Sitting, waiting, wishing... I was back in Spain

Hello, to all of my loyal readers! ... Wait, I don’t have any! My name is Ethan, and I am the luckiest person on earth. I say this because I get to do what I love all the time, which is travel to some of the most beautiful places on earth, climb some of the most beautiful rocks on earth, and occasionally hop in the ocean and (try to) surf waves.

Since my last trip to Europe, which I got back from on Halloween, I find myself constantly drifting off, daydreaming that I’m still in Mallorca, floating on my back in the crystal clear Mediterranean sea, looking up at “Es Puntas” (Chris’ arch), wishing I could climb it. That’s why I'm going to train like a bat outta hell before the next time I go there. I definitely had the most spiritual and most exciting climbing experiences of my life deep-water soloing in Mallorca, and I can’t wait to go back. I did some of the coolest routes I have ever done, over the ocean. A lot of the routes I did were second  (and even one first) ascents, so the climbing was totally adventurous. Kalymnos was amazing, also. It’s tied with Ceüse for best Euro super-crag, on my list at least. There are wonderful caves that are almost over featured in some places with routes of all difficulties, and the stalactites ... crazy. But even on those quality routes I was thinking to myself, “ this would be a lot nicer if these ugly metal things weren’t hanging all over the wall and there was water below me. Maybe that’s why I have just been bouldering since I got back.

Natasha [Barnes] and I have taken a few longer trips to the east side to boulder around Bishop, California, and a couple of weekend trips to the Valley (No, not San Fernando. Yosemite!) to boulder. There is this really tall, beautiful, and really hard project that I was focused on in an area close to the Buttermilks called the “Bardini’s”, where last year I made the second ascent of Matt Wilder’s “This Side of Paradise” which is also tall, beautiful and hard. The crux on this project is in the first 15 feet, but it’s not nearly over after that, and the climb continues with 5.13 climbing up the slightly slabby headwall. The crux move, which is the only move I haven’t done yet, is a move about ten feet up where you have to generate tons of momentum off two terrible holds to a pretty bad hold around a bulge.