Steep climbing is like chocolate

Céuse :)

Céuse

Last week I drove Dennis back to his French hometown Crolles.
And I stayed for another week.
Not just in Crolles :)

I had a mission: get back to Céuse. Céüse, Ceüze, Ceuze, Céüse, Ce... whatever, they can't even write it themselves. (The cliff is called Céuse, the topo says Céüse, the roadsigns say Ceuze...)

Gaetan, a French climber (drytooler involved in the DTS) was willing to belay me for a couple days.
The weather was quite bad on Tuesday. So we decided to try another area. A secret area just a bit further South. Let's call the place G-Spot.
Florent, 'the real local' joined us for a really beautiful day of climbing.
I wasn't sure about what I could climb, so started with a 6b warm-up. But soon I was getting on the same routes as Gaetan and Florent and gaining confidence!
I climbed some really beautiful lines on perfect rough limestone. No chalkmarks, no slippery footholds, just pure climbing with an awesome view.
That evening we bivouacked close to the cliff and in the morning we drove to Gap.

Gaetan climbing at the G-Spot

Sun @ G-Spot

I forgot to bring shorts (stupid...) so I had an excuse to buy a new pair in the local climbing shop before we walked up to my favourite climbing area.
There's so much to climb there that I hardly knew where to start.
Geatan decided: Grande Face. Because there are a lot of new routes.
It was a good choice. So many lines that just asked to be climbed!
Gaetan is climbing quite a bit harder then me (and as he has mountains to do trailrunning and I only have tarmac his stamina was a bit better as well...)
I suddenly had a chance to climb and try whatever I wanted. There was always someone to climb it again or finish the line if I couldn't.
This somehow gave me so much freedom. I lost all pressure to 'achieve' and climbed harder then ever!
Gaetan also taught me something I forgot: chill and enjoy, the French style.
I'd often been climbing with people that had the idea to climb as much as possible, had daily route quota's, needed to climb at least one 8a per week, force warm-ups in at least 7a's and wake up early to start as early as possible...

Gaetan @Grande Face

On our second day in Céuse we climbed with Tania, an extremely enthusiastic girl from Cyprus. She had so much energy! 

She tries to finish her PhD in Computer Science in a Gîte in Céuse, is learning French, climbs with the locals and if she's finished her PhD she wants to become a French climbing teacher. 

I had some chocolate and shared it with Tania. Gaetan doesn't like bitter 70% chocolate :) We really didn't understand that. Tania came up with an explanation on why we like chocolate: steep climbing is like chocolate. And she's right. 

Chocolate...on our way to Crolles in a petrol station in Luxembourg

Tania

Bergamot

With the pressure that had disappeared and the 'French climbing style' (chill, relax and do whatever/whenever you want to) I suddenly saw myself doing a beautiful new 6a as warm-up, just because it looked so beautiful, then climb the route next to it, just because it looked good and then try another route that just looked challenging. Meanwhile (typical French) complain that it's too cold, too warm, too rough, too smooth but never worry about it and lay in the sun for an hour, just chat and wait till I felt 'ready' again to do another try in the route. Eat a bit of bread, sausage and some fruit, wait for another 30 minutes or more and try again. Or not. That just didn't matter because you should just climb to enjoy and like the route and the nature around it. Not because it's 7a, 7b, or whatever the grade might be.
And of course, if the climb is a challenge it's more fun, but if that challenge is a 6a then thats o.k. and if it's a 8a thats o.k. as well. Sometimes the challenge differs per day, like on our last day (Friday) in Céuse: we were tired. Too tired to actually climb in the sun. The sun was too warm that day and I could hardly climb a 7a. But it was o.k.









Friday. Time to head back to Crolles.
Dennis and I just had to spent some time together. 
So Gaetan left for a weekend full of trailrunning and Dennis and I drove up to St. Pancrasse close to Crolles.
Dennis had a headache and I was tired of all the climbing.
So we had a semi-restday. We climbed (French style) in the late-midday/evening.

Dent de Crolles, seen from Col du Coq

Anemone

Gentian

Chimney climbing, with on the background Crolles and Grenoble

One of the caves we found on our walk back to Col du Coq

Petzl is located in Crolles, the Petzl history lies in the caves of the mountain facing the village: Dent de Crolles. So as Dennis is doing his traineeship in Crolles it was logical to climb the Dent de Crolles.
First when I saw the limestone face I told Dennis "we must climb that thing".
And so we did.
A bit on the right side of the face as the direct lines would take you a couple days full of aid climbing (and we only had one day).

The 'JB Directe' (TD) was our alternative. A trad route.
We started with a walk from the Col du Coq traversing the cliff to the start of our route.
The route is basically a big chimney. And I realised that chimney climbing is 'not my thing'.
Maybe it was because of my shoes (didn't want to wear my climbing shoes in the warm weather so wore my 5.10 Guide approach-shoes) or maybe it was because I was a bit 'flammable' because I had my period (or maybe it was both).
But well...I managed...and Dennis managed me. Just a couple pitons and a big chimney guided us to the top.







We climbed it easily within 'guide time' and walked to the top of the Dent.
The walk down was even more amazing. The green grass, the flowers, the cliffs, the view, the sun and the caves that made Petzl famous. 
Together we happily walked down again.

Monday I drove back 'home' again. All the way to Bergschenhoek.
On the way I saw a truck with a slogan: "the craziest are the happiest".
Maybe I'm crazy but I'm sure I felt pure happiness this week.

...and now writing this I figured I could have been in Céuse today. Because of some communication issue I don't have to work today. So I drove all the way back to the Netherlands for...nothing :(

*looking for an big (ice)axe and a good piece of wood*

"One Swallow doesn't make Spring"

...or at least thats what we say in Dutch. Hirondelles, Swallows, Zwaluwtjes were flying low this week to catch the flies in Chateauvert.

Showing our new Berghuas Dutch Iceclimbing Team downjackets

Last week I drove 925km South to Crolles, France. Again.
I'm addicted to someone who lives there in a small campervan.
The weatherforecast was bad, just rain, rain, wind and thunderstorms for the whole week. I managed to do some of the things I needed to do (climbing a viaferrata and making a presentation about safe viaferrata climbing) and then it was already weekend. A long weekend as the French celebrate/memorise the WWII on May 8. In the Netherlands we do that on May 4/5.

We decided to go to Chateauvert close to the Verdon in Southern France as it seemed the closest place with some good weather for the weekend.
Close to Crolles it even snowed that weekend!

We drove straight after Dennis finished work. As the van has it's 'habits' we suddenly ran out of petrol. Dennis went by bike to get some petrol. The closest station was closed but there was a very friendly French farmer that drove Dennis back to the van (meanwhile I was cooking Ratatouille) with his car and got us some Diesel. We wanted to pay the man, but he was just happy to help us out.
After we lost our Diesel to some m*&%$ckin' Bulgarians a couple weeks ago, this was a real surprise. Thanks mr. farmer!
We were quite late so decided to park the van. It became a place close to the river Buech.
It rained a lot that night. I was worried that the van would become part of the river, but we were just fine.

The van at the river Buech.

The next day we arrived in Chateauvert around midday after a exciting ride with huge hailstones that covered the road like a Winter-road in Chamonix. Just a moment later it was Sunny again when we enjoyed the Lavender-fields...

Hailstones from hell

Chateauvert is the area where I had my first outdoor climbing experiences 6 years ago. Together with Chérie (former international competition climbing judge and my climbing partner in Arnhem) and two other friends we climbed there for more then a week. I did my first 7a/7a+ Magicien d'Oz. And realised how much I love this sport/life.

On the first day I figured that my climbing style is still the same. Maybe I got stronger but when I did the moves I suddenly remembered "oh, yes, thats how I did it 6 years ago". Interesting how your mind and body memorises movements for such a long time.

Dennis climbing a 7a+ in one of the caves. (Can't remember the name)

Southern France is getting warmer and warmer, closer to the Summer and everywhere you see the nature changing into a beautiful play full of colours and sounds.





Dennis and I like to find special places to sleep in Dennis' VW Syncro campervan.
He Loves his Synco. He's together with some other 'crazy' dudes united on a Dutch forum about the VW T3 Syncro van. He checks the forum daily and when I'm around one of the main subjects is the van. Not because of the bad performances or 'issues' but all just about how to improve the van and get it into a perfect 4x4 vehicle. "Does your 4x4 have a kitchen" is the text on a sticker he found on an American Syncro forum, and yes, it's quite what it's all about: having an van that can bring you everywhere.
Everywhere around the world.

The T3 Syncro by night :)

After/during our trip to China last year we got ideas on how to perfect our China experience. When we'd have a campervan we could just go wherever we wanted to go. Not bound on other people, hotels, transport. Just us and the country around us.
The idea grew and now we have a plan: travel to China (Getu) with the VW T3 Syncro.
All the way from the Netherlands.
And if possible travel back as well. Through Russia.

This week we'd been collecting information about the possibilities.
Dennis and I got a book from Dennis' grandparents about a couple that traveled with an VW oldtimer to China. Dennis' grandparents knew already about our idea and with the book they tried to help us find the right direction I guess.
The two from the book are not exactly the same as we are I found. They're a bit like the average couple you'd find on a beach in Ibiza, not used to camping, not used to traveling with a campervan...
And a big difference; we want to add something to our trip: climbing!
We want to climb in all countries that we'll visit on our trip. All the way to Getu in China where we were last year.
We just calculated the time it will take us: at least 2 years...if we want to climb at least 3 days per week and travel the other days. (Anyone who knows a millionaire who wants to sponsor us...maybe...?)

So...still a lot to figure. 2015 will be the year. After Dennis has finished his studies.

Back to Chateauvert.
The climbing was quite hard we found and sometimes the distance between the bolts was just really long. Too long.
I had difficulties climbing a 7b+ and failed to onsight 7a's. Strange...
Though it was fun. The area is really friendly you can't imagine easier access to the cliffs. The guidebook says 2 seconds approach for some of the sectors and thats right: bumper belay.

Bumper belay

The most beautiful route is one of the first ones in the guidebook on the complete left-hand side of the cliff there's a 2 pitch 6b/6b+. I climbed both pitches in one. They're continuous without any real cruxes making it a beautiful chain of movements of meters and meters. Pure climbing!

The beautiful 6b.

Yesterday we drove back to Crolles. Dennis had to work again today and I have to work tomorrow.
I drove the 925km North today.
Feeling happy.
Like a millionaire.
Because I just did this week what I love most and it felt like I have everything I need:
house, boyfriend, sun, climbing...

Now just a bit of money-making to do this week and then I'll go again all the way to Southern France :)

Rubbish, like we're suddenly in India or something

The good old times

Voting in France, left or right?