oh oh Oliana

Oh oh Oliana!!! Good times! I’ve bumbled around a bit here but have most definitely been putting my expertise as a belayer (honed from 26 years of hard-won experience) to good use. Regardless of the outcome, I am proud to say that my lovely wife Monique Forestier has been climbing superbly here. She is doing what she loves the most, has set her own goals and has stepped it up — really stepped it up — a notch or two. She has found herself a really beautiful long sustained route to try, graded 8c (33), and after several days work on it, I think it is fair to say, that she is now bee’s dick away from sending it. Will she do it this trip? Probably not, we only have two climbing days left. But it has been good to watch her climbing progress and see it come together. No surprise, you’ll hear about it here first if she sends!

And here are some more pics from Oliana…  This time it is French climber Etienne Seppechen (and it’s his blue t-shirt, Guillaume had just borrowed it for the Mind Control shoot!) having a good hard shot at the classic tufa Humildes pa Casa (8b+); unfortunately not quite managing to link it this time. Earlier I’d photographed Guillaume on this route in good light and had opted to shoot a wide scenic style shot to show the route and its setting (see those here). This time I wanted to do something different and needed to make the most of the light (which was flat as a tack), so I went to for the 70-200mm to get in on the action…