.

A good mindgame to keep one connected and never straying far from the eternal moment.

All images ©Bennett Barthelemy April, 2016

Exposure Therapy in España

Back beneath grey skies again but my suntan and smile will take a while to fade.

Always good to get a little exposure therapy in winter - sun and verticality... 

Always amazing to get to witness your partner becoming more confident and passing milestones - First lead climbs, first rappels, first mulit-pitch sea cliff, first time on limestone, first retreat off of a loose trad route, first time rapping to the end of a rope several feet off the deck, first simul-climb, first solo knife-edge ridge traverse, first time climbing and shooting with a camera. Perhaps the most impressive is surviving living in a tent for a week and sharing a kitchen with a dozen dirtbag climbers for the first time. 

I am amazed and realize what a gumby I was my first couple decades of climbing when my partner realizes all this just a few months into her climbing career - and in just a week.

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy, unless otherwise indicated...