daniel jung: Back to Chikane

A few days before Christmas I flew down to Reus with Markus, Lulu Raab und Philipp Sigel. We had two good weeks, with hot sun, could wind, rain and snow!

I was really motivated to try "Chikane"8c+ again. So on my first day I tried it directly and it works very good. I thought that I have to do some workouts to do the sequence again. But after the first workout everything felt good so that I could start from the bottom! During I tryed "Chikane" Markus checked out "L'odi Social"8c+. Last march I also took a look into this one but I couldn't find a good method for the crux. It was Markus style, long moves and a bit athletic. He found a good way to do it, and I was also psyched to try it, but first "Chikane"!
There was just one hard move for me. You have a very small crimp for the left and an two finger crimp with the right. than you have to do a long move to the right and cath a edge. This move depends a lot of dry skin and so of good conditions. A little sweat and there is no way! And its very hard to keep dry skin after 7 moves on small crimps which are not bigger than the half of your fingertip.. Also its a kind of balance to to move to the right...

The first days we had to wait for the shade and for cool rock. In the shade the conditions were perfect and I was so happy to do the scary move to the right!!

After the crux it is wasn't over, I had noticed during I was resting :-)... The rest is good, big holds on vertical rock. The problem is that you are losing your feeling in your feet during resting! Before the chain is a tricky slab boulder on very small crimps wich makes the ascent to an adventure! I had big luck to be able to do it without feeling in my feet :-)

Lulu and Philipp had also good gos. Lulu could send almost every day a 7a or 7b+ and Philipp did "Anabolika" 8a very fast!

In "L'odi social" 8c+ Markus method worked also very well for me. I started trying this one and I reached more and more closer. But then it started snowing and the days after it was raining... I did some tries during humid and wet condition, I was close but happy to don't reach the top slab, because this one was totally wet :-) I hoped a lot to get dry weather. The end of my trip came closer and i had just one more day... I had big luck! Martijn a friend from the Netherlands wanted to give me a lift to the airport, so that I had two more days!! And also the weather turned good!!
Apparently climbing during wet conditions was good training and I send "L'odi social"!!

After that I was really motivated, so that I workedout "El Membre"8c the same evening. I tried "El Membre" before but everytime the pokets were not my friends. Also this time the moves felt hard. The next day I was not really optimistic to do it, but I was motivated, it was fun to try!! The day before I couldn't emagine to do it, so it was a big surprise when I did it!!! What a perfect climbing trip!!
The last light of the day we used to take some pictures in "Chicane" and "L'odi". After doing the cruxes a few times I was done with climbing, puhhh...

The day was still long, because it was the 31.12.!! Lulu, Markus, Philipp and me wanted to watsh the firework from the top of the refugio. A very good view!! But at 00:00 nothing happends. Finally we saw three rockte! Nice to see that spanish people don't waste their money in this way:-)
The party on Tonis Camping was fun and the night short... Thanks a lot to Martijn to drive me to the airport on 1.1.09 in the morning!!!!

Lulu,Philipp and Markus stood a bit longer in Siurana. Back home I was happy to hear that Markus could do with "L'odi social" his first 8c+!!!