Jon Cardwell is Moon's roving correspondent, currently in Spain. Here's what he has to say:

Well, its February already. Time is flying down here.  We have been climbing in Spain ever since October and have been lucky with mostly good weather.  Taking advantage of the conditions I managed to get my sport climbing game back and dispatched 5 (yes FIVE) 8c+'s (5.14c) and a few 8c's and 8b+'s in a month and a half, all classic!  Isaac (Caldiero) left in December (back for a breather in Utah), and it was Dave Graham and myself alone for about a month, and now some new faces have joined the crew-Chad Greedy and Nalle Hukkataival.  We'll be set up here for another couple months to climb in the classic areas Oliana and Margalef.  A muerte!! A tough program!

We've been able to climb a few routes, one about a week ago stands out, a Markus Bock route in Oliana called Duele De Realidad 8c+/5.14c.  The route is short, about 15 meters, especially in comparison to the massive wall that is Oliana. The crux is more or less a hard boulder problem on a few undercuts and a couple crimps ending with a jump to a massive jug. After, it's only about 7b+ to the top.  Nalle managed the 2nd ascent and a few days after, only after refining some ninja beta into something more straight forward I followed up with the 3rd!  The psyche is high and the plans are nice.  After spain, we'll head to Ticino for some bouldering and I can certainly say I'm more than excited...  Its been a while! 

-Jon Cardwell

Check out the Spanish photo album in the Photo gallery for a couple of photos to go with this blog.