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New Video @ Climbing Videos / My climbing Videos

- Deep Water Solo in Portugal - Cabo Espichel

Enjoy

R.

Abarracin “año nuevo”

Photos: Jorge Brás aka “Flash”

Climber: Ricardo Belchior

 

 

Portuguese Lead National Championship – 2009

 

 

 Climber: Rute Delgado

 Climber: Isabel Boavida

 Climber: Kimi Kon

Climber: Mário Inocêncio (Photo by Frederico Silva)

DeepWater Soloing – Espichel

Photos by Teresa Leal

Great fun as usual!

Winners of the day

Best move of the day 

-  hanging upside down, only with the feet, 10m from the water – Ricardo Belchior (in the Blue shirt)

Best red point & best jump

- first repetition of Gaspar’s amazing 15m route “todo lá dentro“ from which he jumped from (scary) - Miguel Loureiro (in the Red shorts)

Worst fall

- a 10m splash by João Gaspar (in the Blue shorts)

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Level of the Portuguese Climbing

Taking advantage of the www.8a.nu database, once more,  I was curious to see where the best five, Male and Female, portuguese climbers (ranked on the www.8a.nu) stand among the best world rock climbers (also, only the ones ranked on that same database).

As of 8th of April 2009, we have the following all time results for the routes rating:

0,8th percentil, 81th of #9695 José Abreu

2,7th percentil, 284th of #9695 André Neres

5,0th percentil, 488th of #9695 Ricardo Belchior

5,2th percentil, 69th of #1324 Isabel Boavida

5,7th percentil, 555th of #9695  Nuno Pinheiro

9,7th percentil, 943# of #9695 Ricardo Neves

15,5th percentil, 205th of #1324 Kimi Kon

28,4th percentil, 376th of #1324 Helena Fialho

30,8th percentil, 408th of #1324  Verónica Dias

35,9th percentil, 475# of #1324 Joana Sousa

Obs:

If you are in 1st percentil it means that in #100 climbers #1 is as good as you.

If you are in 50st percentil it means that in 100 climbers #50 are as good as you.

 

The number of portuguese climbers ever registered at 8a.nu database are #133 Males and #12 Females, which compares with a total of #9695 Male and #1324 Female World climbers.

From this last statistics, already some conclusions can be taken:

There are more guys into climbing than girls (common knowledge)! To be more precise 11 guys for 1 girl. Portugal is no differente, though it looks like the ratio looks a little better, that is, 7 guys for 1 girl.

Thus, it looks like in terms of quantity the portuguese climbing has, relatively, more girls than the world average.

Nevertheless looking into the results a different conclusion arises. Our girls are not as performance orientated as world climbing girls or as portuguese climbers are! Any ideas why?

 

As for the overall quality, and bearing in mind that only the five best portuguese climbers are here compared with the world climbing population (and not with the 5 best males and females from each country), it seems like a lot of work has yet to be done when only one climber, José Abreu, out of our best ten, has reached a world quality performance (only #8 in #1000 climbers reached such a high performance).

Though especially difficult to compare, when we look to these results side by side with the ones from the International competitions (see @ http://ricardofb.wordpress.com/best-climbers-in-portugal/ )I am tempted to say that we are better in rock climbing than competing!

Future Research

It would be interesting to see the percentage of 10 best routes ever done by each of these best portuguese climbers, done in national soil and abroad!

Greetings

R.

National Competition – Boulder

Yesterday we had our 2nd boulder competition this year.

Route setter: Júlio Braga

Organization: Núcleo de Escalada do Agrupamento de Escolas de Soure

Here are some photos of this event:

Climbers: Ricardo Belchior => Mário Inocêncio => Pena => ???

Photo: Cristiana Matos

Climber: Ricardo Belchior

Photo: Cristiana Matos

 Climber: ???

Climber: Henrique (Team ACERT), Winner of the 1st youth category

Climber: Pena

Climber: ???

Climber: ???

Climber: Manuel Soares

Climber: ???

Climber: ???

Climber: ???

Climber: ???

Climber: ???

New Climbing Spot – South of Lisbon

More or less 50km south of Lisbon you can now find a very good climbing spot for the winter.

The spot’s name is “Meio Mango” and it’s located in Cape Espichel.

Directions:

From Lisboa take the road that goes through “25 de Abril” Bridge and head South (A2). After driving south for 10 or 15 km (counting from the bridge) you have to turn right heading towards “Sesimbra” and then. Arriving there drive to “Cabo Espichel”. At Cape Espichel (see the picture below) take a left turn and drive straigth ahead as far as you can and, after parking the car, the path that leads you to the cliff begins identified with a red and white mark on a stone. Then, just follow that path until you reach a 20m cliff that can be rappeled.  

Grades (as of 17/3/2009 – it’s growing by the day)

6a,6a+,V+,V+,V,6c+,7b+?,7c+?,6a+,6a, 6a,6a,6b,6c,7a,7b,7b+,7a+,7b+,7c+,7b+,7c+?,7c?,7c?,6c,6c,7b, 8a?,7c+?,8b?,8a,7b,6c?,7c?,7b+?,8a?, 7c+?,8b?,R1 8a+? R2 8c?,R1 7a? R2 8a+?

 

Courtesy of Nuno Pinheiro

Photo gallery

 

 

Meio Mango - A good and still very promissing Climbing Spot.

Ricardo Alves aka “Macau”, relaxing a little bit from photography, here trying a 7b, “Lesionado Abençoado“.

André Neres in a very nice 20m 8a “Margem Sul“.

Ricardo Belchior in the middle of “Margem Sul“..

Filipe Silva beginning  “Margem Sul“.

Try to leave early to avoid traffic jams!!

Specially if you brougth someone with you. Sometimes they complain and they are right!

Climbers: André Neres and Marcia

The after climbing experience…

DJ included!!

The best pictures (with the water mark) are from Ricardo Alves and one from Rita Silva…

You can see more at:

http://www.pbase.com/ricardoalves/petzlseatrip

Greetings

R.

New Pages

I have added 3 new pages to this website, namely:

- Best routes in Portugal

- Best Portuguese Climber

- Best Portuguese Climber – History

I would be very thankful to anyone who can help me with info on any of these topics!

Enjoy 

R.

Maybe the best climbing gym for bouldering in Iberia

This Thursday (5/03/2009), and after a long fasting, “BoulderArea” will finally open. I have already visit some climbing gyms in Europe and this is the best I ever been to train for boulder! It is not very big but the quality and diversity of both the walls and the climbing holds make it a very good tool to take the portuguese climbers to the next level.

The next link takes you to Alexandre Páris’ photos of the place (taken from this year’s first boulder competition, that was held there).

http://aparis.fotki.com/escalada/competio-de-bloco-b/

How to get there

It is located in Odivelas, North of Lisbon, and the best way to arrive there is by Subway (in portuguese is called ”Metro”). With this transportation, take the yellow line, almost to its end, and leave in the “Sr. Roubado” station. After that, it’s just 5 minutes walking. 

Maps

http://www.clubearlivre.org/files/caal/downloads/BoulderAreageral.pdf

http://www.clubearlivre.org/files/caal/downloads/BoulderArea.pdf

Contacts

If you have any questions use this e-mail adress: boulderarea@gmail.com

André Neres (the climber in charge of the place) will gladly help you. 

See you there 

R.

New multi-pitch route in Serra da Arrábida

Expo Carnaval 2009 (100m – 7a, 6a, 6c, 6a)

It was already 13h when we (me and João Gaspar) met near Sesimbra,

Gaspar had brought a guide, taken from http://www.rppd.blogspot.com/ , with the existing routes in Serra dos Pinheirinhos… And he asked what I wanted to do…

- Do you prefer to go on an existing route or do you prefer to try something new?

(Once I had a teacher who said something like “…very frequently the hardest thing is to ask the right question! And when you accomplish that, you immediately know the answer!”)

So the goal went from being able to climb a multi-pitch route from 14h-18h to being able to conceive and do a new multi-pitch route in that same time.

The “conceive” part

To conceive it was pretty easy! The first time I looked to the guide I saw what seemed to be a very compact unclimbed rock face (infra: between route n.24 and n.25) with a clear diagonal crack that started half way from the 2nd pitch of the route n.25. So immediately this diagonal crack became our objective, and perhaps we would link both n.25 and n.24 by doing this. After rappelling to the beginning of these routes we spotted a cave that had on its right-hand side a overhang filled with pockets. That said, we just had found a different beginning for our route and Gaspar immediately recognized a crack that went from the end of this overhang to the objective of the climb, the diagonal crack!

The “do” part

Well, the first pitch took ages! (Had I continuo in that hallucinating pace and we would still be there)

For the last 5 years I think I have used my trad gear for no more than 3 times!! So I wasn’t very fast to chose the right stopper or friend, and to make things even worst, my endurance has improved a lot. So, that said, just  imagine how much time does a guy that is trying 7c+/8a onsight can stand in his harms doing mistakes after mistakes on a 7a.

Gaspar didn’t find it ease also and, surprisingly, said that the only friend that I had placed to protect the crux move was not so good has I though (though I still prefer to think he was wrong ). This first pitch is has hard for the leader as for the second climber, so it was a good call to make the belay station right above the crux moves!

The second pitch was relaxed and was good to regain some of the self stem lost in the first 6m of the route. The instructions were clear…

- Ricardo, leave the hole making a turn to your right and, 2m after, take a vertical crack that will lead you to the top of this pitch (where we met route n.25). And so I did, and so it was (even though, when leaving the hole where we were, no such crack could be spotted!)

The 3rd pitch started with the conviction that the compact looking wall was not that compact, at least in what regards trad gear placement! This gave me little confidence that we could do our objective, the diagonal crack. Nevertheless, I went to see (try) it! It took me about 1m of analysis in the beginning of the diagonal before I decided to go! The things considered were:

- The crack looked very small in the inside and open in the outside, that would make the gear and hand placements very unreliable, and also it looked like it wouldn’t be easy to exit anywhere but through the end of the diagonal (no escape route!!).

- On the other hand, that was the climbing objective for the day and it would be really cool to pull this one off.

It’s hard to explain the feelings I had during this climb (and even if I could, you would probably find it exaggerated due to the fact that I am not used to do this type of climbing), but  I won’t lie if I say it was pretty intense!

One moment I was 4m way from the last friend (not Gaspar, the other one!!) (I think this was a good one but I’ve chosen not to ask for a confirmation to Gaspar), the holds were scarce and no future gear placements onsight. My though was “keep breathing, no need to die suffocated”   Finally, when the end seemed to be near… a good hand hold! This hand hold was so good at that moment that if I had the least of skills to write poems I would right one here  that would surely win Fernando Pessoa award. After that hand hold, I can see now in the guide that, I have climbed many meters more but, honestly, I was just thinking about what I had done so you can assume it to be a very relaxed climb afterwards.

To finish, and because it was already getting dark Gaspar led (for the first time in this route) the last pitch (common with the last pitch of the n.25 route). It is a very nice looking pitch, fully bolted and after a hard  6a crux (or tired arms in an easy 6a crux) it’s just cruising until the final TOP. 

Very, very nice climbing day

I hope more will come

More information on: http://ricardofb.wordpress.com/first-ascents-of-multi-pitch-routes/

Greetings

R.