Costa Blanca

Alright Folks, this is gonna be a long one.

Alicante is beautiful beyond words. The Orange House is wonderful, full of climbers, and very homey. I am staying in the Tower Room with Jessie "Crack" and Katherine "Gouda". Our room is only accessible from the second story porch, which has the beautiful view I posted earlier. Yesterday we slept in and headed to the cliffs around noon, ready to tackle some routes. We climbed Echo 1.5, about 15 minutes from the Orange

House. Echo 1.5 is a smaller section of cliff between the behemoths of Echo 1 and 2. We all climbed many routes, tackling the sharp limestone. From the base we had views of the Mediterranean as well. Fun and snacks were had by all. We've managed to find gluten-free bread here, but each slice is about the size of your palm. Four peanut butter and honey sandwiches do the trick. Little sandwiches, big cliffs.

With only about a half day we still managed

about seven routes each, and factor into that the time we spent simply gazing out at the mountains around us saying, "woah". Overall, an amazing day.

Today got even better. A few days before we arrived, Colin "C-Dawg", our ever-enthusiastic trip leader, and Jessie "Stache Master", our guide and proud SLU alum, had found a town called Guadalest completely by accident. Guadalest is famous for it's castle sitting on top of a towering cliff that shoots out of the valley floor. They discovered the cliff is open to climbers and has several bolted sport routes, so we woke up bright and early this morning and headed over. The cliffs of Guadalest are impressive rocks, surrounded by rolling terraced hillsides and the mountains in the distance. The castle adds a surreal factor to the landscape. None of us could take enough pictures. In every direction the view was too good to be true. The routes were wonderful, each unique and unlike anything I've ever climbed before. One went past a cave that dives into the cliffside, another jutted up a towering arete, and at the end of the day Stache-Master and C-Dawg tackled the imposing face of the cliff right under the ancient castles doors.

I'm having trouble believing this is my life.