Autumn @ Albarracin

Hello everyone!
It's Lucy here!!
Had such a great time at albarracin thought I would do a blog to tell you all about it!!
When me and simon first arrived it was still pretty warm, so not the best bouldering conditions but were still able to get some great climbing in!!

Firstly the people.....It was pretty much just us when we first arrived then a friend of ours vaughan from NZ that we met in magic wood turned up, which was pretty random was good 2 c him! Then Rosie and Tom from Bristol turned up who had also come to Albarracin from Rodellar, even though they r from Bristol we had never really met them before Rodellar was really good to get to know them! these guys dont boulder as much as they route climb but they r still super strong and sent some good stuff whilst they were there, we had great fun climbing with those guys!

When Rosie and Tom left Michelle and Adam rocked up, they r from birmingham and we also met them in Rodellar! They are totally amazing we had alot of fun climbing and hanging out with those guys! There were also some really cool guys there that we met, chris from south Africa, Tor from Norway & Greg from Southampton, these guys introduced us to burger mondays, basically a barbeque every monday! Every1 got involved was fun :) There were a couple of americans thrown into the mix aswell, cassie and matt, they were on an epic trip, going bouldering all over the world, switzerland, spain, south africa, all across the US and many more! It was matts birthday while we were all in albarracin so i made a card that had the sillhouete of a boulderer cut out along the edge and got every1 to sign it! and made him a birthday peanut butter and jelly pancake!:) And Jason & Claire came over from bristol for the last 10 days that we were there which was so cool! had a wicked time climbing and chilling with them, they even let us use thier washing machine in the apartment they stayed in and have a bath!!! was such a treat thank u guys!

I did get up to other activities other than climbing aswell, Me and michelle did afew long bikes rides on our 'rest days'. We did a really nice circuit that I originally did with simon 1 day that takes you in a big loop along these long winding roads surrounded by huge outcrops of rocks and trees then back through gea de albarracin, through the village and back to the car park which was approx 20.5 miles. It was pretty much up and down hill all the way so u could cycle hard/rest, cycle hard/rest kind but with a 3k continuous hill at the very end, was a proper sting in the tail, hardwork! was awesome! It was so beautiful when going along the roads surrounded by the rocks and trees, michelle said it looked like jurrasic park so we were cycling along singing the jurrasic park theme tune!! (well lalalala-ing it!) was very funny! on 1 of the evenings following the jurrasic park bike ride we watched 1 of the jurrasic park movies! Having that tune in your head just gives you and urge to watch it!! haha :)

Also whilst in Albarracin I discovered I have a candida imbalance in my belly, which is pretty much a yeast intolerance. So without going into to much detail I totally changed my diet as I was eating all the wrong things! As a result I feel like a totally new person, it really is unbelievable the difference it has made so far, so I am loving it! It is hard as there are alot of things I cannot eat now but it is totally worth it! Im lighter and happier now and loving life even more!

One of the highlights of my week whilst in albarracin was the fruit and veg market on wednesday mornings, the guy that runs it is super friendly always giving us freebees, it was fun going there buying lots of yummy veggies and speaking bad spanish at them and learning more bad spanish in the process!
Climbing wise I was really loving the bouldering, I wanted to get a font 6C whilst there but to be honest there was just so many amazing problems around font 6B I was going for alot of them and just really enjoying it!! i did get sooooo close to a 6C on the last day, wasnt even going to climb that day as was so nackered but did the '1 last go' thing, which so nearly paid off! did all the hard moves then lost concentration as thought id done it and slapped to the left of the really good sloaper I had to go for and fell! ahhhhh! was frustrating but was actually really happy to get that close as I was destroyed after 6 weeks of bouldering!!! good times :)

Simon also did super well climbing wise, he was crushing font 7a's real quick and got 2 7b+'s, Amazing!
So after 6 weeks of pulling extremely hard in Albarracin we are now in Margaleff! Did my first 6B+ onsight yesterday shortly followed but my first 6C onsight which felt pretty reasonable so was happy with that! Have already seen many hard lines Im inspired by for potential redpoints but there are just so many good lines here I think Im just gonna do lots of onsighting for now! I really am spoilt for choice here its a fantastic place! Thats all for now but watch this space for news & pics from margaleff!
Much love!
Lucy

(please see below for some of my fave piccys from Albarracin!)