Chapter Spain continues over the next two weeks so stay tuned. Hopefully it stops raining here, and everything will be forever dry. Wish me luck. 

FUEEEEEE
RRRZZZZZZZ
AAAAAAA!!!!!! 

P.S. 

On a grading note, I see a lot of people on the Internet over the past year wondering what we climbers think of the grades here in Spain, and in general. First of, I want to say that Dani's routes are fucking hard. He is an incredible climber, and did an incredible amount of hard climbing last year, and the grades he gave accurately represent the difficulty of his routes compared to all the other new routes out there in the world. This is, of course, the modernized grade system, not the classic scale developed over the years. An example is A Muerte. This route would be considered 8c+ on an old-school grade scheme, like Action Directe, and 9a, on a modern scheme. It's the truth that looking back, a fundamental interpretation of the German grade 11, gave birth to what we now understand as 9a. 11 literally meant the step above 8c, but this is fuzzy stuff. Ben Moon and Alex Huber know all about this. 

Apparently, as route climbing evolved, grades inflated. Maybe due to media, or shorter climbers, or sponsorship and ego, I don't know, but it's the case for sure. I have tried for years to understand the old scale, but it's starting to get confusing. There are old school grades next to new ones these days.  What to do for the sport? What is better? What do the professionals do? Is it negative to try and appreciate an old scale, thus downgrading new routes, and being hardcore? Is being open-minded to except what has changed, and let the grades be the way they are? Do grades really matter? Is it cool to care? Is it lame to care? Is there any real value to the situation, or is it just comme ca? Does chipping have to do with grade inflation? I have no clue, but these are good questions. These are the types of questions going through the minds of the top climbers I know. Sometimes we think a route is 8c+, but because everybody else says its 9a, and it is 9a compared to most of the other 9a's out there, yet not compared to a select few other hard routes. Do we look bitchy and negative if we downgrade things all the time? Is it better to shut our mouths and try and not be too much like bitter old men? 

In all cases, it'll be all good, it's just going be a bunch of forever-unanswered questions. What is 9a+? Realization, La Rambla, Im Reich des Shogun, maybe Coup de Grace? And is 9a Action Directe, Estado Critico, A Muerte, Kinematix? in each catagory, one asks, are these all the same grade? What's 9a with Bain de Saing involved? Good Lord. Only the people doing these routes know, and we are all pretty lazy, and some not the most driven to know these answers. Time will prove a lot.