Elise Buser is a Touchstone athlete, part time Touchstone routesetter, and full time crusher. She has sent V9 and 5.13 outside, podiumed multiple times in ABS Regionals and Divisionals, and participated in Nationals three times. She is currently pursuing a Neuroscience major at UC Davis. When not climbing, she is likely studying redox reactions, drawing geometric cats, or […]
“Spain is wonderful! Nate and I have become the most active winos we know,” I said, slurring slightly, to our new Australian friend Matt. While I was half-joking at the time that this would be the first line of the impending Touchstone Blog article, I knew that half-joking statements sometimes wind up being entirely serious […]
To Pro·ject a route: \tə prä-ˌjektˈā rau̇t\ verb To try a route over and over and over and over and over and over and over, with the goal of completing the route without falling. See Redpointing. We’ve all projected a route and gone through the emotional ups and downs of failure. In this video, Touchstone athlete Ethan […]
“The first step is realizing that it’s possible,” Ethan Pringle advised me. While climbing in Siurana, a crimpy limestone area in Catalonia, Spain, I wanted to onsight 7b+ (5.12c). I’d managed to tick off a number of 7a+ (.5.12a) routes and had built a solid base. The past few days, I’d been trying more 7bs […]
Oliana, Siurana, Terradets, Maragalef. When people think of Spanish sport climbing, they think of these destinations. Most of these locations are in Catalonia, in the easy to access northern part of Spain. However, there’s limestone all over the country and some of the best climbing is in areas that receive far less visitors, far less […]
Rock climbing brings a huge array of challenges. One of the biggest is getting to the crag. This past weekend, Mary-kate Meyerhoffer and I took on the daunting challenge of finding one of the most popular limestone cliffs in Spain. We managed to get lost but we did discover a few lessons while looking for […]
