It was a very good friend’s birthday at the end of October and her boyfriend organized a trip to Northern Spain to go sport climbing. What she didn’t know is that Will invited both myself and one of my best buds Jon to surprise Sarah in Spain. I had just been laid off 3 days prior to the trip, so I was super excited to get out of the country, surprise the heck out of Sarah, and do some climbing.
It was phenomenal.
Will’s good buddy Dan joined in on the trip and it was like we’ve been friends for a decade. He’s a rad dude with pretty much the exact same sense of humor, so it was great. He’s a hell of a photographer too.
We also ended up meeting some really cool folks at the crag. Anytime you hear English being spoken in tiny euro towns it’s like something throwing you a life raft. You instantly have something in common and can at the very least make small talk about climbing. Tyler and Marc were two exchange students living in France that had the week off and made the trek down to Siurana. Both of these guys are awesome. We shared good stories, wine, cheese, and extremely intelligent conversation, very refreshing. It’s not often that you first meet someone and you’re able to connect with them on such a deep level, but that’s what climbing brings to the table. Everybody does it for their own reasons, but a lot of the challenges we face are similar, and overcoming them can translate into many other aspects of our lives.
It was a super rad experience, and I learned a lot too. Will and Dan were generous enough to show me how to set fixed lines, jug up, and let me shoot. I think I got some good ones. I’ll let you be the judge of that though.
