Saturday, February 2, 2008

Cueva Larga & Ana Banana

First day of climbing started out a couple of climbs in Cueva Larga.
This is a cave with roughly parallel walls about 3 or 4 metres apart that rise 30m to the sky visible above. It is generally shaded and cool on a hot day, and it is packed with climbs ranging from 10a to 12a.

I started out on Chipojito (10a) and Chipojo(10a), moving on to Papi (11a) - a variation on the end of Chipojo (and probably a little soft for the grade). All these the climbs are straight up (90 degrees), and well featured, with small stalagtites and roughly contoured formations - generally it takes more effort to search out the best hold option than to actually hold onto it.

Heading out from the cave and following the cliff wall for a hundred metres to the left (facing cave entrance), we encounter the classic Ana Banana (11b). This is a fantastic climb with a huge variety of climbing over the course of the continuously overhanging 30m that it covers. This was a nice climb to do at this stage since it had begun to rain. I was essentially dry on lead all the way up until the last 5 metres or so when the rain was refreshing and not too much of a hindrance - the holds at the time being slick, but sharp.

Just to the right an enjoyable layback crack called Pikin (11a) was a little easier.
In the same area, another fun climb was Bititi (10d). We then ventured onto Tiburon Siguoto (11b), which we had a much harder time than expected. It seems much harder than it looks - I struggled through it, but with difficulty.

Setting up a top rope for the climb next to it - Tacto Rectal (12a), we worked our way up this one, but having to make multiple attempts at two very difficult cruxes. The top is very fun and balancy, but making it over the primary crux at the slight overhang made us suspicious about the grade - there appears to be a small flake of cleanly broken rock where a crucial hand-hold may have appeared. As it is, it is doable, but this move feels like a very hard 12b move - but maybe its just us...

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