Albania Climbing Festival

Albania was on my wish list of climbing destinations for a long time and the climbing festival was the perfect excuse to go there. 

Most active climber in Albania :)

First day I visited Bovilla, area 20 minutes from Tirana. You park on a lake and first sectors start already at the parking. Many of them are still without routes but when they will be bolted it will be a cool area with a nice view. Anyway I still had enough routes and it was a great climbing day.

Empty boltles walls

Just one of many walls

Tufas everywhere

View from the inside

Second stop was Brar. Few kilometers of driving on dirt road brings you to another canyon where you can see many rocks and possibilities for climbing. But you have to continue driving and finally you see big and long overhanging wall with a lot of tufas just above the road. Park here and for warm up climb up the protection fence to reach the first routes. No, there are no routes there yet. Why? If you continue walking up you can find even better lines already bolted and there is space for many more to be done. Definitely the place where I would like to return with my drill and bolt something new.

Warming up

There is also easier way up but why not here?

Last area on the festival was at Gjipe beach. This is the place where every climber should go for holiday. Nice sandy beaches with routes 5 meters from the sea (just enough not to get wet when you belay). There is also a canyon with walls facing east and west so you can basically climb all day and deeper you go, better it looks. Since there is not enough routes there yet, I made 2 new ones and next time I'll make some more of them.

Perfect touristic place

If somehow it get's too hot over the day there is also option of Deep Water Bouldering on a nice smooth sloppy rock but unfortunately there is not much easier staff. Anyway it's still fun to try to get out of water and...

Canyon with a pit stop before you enter

In the end I had a great experience and I enjoyed climbing there with local climbers, it was very fun and definitely I'll go back as soon as possible. 

Next time... I'll add some more routes

Pecka Climbing Festival

Last year we wanted to go to Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Pecka climbing festival but our plans fell into the water. Since than we couldn't find time to visit this place and see what Bosnian rocks has to offer. This year looked the same. On the weekend of the festival it was raining again so luckily they decided to postponed it for the next weekend and ordered some sun from the sky spirits.

Making pancakes for the breakfast

South of Banja Luka you enter the canyon where you can see rocks everywhere. Good quality limestone with a big potential and by the road we saw some bolts. Perfect resting place with routes on a parking. You can't see this everywhere.

Just one of many cool looking rocks

Next day we continued our way to Pecka where the festival took place. In the middle of nowhere we park a car but we couldn't see any rocks. 100 meters of walking through a forest and a view opens on a cool sectors with many routes up to 30m high. The routes were on the sun so we had to wait until evening to start climbing.

The overhanging sector "Marshal"

Routes are nicely bolted and mostly with small pockets and solid rock. Soon we came to the overhanging sector where the hardest routes of Pecka were hiding. After doing two of them I decided to make another one for Justin Case I don't run out of them. This one is hard and now I can return here without any fear of doing all the routes fast. In the following days I was trying also many other routes there and I must say I liked almost all of them.

I like my job

The festival was one of a kind with a lot of climbers and we climbed a lot. In the evenings we had big fire and after we were making Banjaluški čevapčiči and for the dessert Griled bana with chocolate. The nights were made interesting with "Forest film festival" where they screened some movies and everyone had a great time.

Klemen & Klemen in action

In the end I was happy I went there and found a new climbing spot with friendly people where I will definitely come back soon.

Grilled banana with chocolate

Chulilla, Abella & Ardege

In end of April I went to a small trip in Spain. I spent two weeks in Chulilla where I was first trying to onsight some harder routes and than I bolted a new 70m line in sector Balcon. It's amazing route and I hope many climbers will try it all the way to the top.

Somewhere in Chulilla

Anty Gravity, 8b+, 70 meters high

1st pitch is 8a+

2nd is 8b

For the rest day we went on a search for some new crags in Titaguas. Approach was not the easiest but we had a lot of fun finding new amazing rocks where we will bolt next time.

New hot spot in Spain

Amazing rocks everywhere

In Chulilla was getting too hot but I still managed to climb there and make one more route in the canyon. Heat and mosquitoes didn't bother Anja since she did her first 7c in the worst possible conditions. 

For me it was too hot to climb but Anja still did her first 7c

New route with a little different approach 

Perfect qualiti of rock from opening bottoms up

Many new possibilities

Getting food is sometimes not so easy

It was time to move to Abella de la Conca. One week of bolting and I managed to make a nice summer sector where you can hide from the crazy heat.

One week of work for bolting, for climbing all the routes maybe a bit more

Last week of my trip I went to France. On a EXPLOS film festival in Ax les Thermes where I was presenting my movie Bala Bala! Ardege is an amazing place with many different kind of climbing areas, caves and cool people. I don't know why I didn't visit this place before but I'm sure I'll be back soon. (here you can find the topos of most of the places)

Welcome to Ax

Sector with harder routes

8b

Just before the fall

Cave has cool long overhanging, pumpy routes

Dodaj napis