THE BEST WARRIOR IS NOT THE ONE WHO ALWAYS WINS, BUT IS THE ONE THAT GOES BACK TO FIGHT WITHOUT FEAR

Just like every year, autumn is on its way… some of the trees are starting to lose their leaves, covering the forest and city floors with wonderful colours: browns, yellows and oranges. Some people are sad because the summer is over, the sunsets earlier in the day, the temperatures are colder and the days are shorter. But not for us climbers, the autumn means much more! Projects, crags, cold temperatures, psyche and good conditions… are all on the way!! So many projects that we had in mind to do while we were waiting for the hot weather to finish, and finally, they can be realized.

Every year in the autumn, I think about a lot of projects; but out of all of them there is always and only one line that I think about straight away. I get the same enthusiasm, the same feeling and even the same desire to get on that super hard project that so many times has spat me off! In spite of everything, week after week, month and month and year after year, every autumn, I come back to the project with the same illusion of sending it, and every time I think that, this will be the go that I send it!

I have a bit of a particular love hate relationship with this route that I started working in the winter of 2007, when my good friend Oscar told me that it would be a good idea to bolt a new line on that wall. The wall was incredible and so I decided to bolt a line that I called “la mia Rambla personale”. In that exact moment, I was not aware of what I had created… I would never have believed that that project for me would have brought me so many positives and negatives all at the same time.

Twelve metres of overhanging rock and then eight metres of vertical climbing on a perfect orange coloured wall, these are just the right ingredients to make me not only dream but also almost give up hope. I have had so many happy days trying to send that line, when I discover some new movements or tiny improvements that are necessary to be able to continue; and on other occasions, my goal seems so far away and I get really down and disappointed.

This route has taught me many things and I continue to learn new things and it even brings out so many different feelings from inside me: motivation, illusion, disappointment, sadness and happiness… but at the end of the day, every time I try the route I think that this will be the go that I sent it!

I have been climbing for 20 years and I have never had such a hard challenge like this one. I have never found a route that takes me to the limit, and I am not talking about physical limits, but I am talking about mental limits. I have never had a project for this much time. I have never fallen so many times on the same crux move, I have never dreamed so much about the same line, about one move and one hold. I would never have thought that on that day back in the winter of 2007 while I was bolting the line that this was going to be such a big project for me.

I still do not know how the story will end… I know only that I have enjoyed every day, every try and even though sometimes I have left the crag disappointed, it is true to say that, I have had some great days at the crag Alquezar. Always in good company with good friends with whom I have tried the line so many times and I want to thank those guys because they are more important to me than anything else. “I know that shortly I will be standing in front of you, and I will be ready to climb you, maybe I will send it or maybe not, in any case I will always be there and don’t even think for one moment that you are going to get rid of me “PRIORY IF SION”.”

Dani Fuertes

Ph: Nacho Fuertes