Barbara Zangerl after her successful Oliana trip

BARBARA ZANGERL after her successful Oliana trip

By Esteban Diez Fernández

Barbara climbing 'Fish Eye', 8c in Oliana. Pic© Jacopo Larcher.

Pic© Ignacio Sandoval Burón.

In 'Mind Control', 8c (+). Pic© Walker Emerson.

text-autospace:none">- 8b, 8b+, 8c and 8c(+) in just 2 weeks is a great performance, isn’t it? Can you tell us about those routes with all the differences and similarities in between? text-autospace:none">It was my first trip to Oliana. It was great there. Cool rock, we met some nice other climbers and had all together a good time. It’s just a simple life: climbing, eating, sleeping, relaxing... and the weather was always fine. text-autospace:none">‘Mind Control’ is for me the most beautiful climb of this selected routes... from start to end, the best rock quality. Two hard sequences. One in the middle and one at the end. And a lot of time to think on the rests -Mind Control-. It is only over when you clip the chains. text-autospace:none">‘Fish Eye’ is the same style. Pumpy! Crux in the middle and tricky top-out. text-autospace:none"> text-autospace:none">‘Full Equip’ and ‘China Crisis’ aretotally different to the other routes. A lot of crimps, lightly overhanging, bouldery with rests. ‘China Crisis’ is a little bit easier than ‘Full Equip’. I had a good run on ‘Full Equip’ and did it on my second try. text-autospace:none"> text-autospace:none">All the routes I climbed and a lot of others are super cool!!! text-autospace:none">‘Humildes pa casa’, for example, was the coolest tufa I ever climbed, you can’t compare this route with all the others in Oliana. You just climb on a really big tufa... changing in a double tufa and ending in single tufa again. Just endurance. text-autospace:none">
text-autospace:none">- Are you stronger than ever or this is just training for this season? text-autospace:none">I don’t know. I trained a lot this winter and this was my first trip on the rocks this year.A lot of motivation after plastic climbing. And, for sure, in Spring after the Winter training season I am stronger than in Autumn. text-autospace:none">
text-autospace:none">- How can you be in such good shapealmost all year round? Is it a lot of rock climbing or hard training in the gym? text-autospace:none"> text-autospace:none">I only train in the gym in Winter. In Spring, Summer and Autumn I normaly just go outdoors and climb and train on the rocks (when the weather is ok). For me, the best training for a route is to just try it. (bouldering on the single moves). text-autospace:none">   text-autospace:none"> text-autospace:none">- Apart from your alpine projects, haveyou got any other sport climbing trip in mind?

text-autospace:none">I will go to Indian Creek in10 days to improve in crack climbing. I am really bad in climbing cracks. No sport climbing trip is planned at the moment. In Summer I am more motivated for multi-pitches.

Another shot in 'Mind Control', 8c (+). Pic© Walker Emerson.