Nina Caprez: V smeri bratov Pou. 8a+, 8a, 8a, 7a, 8c+/9a, 8a+, 6b+, 6a in še pet lažjih raztežajev ... (angl.)
Orbayu
Nina Caprez: The last month I spent more or less in the german part of Europe, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Mostly for work but also for some nice family affaires (brothers wedding). During these time I was training a lot for my open project Era Vella and also I’ve had enough time to think about a new multipitch project for next summer. Since a while I was thinking about a route called Orbayu, a 520 meter high one, situaded in the Picos de Europa, Spain.
After my brothers beautiful marriage, I told Cédric about this eventuel project for next summer and he was directly super psyched for that one. 24 hours later, after 12 hours of driving, we were in the middle of the Picos, ready to have a look on route.
This route has been mostly created by the Pou brothers ( it’s a combination of a new bolted route and the free climb of an aid route) and the grade is quiet ‘hard core’:
8a+, 8a, 8a, 7a, 8c+/9a, 8a+, 6b+, 6a and five more easy pitches to the summit.
For Cédric and myself, a huge challenge…and this challenge starded already in the approach: three hours of walking with all the bivouac equipment, hard for our little legs!;-)
Charged like two donkey’s, we starded our little adventure…
I have to say that we are not hiking machines and that we were super happy once we reached the impressive wall and our place to put up the tent.
We spent a nice night at this beautiful place and as soon as the sun was coming out the next morning, we were ready to climb.
Before leaving, the Pou brothers gave us some informations and also a hand made topo. After the inscriptions, the route should be protected by some bolts, but also you have to place some gear by yourself.
Cédric felt super confident, after all his experiences he made in the Yosemite, but the higher he climbed, the more he realised that trad climbing in limestone is not the same as in granit…Funnily enough, we found no only bolt and Cédric climbed the two first pitches with his bad placed friends. I was super happy to follow in toprope, but every time I did a fall, all his protections were flying as well!
Once we reached pitch three, the route changed completly his style: pure climbing in best grey limestone, well protected by bolts. A little bit bizarre, but anyways, we were just happy to climb on good bolts.
After a short 7a, we finally reached the key pitch. This one has been an aid pitch and the Pou brothers has been able to befree this one. You climb on old aid material and it’s not really allowed to make some big falls. At some place, there are new bolts, but mostly you will not take the risk to make a fall. Once more, Cédric was leading and I was happy to work the moves in toprope.
I quickly found some good betas for the crux in the vertical part, but I had a lot of difficultys on the upper part; physical climb on monos and two finger pockets. For Cédric it has been the opposite: he had a lot of problems in the vertical part, but felt super solide in the rest.
When we did the abseil down straight to the ground, we finally realised that we were not in the right route, at least during the first two pitches. We discovered a perfect line, well protected by bolts in perfect rock! Ah, this happens all the time…we were climbing in the wrong route during the first two pitches, stupid!
Next day, the weather changed already and there was a freezy wind and some little raindrops. We jumared on our ropes we fixed the day before to reach pitch five. Once more we were working on that one to make shure that all the moves would be possible.
Out goal was accomplished: we felt in love with the line, the place and the difficultys of Orbayu. Unfortunalety we had to leave because of the cold winter weather, but we will be back next summer to crush this line!;-)
We think that the grade of the crux pitch is turning around 8c/8c+, but this is only a speculation. We will see!
Happy but completly freezed we reached the ground and now we can’t wait next summer…
Big respect to the Pou brothers, Nico and Adam for their redpoints and a huge thank’s for their investement.
Now I have some more climbing days left in the southern of France before I will leave to Kalymnos, for the North Face Climing festival and then further to Antalya for another Petzl bolting trip.
Nina Caprez