The storm and the plastic heroes

Today, Sunday I woke up early.
Normal for my Sunday, but maybe weird for most people.
This time it was not for climbing, not for running, not for the family-visits. Nope.
It was for the rubbish. Or actually, against the rubbish.

As ambassador of Respect the Mountains I was invited to join the first (out of 7) EnviroTracks.
And EnviroTrack is a fun day combining mountain/outdoor activities with cleaning up a nature reserve and a good bbq.
This time it was not so much 'mountain orientated' because it was in the Netherlands. Schoorl to be exact.
Though Schoorl can be considered a high point in the Netherlands with it's dunes of 54m!
They even have a famous dune called 'Klimduin' (climbing dune).
So in a way it was still all about respect and mountains.

I woke up and listened to the raindrops on the roof. It didn't sound like a regular Summer day.
It was more like a regular Autumn day...
I took my best rainjacket, rain trousers and my 'singing in the rain'-mood and drove to Schoorl.

A lot of enthausiasts conqured the rain and joined us for the event.
Together we were with over 50 participants :) Which was a reasonable number considering the heavy rain.
We were divided into groups, every group got it's own ambassador (Philip, Bas, the Keen Team and me) and got rubbishbags.
My group headed for the dike and the beach.





The wind was tremendous! It was hard to keep our balance on the dike and hard to pick up all the plastic, cans, bottles, fishing lines, foam, and an accidental bath-suit.
We walked over the dike along the sea and learned about the history of the area, the ship-wreck, the brackish water and were astonished by the amount of rubbish we collected from the dike.
We walked for such a short time and had loads of rubbish bags full of stuff.









At 12:30 it was time to head back and join the lunch/bbq.
We warmed up, won a price for the weirdest bit of rubbish and got ready for the activities. Kickbiking, MTB, sea-kayakking and the compass-puzzle race.
Everyone wanted to get on the sea-kayaks so the participants could choose first. Leaving me with the compass-puzzle.
After a 2 hour puzzle-walk in the rain we were back at the start. Satisfied with all the rubbish we collected in the morning, all the good ideas and motivation to keep our environment clean and surprisingly everyone still had a smile after all the wind, rain, hail and a thunderstorm.
The participants went home with a goodiebag filled with Barts, Keen, Salt and more.

We stayed, cleaned up and went for a good dinner together.

It was good to do something back for our nature and to be driven by the motivation to keep it all clean.
Let's go again and be inspired :)

If you also want to do something good and have a fun day check out the Respect the Mountains website for dates and locations of the 2012 EnviroTracks.

Midway

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I came across the story and images of poor 'plastic birds' over a year ago.
Later I saw a trailer about the story of the birds and today I saw the trailer of the most recent footage again a couple times on Facebook.
It has nothing to do with iceclimbing, but worth sharing.
Even just as reminder.
Take care of your world.

Vimeo video's by: Jan Vozenilek, Manuel Maqueda, Chris Jordan

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 The group keeps on visiting the island. Here the most recent edit of the island and the birds.

 

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Respect the Mountains

Awesome! (It's my new word for today)

Ambassador of Respect the Mountains.

Last Monday I was invited at Respect the Mountains (RTM) headquarters in Amsterdam.
And now I'm suddenly ambassador together with other awesome mountain athletes like Xavier de la Rue and Bas Elhorst.

Not that I'm now going to force you to eat macro-biotic food, live of the rythm of the moon, only wear vegan clothing and never ever use your car again.
That's not the idea of the organisation. It would be far too idealistic to get that done. And then I wouldn't be an ambassador either. I'm not a vegan, I have a car and I prefer the sun to the moon :)

RTM rather wants you to enjoy the mountains. Please, enjoy and love those massive rocks as much as you can!
Only just make sure others can enjoy the mountains as well, also in the future.
With simple things like taking the cigarette ends with you, carpooling when possible, eat local food if available and be kind to the locals they represent themselves.
They'd put this together in a scheme called 'the 7 ways'.

Other practical and fun things they do are for example the Envirotrek. It basically means you clean a mountain track for half a day and for the rest of the day you're invited to take part in MTB clinics, kayaking, rock climbing or other fun stuff. In the evening you all get a big, big BBQ and suddenly you did two things in one: having mountain fun & being respectful in the mountains.

RTM also sells small things that can help you 'respect the mountains'. Environmental friendly wax products but also tiny rubbishbins for cigarette ends.

For more information, sponsoring the organisation, or to join an Envrio-track go the the RTM Website here: www.respectthemountains.com/