Starzlachklamm

Every weekend I try to make most of the free time I have.
This saturday I had the chance to go for an easy ski-tour. Fantastic! It was my first time to just go ski-touring for the ski-touring instead of using it as a tool to  get to an ice climb. I first was afraid on not being able to keep up with the group, being too bad of a skier but... I actually did totally fine!
Motivated to do this more often now :)

Saturday was dry tooling day. Some people promised to join but in the end they couldn't for several reasons. Which was okay because now we had more time to focus on the climbing itself.
The missing hold I was writing about last week is now replaced. I was too scared to drill the hole, afraid to destroy the rock (something in me says drilling holes in wrong). Dennis made the new hole on the place where the hold had broken off and I was happy being able to make the move now :)

I made a little video to show more of the area. It was way too warm so there isn't much ice now and topping out is too dangerous in the roof-routes because of the constant melting and falling ice and rocks from above the roof.
Too bad we couldn't top out the M12 because of that.
As you can see there's more then just M10 and M12.
Contact us if you need any route details as the most up-to-date topo can't be found online (yet).



Starzlachklamm Drytooling from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.

Fit at the start and then it gets canceled :(

This evening was a romantic Dennis and Marianne evening.
As Dennis really struggles with all his bad luck and his injured leg, I thought it would be good to go out for dinner.
We discussed all kinds of things, like how nice the route Tomahawk is, and I wanted to see a picture.
Got on the internet and... all over Facebook, Twitter and other social channels: Worldcup canceled.
Nooooo!
I feel so fit, strong and super motivated!

The Rabenstein ice tower yesterday. Today theres even more snow. 

Herman, from the organisation, working hard to make a path to the ice tower. 

Rabenstein is a tiny place on the Italian- Austrian border between Ötztal and Meran.
It's always rough there in winter times but this weeks was more then usual. And this time it is more then just rough: 2m of fresh snow and more to come. Closing off the village and making it a hazardous place because of the avalanche danger.
The guys there were working super hard to get the roads free again. But, they're predicting more snow for the upcoming days, getting the avalanche danger to the highest level.
Logically for our own safety they had to cancel the event.

This week has been just for climbing:
With Saturday some new bolts on the Rubihorn Nordwand thanks to Daniel Gebel. Ritchi our roommate invited us to go with for a midday tour on the Rubihorn. I couldn't resist although I knew I was going to be on for three days more after that.
In the evening Roland arrived. He bought new iceaxes and needed to try them. I took some days off and went out.

It's quite overhanging there for Roland

Hanging out the toprope-gun ;)

That Sunday we climbed in Starzlachklamm. I taught him some tooling and skills but the M8 I hung out was still a bit too hard for him.
For my feeling is was (is?) quite an established alpinist and not a bad rock climber either. But this drytooling was different. Still we had fun.

We heard the classic Hangende Garten was very climbable at the moment. So it was easy to make the Monday-plan: Austria :)

Hangende Garten

Roland still getting used to his new iceaxes fiddled his way up the first pitch (WI3).

Roland on the first pitch.

I ran up and got ready for the real stuff. Thanks to our roommate we had a double 60m. rope. Enough to climb the WI6 and the WI5 all in once.

This WI6 is fun! 

I left a tiny bit of easy stuff in the end for Roland to lead.
"I would have placed more screws then those four" was the first thing he said when he came up.

Roland in the snowy last bit of the WI5

I just felt fine and the two abalakov-thread ropes on the way up looked fine as well. The route felt super easy but so fun to climb!
Satisfied we drove back to Germany.
Today we actually wanted to climb in Eptingen but logistically it didn't seem to work out well. Closer it seemed most places were missing the crucial ice so in the end it became Starzlach again.
Having dreamt of how to climb the seemingly impossible M12 I headed up. Without warming up I stepped into the route and got pretty far.

Hanging around, confused on how to stick the next moves.

Meanwhile Roland managed to climb M7 and got motivated for an M8. The M12 moves still seemed impossible! I felt rather defeated. How could these moves be so, so long?!
After a couple tries I decided a dyno would be the only option to finish the route. And so I did. Just barely hanging on I stuck the impossible move but not from the start of the route yet.
I came down and wanted to take some pictures of Roland in his climb and then I saw the text: "...hook is missing. I broke it about three weeks ago. I will drill something where it was."
Ah, so it was impossible after all.
Well good Worldcup preparations. Too bad the Worldcup is canceled now.
Time for a rest day. Time to get back to the real world: work.

Starzlachklamm - drytooling

When most iceclimbers now climb at the Bozeman Icefest (we don't have the money to go there) we enjoy the snow, rocks and ice in Germany this weekend.

Living in Southern Germany gives advantages and disadvantages.
One of the great advantages are the magical climbing areas; of which one of them a dark cold wet, if luckcy frozen, cave with loose rock a.k.a. Starzlachklamm.

Last weekend our colleagues wanted to go there and we were really curious.
Our roommate didn't want to go at all as he just found it an ugly dark hole.
After a slippery icy walk in we figured he was right. And we loved it.

We started with an M8. Daniel Gebel, who bolted most of the routes "commanded" and forbid us to break any of the growing icicles. So it became rather tricky to climb around the fragile curtain instead of into the curtain. Fun!
I think we'd get fired at Edelrid if we'd touch that icicle. So, after some clear comments by Daniel in another route ("don't touch it!") Dennis managed to break off an icicle. Daniel watched it happen. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He mumbled something about "tourists" and "less salary"...

Daniel pointing out how to climb the route. Simon climbs.

Dennis yoga-ing around the curtain.

And then there was this new route Daniel bolted, an extension/direct start of an already existing route. If Dennis could please climb it first so he could flash the route he joked to us.
And so Dennis went up and unfortunately popped off a sketchy tricky hold on one third of the route.

Dennis clipping in one of the safer points of the M10, Daniel belaying.

The tricky route traversed the roof just above the ground. If you'd fall you almost hit the ground making the name rather fitting the route: Arsch bumpe (or something like that). Every clip in the roof was a 100% grounder.
My turn.
I used a different hold in the roof, not really knowing if it was any better then the thing Dennis had popped off. But it worked. Flash :)
We guess, but I have to say I'm not too good in this guessing game, that it's around M10.
Daniel himself was rather ill and the antibiotics gave him too much gravity force around him. The flash attempt unfortunately didn't work out for him.

Daniel figuring his way up the M10.

The next day we were convinced by Ritchi to join him at Chinesische Mauer (Chinese Wall) a beautiful sportsclimbing area in Austria not far from Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Dennis isn't very fond of the vertical stuff and really didn't get it how we ended up here. Icicles and snow all around and we are sportsclimbing?!

Ritchi in his project. He took an extra day off this Friday to try it again. Maybe he did it...?

I didn't do a very good job either and felt rather challenged in the 7a's and 7b's that I climbed.
Maybe climbing and running every day and working long days for a whole week doesn't help much either. Guess we just needed a restday.

Next weekend. "Fully rested" after the annual Vaude Christmas party with our colleagues. We went to bed around 02:30 and promised to go climbing at Starzl again. Simon and Simon would pick us up around 11. It took us a while to drink enough coffee and eat enough Brezen before we finally headed for Starzl.
On the way in I read Will Gadd's blog-post to the others in the car. It's about modded tools, grading routes and the Olympics. A fantastic honest piece of writing about all the things that also have been in our heads the last weeks. The ridiculous grading of some routes (like the M12 I onsighted in Ouray, which I wasn't allowed to donwgrade), the 'tweaking Worldcup rules' by adding extra length to your iceaxes and the "so called" iceclimbing at the Sochi Olympics where some iceclimbing athletes are going. But also the feeling of recognition in the writing about the Gecko sisters and the failing&falling issue I also feel when I climb.
It's a must read for every mixed climber.

Rather broken, even after all the good coffee, we slowly hiked up to the dark hole again.
The ice had clearly grown and the curtain that we were forbidden to touch was twice the size now.
Meanwhile Simon (Herr Graf) promised himself the only thing he came for was drinking good coffee.
Still he managed to find himself swinging his way up the classic WI4 on the right side of the cave. More then he ever expected to do this day.

Herr Graf and his coffee

Meanwhile we climbed the M8 again without touching the curtain. "Dennis, your helmet almost hits the curtain now!" With his head turned in a awkward way sideways he yoga-ed his way further up.

Now the goal was to climb the big roof. Traverse from right to left through the whole cave. Michi Wohlleben bolted his M13 called "Pray for Power" in there. Crossing all the "easier" roof climbs (M11, M11+, M12...)
We looked, walked up and down, watched and discussed all possible ways and figured we'd need a local for figure how that thing would go. Suddenly the roof looked like a big mess of bolts and pitons without a proper line in between.
Defeated we decided to go up a line that we tried at the end of the day last week. "Pappi's kleine Liebling" an M11 yet again bolted by Daniel. He told us that once you find the right sequence it's not that hard anymore. He was right, we didn't find the right holds and thus didn't figure the right sequence back then.
One small hold at the start. You step on a bunch of balancy stones to reach the thing, then hang yourself in a figure of four and reach for the next thing. And then you hang yourself a big bunch of figure of fours and figure of nines to reach the end of the roof.
Right there, if you don't have the right hold your axe with you hand still fixed on it will get stuck, squeezing off your fingers causing rather bruised knuckles. So I failed. I had to kick the axe out with my feet to get it back again...
The clipping is as tricky as in the M10: fail and you'll hit the ground.
I wasn't that scared actually.
But Dennis was.
He held the rope so tight that I had the feeling I was pulling it out of the grigri myself when climbing. At one point the rope was kind of stuck in the grigri. Hanging in a figure of four, having cold hands and having to pull the rope out of the grigri without falling off didn't really help me. Fail. Again.
Meanwhile Dennis did climb the thing. Making gorilla-tennis-player sounds on his way up the route. A good mixture of scare and power. "Clipping, no not clipping, you got me, got me, watch me now, ergh, clipping, okay, okay, urrrrgh, uhhh".

Dennis at the end of the negative roof in the M11.

Meanwhile it was dark and snowing. I really was frustrated. I wasn't even too pumped, could do all the moves static and none of the moves felt really hard. Okay, let's just take the headlamps out and give it one more go. Now rather give me a grounder instead of a tight rope, now I know that I should skip the nuckle-duster hold and then it should just be fine.
And it was. Completely silent, the two Simons were surprised of my silent climbing, I figured-of-foured my way easily through the moves. The long, long move after the roof bit was just a nice static lock-off and I didn't use the tree that was silently calling "kick me, swing your axe in me". Top. What a hassle.  Tum, di, dum, dum, dum. Suddenly the song "Clint Eastwood" from Gorrilaz popped up in my head after watching the pictures of my own shade on the wall in the dark. Reminding me of the videoclip of the music. The song stayed.

Tricky clipping in the darkness. Picture by Simon Graf.

Awkward shadows in the dark hole. Picture by Simon Graf.

Now one question remains: how do we need to climb this M13 roof thing? Because I need a real project now :)

Read Dennis' view on this Saturday here: dennisvanhoek.nl

Een dag na de vakantie van meneer Hulot

Met het Alpine Mentor Programme was ik de afgelopen 2 weken in Canada. 

Inmiddels zijn Steve House en de rest van het team weer naar huis. 

Scott Backes en ik zijn er nog. 

En Scott wist wel wat hij graag nog wilde klimmen hier. 

Het lawine-gevaar en de ijs condities zijn niet erg goed deze week. Het weer is nogal omgeslagen na de twee weken dat we hier waren. Jammer, want er is nog zo veel te doen. Normaal rond deze tijd begint het Alpine klim-seizoen maar dit jaar het het nu alweer voorbij. 

Volgens een van de mentors (Raphael Slawinski) van het Alpine Mentor Programme zou het nog wel 'o.k.' zijn op de Stanley Glacier Head Wall. 

Een paar dagen terug heb ik daar samen met Raphael de route 'French Reality' geklommen. 

Dus, wij om 5uur 's ochtends onderweg. 

Met hoog lawine gevaar kan je maar beter vroeg zijn, en kost alles meer tijd dan normaal. Sneeuw lezen enz. 

Onderweg naar 'The day after Les Vacances de Mr. Hulot' (M7 R WI6) geopend door Francois Damilano en Joe Josephson als semi-aid route (M6 A2 WI6+) (Francois heeft de glace&mixte topo van Chamonix geschreven, en Joe de ijs topo van de Canadian Rockies) in 1997 voor het eerst vrij geklommen door Raphael. Zie hier meer over de routes aldaar: http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web07-08w/newswire-slawinski-stanley-headwall

Kei vette ski's met dank aan Steve & Steve

Met een par uur skiën stonden we aan de voet van de wand en moesten we nog een stuk aan touw lopen om bij het begin van de route te komen. 

Eigenlijk zagen we het hele begin van de route niet. 

Niet zo gek, normaal zitten er stukken ijs in de mixed route. Maar vandaag waren alleen de laatste twee pitches nog ijs. 

Sneeuw was er wel voldoende. Meer dan genoeg om alles te bedekken zodat je totaal niet kan zien waar de grepen zitten. 

Om het nog beter te maken zat er een dun laagje nat ijs-glazuur over de hele brokkelige kalksteen wand. Bijna Schots dus. Cam's die niet blijven zitten, en overal eerst een stukje ijs en rots weghakken voordat er een nutje in een spleet kan. 

Ik klom de eerste lengte. Officieel een 5.9 (5a) dus ongeveer M6 mixed. Alleen toen de route geopend werd zat er wel wat meer ijs in wist Raphael me te vertellen. 

Scott klom de tweede lengte 5.10 en wilde meteen de derde lengte er aan vast knopen. Hij klom op duo-points, wat ontzettend nadelig was in de technische route. Hij viel wel twee keer! Ondersteboven verloor hij 4 schroeven van zijn gordel. Gelukkig hield de zelf geslagen piton de val twee keer. 

Dus was het mijn beurt om het voor te klimmen. Ik had m'n bijlen en stijgijzers vlijmscherp geslepen en op de gladde, bijna onzichtbare randjes gaf dat een enorm voordeel. Ik snapte ook meteen waar de R (run-out) voor stond, want aan het einde van die touwlengte kon je totaal niks meer plaatsen. Als ik zou vallen zou ik terug vallen naar de standplaats waar Scott stond te zekeren. Fijn. Bij Alpine klimmen is er toch al de regel 'niet vallen'. 

Scott klimt de eerste touwlengte na. 

De volgende lengte is een korte traverse en dan een 5.9 schoorsteen. Weer normaal geklommen met een royale hoeveelheid ijs. Nu, speciaal voor ons: extra veel losse blokken. 

Ik klom weer voor, en klom tot ver in het ijs, zo'n 50m boven de vorige standplaats. Het ijs was slecht. Meer sneeuw dan ijs. Van dat ijs waar je je bijl in slaat en dat hij dan meteen een meter naar beneden schuift. En dan hetzelfde met je voeten. Ik klom net zo lang totdat ik een goed stukje ijs vond.

Onderweg vond ik een totaal uitgevroren ijsschoef in het ijs. Blij met de extra schroef maakte ik een standplaats met een piton en 2 schroeven onder een klein ijs-dakje. Scott met z'n duo-points klom de rest van de WI6. 

Nog 20m te gaan voor de rest van de WI5/6. Mijn beurt. 

Drijfnat kwamen we boven aan want eigenlijk vroor het niet meer... Een dubbele Abalakov en nog een paar abseils later stonden we weer onder aan de route. 

De ijsschroeven hebben we niet meer gevonden, die zijn voor de volgende gelukkige klimmer. 

Dit was de 7e keer dat deze route is geklommen sinds 1997 en ik ben de eerste vrouw die 'm klimt.

Door de natte sneeuw en dikke mist skieden we terug naar de auto. Bij de auto regende het. 

Volgens mij het het ijsklimseizoen over.

Nog 3 dagen drytoolen dan maar en dan weer terug naar Nederland. 

Eigenlijk heb ik wel zin in een beetje zon. Of regent het ook in Nederland?

Dit zouden ze ook in klimhallen in Nederland moeten invoeren.

Variante Babylon WI7 M9 (M8?) Bad Gastein

Restday work, sharpening our tools

[Marianne] 

Okay, so we climbed the long ice thing in they valley. 

Now it’s time for our original objective. 

Actually, I was confused with what the objective was. 

We talked so much about freeclimbing an old aid line, that I for some reason thought that was our objective.

Dennis seemed more aware on what to climb. 

As I’m still feeling sick even after the forced hot-weather-melting-ice-restday yesterday we decided I should do the first pitch and see what I feel like on the rest of the route. 

Supervisor right and Mordor left

We were the only ones today in the valley. The avalanches from the previous day showed us we’d made the right choice on taking a restday yesterday. Today the Eisarena was one big frozen cold mass again.

We geared up and I climbed the first pitch of the route. 

Eisarena with the first three obvious lines on the right: Supervisor, Mordor and Babylon

The ice seemed dry from a distance but felt wet and delaminated when I swung my axes. 

It sometimes hardly held my feet, making me kick more then three times every move. 

Some people call the soft ice ‘ego-ice’ as it takes your axes so easily by just swinging once every move. Leadclimbing in such conditions is different...If my axes get in that easily, I thought, then how easy would it be to rip out again...?

Crappy ice

I got a good look at the mixed pitch we were about to climb. 

With in mind that this was ‘Rodeo’ and old AID line that had never been freeclimbed. 

Two days ago I saw the climbers pulling on the slings and pitons in the pitch, so I was quite conveinced this must be the AID line. 

In the distance me on top of the first pitch

Insecure as I always am I decided it would be good if Dennis would try this pitch and if he couldn’t make it, I’d try it. 

The small dagger Dennis’ was traversing to barely touched, totally delaminated and way smaller then two days ago. 

Traversing to the wet dagger...

Dennis placed his axes as high as possible in the fragile thing, balancing, hardly touching with his feet. 

He made it through and we were both happy he could clip a fixed nut. 

Next was a iced crack for seven or eight moves. 

Dennis desperately hammered his axes in, and mentioned to me that it felt like his axe was moving. Like the pick or the head of the iceaxe had loosened. 

This was not the time for bailing gear, so we kind of ignored it. 

On top of the crack the small ice curtain was winking to him, get me, swing me, come closer. 

Thats where the route was heading, but as all the ice that could be used two days ago had melted away, it was a super long reach to the wet curtain.

Waiting, watching, moving for a bit and finally really reaching, Dennis made it to the curtain, hastily moved to the top part with his axes to place a blue Totem cam in the horizontal crack above him. 

[Dennis]

Now I was safe to head for the huge hanging ice above me. 

I precisely placed my feet and slowly moved up in the big wet snowy curtain. 

Luckily for me there was already some sort of feet feature.

Slowly working my way up the curtain getting stupidly pumped being very nervous. 

Finally the curtain seemed to be sort-of attached to the wall and I placed my first screw.. Pfff... what a relieve. 

Onto the ice curtain

[Marianne]

Not much later he screamed. I’d never heard him scream like that!

I knew straight away that he was falling. 

I was instantly 100% alert and bright, but the rope never came snug. 

“I fell” he screamed down, “but it’s okay”. 

WTF, it’s okay?

He shortly explained his heroic Vertical Limit action. Both hands and feet ripped out of the snowy wet ice, but he managed to swing his axes back into the soft ice and it held over a meter lower...

Soon after he made belay in slightly better ice all shaky from the adrenaline boost rushing through him.

Later we discussed the 'fall' a couple times and came to the conclusion that Dennis saved himself because of his speedclimbing experience. 
On the speed comps it often happens that you 'rip' out of the ice, and then you always try to get back in as fast as you can. 
So, speedclimbing is helpful for outdoor iceclimbing after all :)

[Dennis]

Marianne’s turn. 

I couldn’t see her and had to keep the rope loose to avoid pulling off all the ice that she still had to climb. 

Slowly she climbed through the melting dagger into the granite crack. I heard she didn’t hammer here axes in, trusting on the newly created ice holds in the crack. 

Big mistake...

She later told me she took a hold, what turned out to be a bad foothold. *pop* off...

I’m trying to keep the rope tight but I don’t want to brake the fragile ice above Marianne. Unable to see under roof I haul up the rope bit by bit. Suddenly there is a small jerk on the rope. I try to tighten the rope and hear a little shriek.. The next moment the rope comes fully tight end there is a huge piece of ice tumbling down... Marianne your oke!?

[Marianne]

I swung down, stretching the rope all the way back mid-air to the height of our previous belay taking with me a good bit of the big curtain above me that wrapped around the rope. 

One iceaxe in my mouth, one iceaxe in my hand made it hard to scream but made nice teethmarks on my axe. 

Okay, second try. Disappointed, should have done this in once!

I started again, onto the small dagger, into the crack, avoiding the wrong hold and making sure my axes stuck inside the iced-up crack.

[Dennis]

This time trying to communicate a bit more I hear Marianne is coming closer. She made it through the crack section traversed and climbed the curtain nicely. From here on it’s still 100m+ to go so Marianne climbs up the WI5 ice stretching the 50 M single rope to the max. I start following when the rope is all gone. Still very wobbly and insecure now the adrenaline is gone I’m going very slow. Also not sure that Marianne made belay already. After a slushy pitch I find Marianne in the middle of the waterfall. She got stuck here because she ran out of rope. 

So I start leading very careful trying to knockdown as little ice as possible. I’m starting to feel less and less secure now the last bit of adrenaline is gone... Getting higher running out of rope and only 10 more meters through the gully to top out I’m stuck. No more rope.

No more quickdraws only 2 screws. So I yell to Marianne to start climbing place the 2 screws put them together fixed my Microtraxion and climbed on very slowly but secure avoiding any ice fall.

Dennis is tired :)

Yes he is :)

[Marianne]

All the time we got showered by snow, the higher we got the worse it became. Although the last section wasn’t as hard as the first pitches it wasn’t comfortable to climb. The snow was painful on my face but I was warm, and had enough energy. I still felt sick, headache, cough, and a painful body, but I didn’t care, as this was probably the most real iceclimbing I’d do these weeks.

And then Dennis told me he was happy we climbed Babylon. Ow, right. I thought we were in Rodeo, trying to freeclimb it all. Right, that gave me such a different mindset. Oh well, whatever, it was nice anyway :)

We topped out in the snow and hiked down through the old avalanches. 

Happy we’d done it and happy we were safe we rolled down the hill.

Now I really need to rest as the cold fever isn’t getting any better. Just a couple more days my dear body, just a couple more and then you have weeks to recover. Come on now!

Worldcup 2013 and 2014 Olympics

...and there it is. The 2013 Worldcup schedule.

The UIAA announced the schedule for 2013 with some new things and some old things.

Old: Worldcup in Busteni (why?) I'm surprised. If you read my post about the last Worldcup there, you can understand why I'm 'slightly' surprised. (See here, here and here)

New: Worldcup in Rabenstein (Italy). The enthusiasts of the local icewall there have done a good job last years organising a fun and proper competition and for that they're rewarded with a Worldcup! Congrats!

And this year there will be a championships again. They chose Kirov (Russia) as the location. So I guess I'll have to travel there this year (better start collecting money now...)

I'm not going to join all the Worldcups in the schedule this year and climb more outdoors. The 'ultimate' climb for me is a mixed/ice route on a natural wall. The Worldcup is fun (and sometimes not), but pureness is where my heart is.

The Schedule:

January 5-6 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup Cheongsong, South Korea

January 12 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Youth World Championship, Saas Grund, Switzerland

January 18-19 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup, Saas Fee, Switzerland

January 26-27 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup, Rabenstein, Italy

February 7-9 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup, Busteni, Romania

March 8-10 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup and Championships, Kirov, Russia


I often have bad comments about the Russian part of the iceclimbing Worldcup.
There are too many Russians taking part and the rules seem to be bend to allow them all, the routesetters in Busteni did a bad job, the Russian judge made some really bad mistakes, it's hard to communicate with most as their foreign (non-Russian) language is limited and one Russian seemed to have a crush on me (and that was just a bit too much).
But theres one Russian who is working incredibly hard (together with others I suppose) to get iceclimbing to a higher level.
He managed to get iceclimbing to the Olympics!
For the first time ever iceclimbing will be shown as sports on the Olympic games.
Not as official Olympic sports yet, but as every sports starts like this on the Olympics, it's a good starts to something higher :)
Sochi, Russia 2014 will be the place.
Very, very, very good job Pavel Shabalin!

Meanwhile it's way too warm here to think of climbing ice.

It's sunny, warm and I'm busy with my lost luggage, the trip to Iceland, my work and yesterday evening we joined with thousands of others the Wednesday night skate. 
It all was quite slow but fun!
Totally motivated to go out skating again :)

Wednesdaynightskate with Rens, Koen, Suus and Arvid :)
Photo taken by a motorbike policeman with brown teeth.

Altitude is a bitch, especially when you're Dutch

There I am again, back in 'the low lands'. After a big weekend in the real mountains (Chamonix).

I was fed up by being here, no climbing, no ice, no mountains. Just work. I needed to go out and I was reaaaally missing Dennis. He's doing is traineeship at Petzl right now and is living in France for half a year. (Really cool but sometimes France feels like a 'million miles away')

Then I was thinking... I'm working as freelancer so I can climb more and that's why I'm working. So...I should go out and climb as much as possible.

The possibility was there, right there. It just included some money and time. (Time enough and I didn't bother the money).

So suddenly on Wednesday I was climbing in the Netherlands and on Thursday I was on my way to France.

I met Dennis in Crolles. He already took off from work and I met him in style: Dennis driving his home/van.

We both felt weird, happy and yet after two seconds it already felt 'normal' again to be together. Though cute as it sounds, I had those tiny little butterflies in my stomach again :)

We did some 'Alpine-climbing-shopping' (candy bars and other food that contains loads of fat, sugar and other types of instant bulk-energy) and went for the drive to Chamonix.

We didn't even make it half-way. We enjoyed the sun (is was over 20 degrees in Grenoble!) too much. Dennis even started to show freckles already ;)

We drove on the next day, went for a pit-stop in the Decathlon store (where I heard Tania passed her Winter/ice guiding exams! I hope the cake was good ;)

We took the cablecar up to the high point at Argentiere. To skie down again (sort of). With backpack on this steep snow it was quite hard for me. I sort of managed to get down the slope happy that only climbing lay ahead of us for the next day.

We dug a snow-hole just under the route. Just deep enough to avoid hitting the crevasses.

It was quite cold but allright when I finally fell asleep.

I slept quite light but we both didn't hear our alarms that morning! One hour late we started on the route: The Ginat/Jackson.

The first bit was just snow digging. Easy enough to do without a rope. We dug ourselves a way up and were quite okay I found. On a certain point I guessed it would be better to use a rope so we wouldn't drop off the whole cliff if something would go wrong.

We both didn't question the use of a single string of the rope and just climbed on.

We went slower and slower fighting the altitude. The weather started okay. Cloudy but the later it became the more fog came in and eventually it was snowing.

The climbing was surprisingly easy and just seemed to go on for ages. In the start there was a small mixed section and then the big icefield.

That icefield seemed to go on for ages! It felt like a never ending story.

I really had to motivate myself to move: okay, just 5 steps more and then you place a screw... and then after those five steps I said to myself 'just 5 steps more'. And finally it were 15 steps before I placed the next screw. And then 100 steps again. Or 105, or 110 and then with 115 I was proud enough to place another screw.

I was slow, but Dennis probably felt even worse. On the start of the Jackson variant of the Ginat Dennis told me he wanted to go down.

Okay.

No choice. Just go down now.

Not that I felt good at the height. I was tired after just moving to axes :) So going down was an okay option.

We abseiled over the route and were just able to find the belays and abalokovs. Even our own newly made ones disappeared every time again in the huge spindrift (including ice and rocks) that came down every minute or three.

Sometimes I just had to put my axes in the ice again to keep myself stable because of all the snow coming down over the route.

Dennis got his on his cheek by a big piece of ice. Resulting in a beautiful bloody 'egg' on his face. We got used to the ice hitting our arms and legs and the look of the snowman abseiling next to me.

Beneath us there were two Swiss climbers going up still. When we were down again (without getting our rope stuck or failing belays or dropping gear/headlamps) we saw that they went back too. The soloist we met under the cliff didn't even start his climb...

We packed our bags and skied down the Argentiere glacier and the (horrible) piste on the other side.

For me it was quite hard to get down. I really had to go slow to be able to keep control and not disappear in a crevasse or drop down the hill. I just need to learn how to ski... But for my fifth time on ski's and with the backpack I found I managed quite allright.

Down in Argentiere we were both just tired. I was wondering why we bailed. Really it was just the height :) Altitude is a bitch... How much that stuff can affect your climbing. Note-to-self: try to acclimatise before trying things on 3000m+

In the end it was all love for the both of us: nice to hold the axes again and get freezing cold hands, two sleepingbags in a cold snow-hole, both closed up so we could hardly hear each other, running belay-climbing so we hardly saw each other and we got so tired that we bailed. How romantic! Let's go again this week!

Thanks Dennis for the climbing :)

Pictures: Dennis & me on the climb, ascent and descent.

Twin Towers meltdown

The last day of our iceclimbing trip this Winter.

It was warm outside plus 5 or maybe more. And we were tired. The last day, so we MUST climb. But what. Too warm for Kiental, too warm for any proper ice and the thing we really wanted to do was not in condition. Ueschinen then.

Dennis hardly found the motivation to ski up that bloody hill, we even took a break, drank some tea before we went on. It took ages to get up. I remembered running up there last Summer, back then it took me 1:10 to run up and down again. Now it took us more then one hour to just walk up...

Around us the snow fell off the trees and the skins of our skis were full with thick blobs of wet snow.

Finally there.

The ice was quite thick and beautiful as always. Although Ueschinen is a bit like 'sportsclimbing for Alpinists' the surroundings, the big icicles, snow and the mist in the valley makes it a bit a mythical place.

We had no goal, so just went up one of the routes we wanted to do some time. Twin Towers. We were doubting, or maybe Matador? Twin Towers had ice. So it became Twin Towers.

I decided to go up first, and Dennis was okay with that.

It starts in a bit of ice, then some good hooks and a couple torques before you get to an enormous move. There are scratches close to the hold on the wall I moved, moved and found it way too long. Tried again and made it. But then Dennis and I came to the idea of moving into the ice instead of the stone hold. The move was as long but in a different angle which could make it better. It worked, so I decided to to this in my next attempt.

After the long move I had some rest in the ice before getting onto the next long move. From a sketchy hold very long to a good hold and then very long again to a good hold. Then long into the ice and okay from there on. But no more bolt, so an grounder (?) if you'd fall from that part to the top.

It was Dennis turn. He now knew all the moves. We took a close look together to be sure about all the moves and as he's quite a bit taller then me it should be all right to flash the route.

Dennis says "Not being warmed up it was so nice to move in to the freehanging in the middle of the roof to get a rest.

From here its “only” 4 hard moves in to the next overhanging ice. I found the hooks first try made some big dynamic moves and found myself in the curtain on the end of the roof. I climbed the icicle careful being scared to waste my Flash attempet. YES made it. First M10 flash."

I always get quite nervous when Dennis climbs something and I haven't done it yet. It's the same feeling as on competitions. Knowing most girls will climb the route to the top, knowing I should be able to do that too, but now prove it and actually do it gives me a big 'block in my throat'.

I climbed up the first part. Swung into the ice and took a nice rest. I tried to breathe normally but the 'thing in my throat' got my breathe stuck. I had a nervous feeling in my stomach and my mind was playing with me like an angel and devil telling me what to do:

"It's all right if you don't make it". "You should climb it now, you can do this 2nd GO". "It's hard so you probably fall off." "Come on, climb on, it's not that hard." "What if you fall, then you failed again." "You're getting tired, move on." "You're going to fall." "You can't make it." "You're strong enough to do this."...

On and on this goes in my head. Making me forget every move, having to hold on twice as hard on every hold. Dennis had to help me on what move was coming next. Meanwhile my hands became tired, forcing me to shake more and move slower. I got frustrated by the insecurity and the idea of failing to climb it. I got slower and didn't want to be slow. Why did I feel like this, it got me quite desperate, screaming, almost crying to myself that I had to move on.

I had to do a figure of four on the sketchy hold but my axe kept on turning. Come on, do it. I moved back again, to take some rest, tried again, moved back again, tried again, moved back again and finally did it. But then my hands were bailing out on me, forcing me to shake. I was not pumped, not like you have when you climb normally, it was just my hands.

I found a hold in between the next long move, hoped it was okay and moved from there. My hands slipped almost out of my axes, desperate I was, I could hardly move my hands slipping away. "Put your feet in the ice, feet in the ice" Dennis screamed to me. I desperately moved into the ice. There I could rest again. My mind still playing tricks.

From here it was just a couple more moves in okay snowy ice blobs and a nice icecle.

Dennis placed a screw in the top part, making it more comfortable to top out.

And that's what I did. I climbed it. What a relief.

My first M10, and that 2nd GO.

Time to go home.