Come on!
No
I always go…
Take there!
Shit!
My skin never allows me to climb strong.
Shit!
The only reason I want to try again now is to have a good feeling
before going down today.
Worse than before even. I think so… Better not go again.
Worse than before.
Worse than before even. I think so… Better not go again.
Too bad... It’s only 4pm.
It’s super early. Shit!
As we only have 3 good attempts to try the crux moves.
Yes, for the crux…
You can´t do much more
No, no…
Ah! I hope I understand the moves a bit better tomorrow.
Load it up!
The first line that goes through the blue rock,
where the water comes down, is “Marejada fuerza 6”
I have seen some pictures.
After the orange ledge, over there,
in the white part, there’s a piton.
Ah!! No, 2 meters…
No, it’s not there anymore.
We were searching difficult lines on the west face so
we tried the route “Mediterráneo”
with the idea of checking out the aid pitches.
The two pitches that cross the orange rock,
the ones that make the original aid route very difficult.
We saw another possibility to free climb!
It would be very difficult but there was a possibility.
And like Iker says…, in 2008,
we came to realize that those pitches could be climbed free.
Then, in 2009, we went back with the idea of
free climbing "Mediterraneo"
But we realized that there was space to climb a new start and
climb a virgin line to join the original aid pitches.
This is what became the route ‘Orbayu’.
Good. Let’s go!
Here it begins!
We searched our way up and we found some
very cool pitches
And this is where the real project started.
Climbing ground-up and starting to try out the hard pitches above.
I’ll already put a friend here!
It’s a route of the Gallego brothers,
who have written history by climbing important things.
This is always a delicate issue.
I remember that Jose Luis Gallego told us clearly:
“Try to do it but don’t change the line”.
In fact, the change has to be made by us, with our capacities.
Not by the new equipment.
The rock is very strange.
I don’t know…
it’s more solid than it looks…
but it can also break easily…
In 2009, if you look back, there were not a lot of hard
big wall routes in the world, with real hard pitches.
It happened to all of us, in the case of Orbayu too.
The truth is, it took us a long time.
I think it’s the project on Picu that we have been trying the longest.
Asturias, due to its geography, has many mountains
and lots of nature.
And as for Covid,
it has done us little damage, it’s not that bad.
Obviously, in Picos de Europa the various mountain huts
have different characteristics;
some are very small, inaccessible.
Well, we did a great effort,
we made some agreements and in the end
we were able to make a safe protocol.
When Siebe told us he wanted to try Orbayu,
we got very excited!
He’s a super strong climber,
very stubborn, very persevering.
We know he´s going to try it serious.
Orbayu is a very complicated route for the skin,
especially the crux.
Pitch 5 has a lot of small holds
that end up destroying your skin.
He´s going to need to use his head.
But I think motivation is his great strength.
When he puts something in his head,
he goes for it.
No, I had it. Shit!
It’s sliding!
Shit!
We have to put something there…
It’s the same to climb a crack.
you put some tape so you have to change your method…
You put another tape…
another method...
The worst thing is that there are no ‘one finger pockets’.
They are like two finger pockets
too wide to jam one finger.
Very good, Siebe!
Thanks guys!
Good!