Alpine Mentor Programme

Tomorrow I'll fly all the way to Denver to meet a group of very enthusiast alpine climbers.
Im selected to be part of the Alpine Mentor programme coordinated my famous climber Steve House.
I've no idea what to expect (loads of alpine stuff probably).
So I'm extremely excited!
And confused, as my we have to move out of our amazing mansion next month and I haven't found anything new yet.

Home

The bedroom animals are welcoming us :)

After we've been traveling for more then a month (France, Germany, Swiss, Denmark, Iceland...)
We're home.
Dennis is home after 7 (!) months of travel, study and work.
It's so strange to be here together that sometimes we have to get used to each other again.
Strange but nice. Our new bed feels huge compared to the Syncro bed :)

The result of the upgrade :)

Updating my First-Aid instruction skills

We're upgrading our house, trying to find enough work, updating our finances, study, update our skills and climb.
Now: Colorado climbing in 1,5 weeks...

Meanwhile I edited the last two video's of our Iceland travel diary. 

Enjoy.

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Iceland pt 9 Fjallastakkanof Hnappavellir

By Marianne van der Steen

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Iceland pt 9 Fjallastakkanof Hnappavellir from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.

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Iceland Summer pt 10 Winterhike in Summertime and boat to Denmark

By Marianne van der Steen

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Iceland Summer pt 10 Winterhike in Summertime and boat to Denmark from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.

Home...pt.2

In my own house again. I live 'anti-squat' (for the Dutch: antikraak). I have a massive villa which is slowly breaking down. Starting with rats in the livingroom, mice in the 'sun room' and a bird in one of the bathrooms. And then all the millipedes and spiders... It took me hours to vacuum and mop the whole house.

It is strange to live in the luxury. We have water just instant out of the tap and if you want it's even warm or hot! We have machines to clean the floor, your clothes, heat up dinner and much more. All works on electricity.

And theres (for your feeling) an infinite amount of it! You plug in your phone and it's being charged and you can do that on all hours of the day.

Life this way is easy and, because of all 'extra's', complicated in the same time. I have the feeling that, because we have so much around us, we have the habit of wanting even more then we have. We want more then we need. All the time.

We want to eat more then we need, we want to live bigger then we have to, we want to watch more movies then we have time for, we want more clothes then we can ever wear...

Once having lived in a cave (what I did quite some years ago) and being a mountaineer *waking up in your sleeping bag because it's light and my biological clock says it's time to rise, walking a bit to get snow to melt into water for breakfast and getting ready to 'work' (climb) all day. Back home again in the evening when it's already getting dark. Happy with whatever the food is, it will be tasteful. Tugging up in my sleeping bag, convincing myself I have to wash myself tomorrow...or the day after... And being asleep straight away because it had all been so heavy on the day*

I can just not describe in words how it feels to be a climber, to live this life. But those moments in a bivouac somewhere up on a mountain are just the best there are. I can trade my mansion, car, all clothes, food, electronics for this moments in a bivouac in the mountains.

Renan Ozturk, artist, photographer and climber, tried to give a view on 'life as a climber' in Yosemite. And the result is pretty beautiful:

On Assignment from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Home...in the flat country

After one 8a, some ED/ED+, hard boulders, long walks a 1/2 marathon offroad, loads of pasta&tomato sauce, many Alpine roads and 2 months without a shower...we're back home again.

But not after a quick stop in Kandersteg (sportsclimbing, mountain running and drytooling in the sun -yes, drytooling is a sport for all year round- ) and later a stop in Ettringen.

Yestderday was so hot that it was impossible to climb. Which made us go for a swim instead. Laacher see it was. After all this sitting, driving and baking in the sun I decided it was time for a bit of movement. A bit became a lot and became a test. Wondering how fit I actually was (I noticed I could run uphill for 50 mins on 1200m height without getting tired and doing an offraod mountain run for 1:10hrs without getting any muscle-soreness or sore knees)

So how far could I run on a warm evening? It became 27km in less then 2 hours. All offroad in the hills around the Laacher See. It's not advisable to try this when you didn't eat enough and forgot to drink the regular amount of water you need on a day... Though, I did. Next is of course to run a marathon, offroad in the mountains :) Which is 'nothing' if you compared it to what runners with the Mont Blanc ultra-trail will run this week.

This morning it was cold enough to try climbing. Around 8 in the morning we had our warm-up and around 12 we had to leave because of the pressing humid heat.

In between we climbed quite some things including 'magical project' Mut der Verzweiflung. I tried this route before and once I knew how hard it was and that it had never been climbed by a woman (at that time, now it's been climbed by German local Melanie). I'm not so good in 'tempering myself' so nervous as I was every time I'd get upon the route I just failed. Getting scared, pumped, unfocused, basically just far too nervous to climb it...

But now after a Summer full of trad (7a on 3000m height) I was just far too fit to miss out on this 'simple-almost-below-sea-level-climb-on-a-hill-instead-of-a-3000m-heigh-mountain'.

I toproped it as warmup and 'walked' through all the moves with surprising ease. And I knew I had to get on lead. Nervous. Shit. Trembling, shaky on my legs even before I made any move. I got pumped after 2 moves. Shit.

I belayed Dennis, went for a walk with him (he knew I got nervous...too nervous to climb...) and ate a waffle, drank some water and relaxed.

Ready this time.

I climbed it, had the right locks on the right places and even had time to relax and shake my arms. Not that I got pumped, it's just a habit: Chalk up, shake, look, chalk, shake, move, look, move, shake, climb, chalk, shake, chalk, move...I'm a slow climber.

But I did it. Gear on the right place and never scared, pumped or in trouble. So cool, it felt like climbing 6b!

I have to say, this is so much easier then 7a trad in a long long multipich :) Officially Mut der Verzweiflung is graded as 7b/7b+. I'm not so good in grading routes. I'd guess it's more a 7a. But thats just because it went so easy right now. Guess I'm fit :)

Now, home again, I have to work again. Earn some money and go out again as soon as possible!

Here the three last movies of the 'Summer climbing trip 2011'.