Silvia Fitzpatrick Climbing Hard in Spain

THURSDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2009
Submitted By: Sherwin Mapanoo

Silvia Fitzpatrick is one of the best female climbers in Britain and she has just climbed her second route graded with a difficulty rating of 8b. This makes her only the second British female to have climbed more than one route of this difficulty.

She reports that she climbed the route - Golpe de Calor - a couple of days ago on a trip to the Spanish region of Andalucia. The route is located close to the town of Villanueva del Rosario on the massively overhanging limestone walls of the Chilam Balam cave. This cave rose to prominence 4 years ago when the hardest route in the world (Chilam Balam 9b+) was claimed here and since then some of the worlds best climbers have come to the cave to try the route.

Talking to one of her sponsors, DMM Climbing, Silvia said: "I had been trying Golpe de Calor - Heat Wave in Spanish - in the Chilam Balam Cave for six days, spread out over the last two weeks of October and could mostly only make one attempt each time as the route was so physically and psychologically draining. This is only the fifth ascent of the route overall and the first female ascent. The first half of the route uses tufas and crimps to climb a twenty degree overhanging wall, followed by a desperate roof that is climbed on undercut tufas and slopey footholds. The route stays hard all the way to the top and has a very technical top wall with a minimum of footholds. Plus the protection is quite sparse and so you can take some big falls."

Silvia explained: "I found the route quite hard because I could not get a crucial kneebar rest below the overhang - my leg is just not long enough plus my right foot is pinned so I don't have much movement in it. I wasted a day trying to get my foot and knee to stick before deciding that I was wasting more energy than I was saving. On the day I finally succeeded on climbing the route I initially fell off very close to the top when a small hold broke; I did not think I would have enough power left to give it another go, but managed to fight my way to the top."

Silvia Fitzpatrick was South American climbing champion and made the first female ascent of Cerro Fitzroy in Patagonia before being invited to Europe to climb the North Face of the Eiger for a television program; shortly after this a climbing accident put her in hospital and a wheelchair for over a year before she started the long struggle to climb again. Silvia had to learn how to climb in a completely new way because of the severe damage to her feet and legs, but trained relentlessly to eventually win the British climbing championships and compete all over the world with the British Climbing Team.

Silvia's time is divided between the UK and Andalucia where she runs climbing courses. She had been worried that, after a busy summer working in Snowdonia as a climbing instructor, she might have lost too much fitness. During this hectic period she was only able to manage after-work evening sessions on her fingerboard. However, this clearly helped when she was able to climb regularly through October, after arriving in Spain for the winter. Silvia's take on it is: "It has not rained for months in southern Spain and the beauty of the long days and dry weather is that it allows you to do a lot of climbing even if you have work most of the day."

The full story is on her climbing blog: rockclimbingcompany.blogspot.com

Source: www.prlog.org