We call our hosts at the hotel in the gorge and they come out to get
us. Too dark to see much, but in the morning we wake up to
breathtaking views of the gorge, right outside our window!
Very excited about three dedicated days of climbing here!
So after sleeping in a bit and a big breakfast, we walk through the
gorge. Huge 300m walls, beautiful rock, perfect temperatures. Most
routes are 4 - 5 pitches, and on average the grades are around F6a. We
did find several good routes between the F4 ~ F5+ range too though,
good warm-ups. I find that routes here tend to be overgraded, in that
an F5 has been given too high a grade and it really ought to be an F4.
Anyway, here's the tragedy: with all this beautiful climbing around
us, we only managed a lone, single-pitch 20m F4 (warmup) before the
rains began. And wow did it rain. A while after the rains stopped, a
flash flood raged through the gorge, filling it up and partially
breaking the paved road passing through. I will post a video of the
flood when I get to a real computer.
So that killed our climbing, and with forecasts of more rain for the
coming days, we decided to short-circuit the climbing and head to the
desert first. The excessive touting and ghastly hotel helped our
decision too, but that's subject for another post!
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