Leonidio Christmas Climbing 2018

Hi All,

Yes I know, we are very late with this blog but we will not bother you with our excuses.

This year we decided to go to another location during the Christmas time than our regular spot in Spain. So this time no multiple styles of climbing, no trad, no multi pitches but just "safe" sport climbing this end of the year. That saved a lot of weight in our bags for traveling.

Our condition was not optimal.

San had become better in shape after her neck hernia surgery but I still suffered from my shoulder injury between our holidays which is still far from cured so for both of us we had very limited performance goals.

On our car journey from airport to our house in Leonidio we had to survive the weather conditions and the slippery roads. Regretfully we run over quit some frogs during the dark and heavy raining night.

Next morning, the sky was open and blue, our holiday could start.

Just some pictures of our Holiday.

Bouldering Fontainebleau 2018

Hello Again, I'm slightly behind with writing my blogs because of I was quit occupied with a lot of different things. Again I picked our tradition of a long bouldering weekend with our friends in Fontainebleau.

Sven picked out a house for the weekend that was pretty close the some great bouldering area's.

I decided to go a little earlier since driving alone thru Paris, it turned out to be a good decision as it was relaxed arriving early in the afternoon at  the rented house. Meeting the host and placing my stuff into the house I went into the forrest for doing some easy boulders.waiting for my friends to arrive. They arrived and walked to me in the forrest. Great nice warm evening. We had a splendid long sunny weekend and although my shoulder said NO to bouldering I enjoyed every minute of it. Next time San will join again.

Haut Val Durance Climbing 2018

 

September Holiday,

With a pleasant feeling from the few days of trad climbing in the Pfalz we headed towards the south of France. The wetter forecast was encouraging and the mood was splendid.

We arrived late afternoon just before it became dark and picked our camp in the town Guillestre. No time to waste we put quickly our tent down and headed slight disorientated to a pizza hut to buy us our diner for the night.

Mont-Dauphin

Next morning we were overwhelmed by a clear blue sky and quit warm atmosphere. We made our breakfast and lunch and went to visit the first crag called Mont-Dauphin with the ancient fort on top of it. We wanted to climb in sun but the temperatures quickly became too hot. As usual the white skin became quickly red so a long climbing day was not expected. We had to rest anyway from our journey to the south.

Rue des Masques.

Next day we went to the popular crag called Rue des Masques just outside the town Guillestre. Nice view over the valley when you are at the top. Surprisingly it was cold in the gorge so we did first some route almost in the sun and headed to steeper stuff in the Gorge. Found some nice routes with big pebble's conglomerate but apparently very popular due to huge amount of chalk which made it slippery as ice.

St-Crépin.

Enjoying the landscape and hikes to the crags. One of the nicest walk that we did was the walk to the crag called Falaise de St-Crepin secteur 5 Les Lyonnais. Quit long and steep but beautiful rewarding overview over the valley. Nice little quiet sector with slabby 5's up to 7's that are definitely not easy due to the lack of traces. Please be careful with loose rocks here and there.

Le Simoust.

Another great crag is Le Simoust. Nice long routes on conglomerate rock that keeps you going deep in acidification of your fore-arms. Not real difficult cruxes but exhausting since you definitely used all pebbles, holes and crimps before your found the right grip.

Campsite.
Near to the town Guillestre we found a nice campsite that was very quit in this time of year. No large groups or children but mainly people that came for doing their sports or sightseeing in this nice area with luxury campers or caravans. We were a little awkward with our tent and primitive gear to cook. Strikingly all people made a little chat with each other and with us in very pleasant way that we did not experience during normal summertime vacations. We figured that people were more relaxed and had more time to enjoy the life they lived and are interested in each other.

Summary: We had a great vacation and time in the Val Durance, San picked up her climbing skills again and I enjoyed the relaxed way of life and enjoyed the pumpy routes. Definitely coming back. 

Pfalz Climbing 2018

Summer Holiday in September?

Yes, the whole period from begin June to mid summer half September was build around the recovery of San. She underwent a serious neck hernia operation that would definitely take a couple of months recovery to have her strength back again and I had an injured shoulder from just pushing heavy garbage into the dump. For San it was a real struggle as she had a lot of nerve pain in her arm and hand. The hand was painful even by slightest amount of water running over her skin. So instead of climbing we did a lot of hiking and sightseeing in "our favourite area" the volcano Eifel. Very pleasant but no or low climbing though.


Our first days of the vacation.
On Friday evening before our planned holiday we both left our work and were so tired that a long trip to the south was just too much for us. Therefor we changed our plan and drove just 5 hours to the Pfalz in Germany to enjoy the good weather over there and do some easy trad climbing for just a couple of days.

Wow, again we felt at home when we found our first crag called "Rotzollwand" away from the popular crags with only some nice singing birds to welcome us in their forest. Such a nice environment and from a distance quit nice sandstone crag too.

Climbing the first 4  called "Schönes Wändel" on gear was great but already quit demanding. The rest of the bolted routes seem to have worn out a little so that it became dangerous to the first bolt.
Nevertheless a nice day with a very nice expedition type or adventurer's hike back and forward.














Next day we went to a crag called "Westliche Kesselwand" with quit a long walk thru the forest with falling trees??? Here we did some very nice easy trad routes  but also some quite demanding. We collected chestnuts as they fell down from the trees without noticing so wearing a helmet was almost a necessity.

Last day we went to a crag called "Pferchfeldfelsen". Great crag. Nice easy route called "Dritte Rampe" looks easy going but already quit an adventure.




















A short summary: Yes, again a great short vacation period in the Pfalz, great weather, great crags, nice walks or hiking, delicious food and off coarse excellent wine! Life is great!
Even the trees love and kiss each other!!

Annot, Crack Paradise, Trad Climbing and Bouldering on Sandstone

Yes we went back to Annot again, last year we were left with good memories from this beautiful place and the fun that we had with traditional climbing, sport climbing and bouldering. This vacation was concentrated around trad climbing and doing a little bit of Bouldering.

We explained last time where Annot is and what you can do to enjoy.

http://jan-san-climbing.blogspot.com/2017/05/annot-has-it-all-sandstone-crack.html

See the main crag.

Although it was chilly in April, the weather became quickly warm, specially when you walked up the path from the train station to La Chambre du Roi. We did this multiple times, so you will get well trained legs and will loose some weight with 15kG gear on your back. Hi Hi.
We started at La Cave again but this time no crowds of people. Super. Very nice easy crack starters like Adam and Eve to get ready for harder stuff. La Voie du Sage 6a+ but has a quit physical offwidth part. Look at the picture with the rope against the wall with 250-300 meters below you.

The other day we went to La Vire Inter and did some harder stuff. For Example Spitalgie 6C, it has big holes and grips but knotting the threads in it as protection is exhausting, puwh.

Mettrez Ca Sur M'ANNOT 6B

One day we went to Le Point de Vue. A very scary view into the deep. Even the trad 4+ seems to be harder because of this. Bouldering at Secteur Requim du Block, not that easy to find if you don't know the area.But nice weather and great boulders make it easily to forget the effort that it took.

Again we went to Offwidth Paradise but some of the routes were still wet, so I did Fastoche Diedre 6b+? I think it is harder. So I left some skin behind. In the afternoon we went even more up to Les Portettes where we both did the popular trad route called Les Portettes Face, nice hand jam, but slightly becoming to wear out.

The best we saved for last day in Annot, at La Vire Inter we started early in the morning since it would become warm that day, I spotted some days earlier a nice trad route  that appealed me a lot called Vingt 2, 7a. Starting with a small crack than passing some blocks going to bombe roof part with just some holes, Puwh that last part was hard.

San also proofed herself by doing 6a trad route called X-Files, super proud on her achievement even with a neck hernia.

Hope to come back soon again.

Valencia Climbing

Just a short update from us.
In April we did a small climbing vacation in the area of Valencia again.
The weather forecast was not super and it was definitely colder than expected.
Every day we tried to find a warm climbing spot in the sun so we travelled to different area's and crags. Still the wind was cold in some of the gorges.


Climbing crags that we visited:
Bunol
Altura
Jerica
Borriol
Cucalla
El Castellet.


In the late afternoon or evening we drove back to our apartment and made ourselves a nice dinner wit some wine, the topper this week: Lemon Chicken slow cooked in the oven for 2 hours, jummy.

Ruhrtal Katla Cave

Last weekend in cold and wet Germany we went for some bouldering.
As every year we enjoy the surroundings of the Ruhrtal and in particular the Avalonia area.
San was going for a hiking tour and I tried some boulders in the Katla Cave where I found some dry spots. Around noon even the sun appeared which made it more enjoyable.

Next day we went to one of our favourite Climbing Gyms called Bergwerk in Dortmund.

http://www.kletterhalle-bergwerk.de/bergwerk/deutsch/klettern-und-bouldern-in-dortmund.html

In comparison to many Dutch climbing gyms you can do lead climbing on all the routes if you want, and for crack addicted climbers like us there are even a couple of crack routes that are very enjoyable to do.

After finishing your climbing session you can have a very luxury massage shower. Never saw that before in other gyms. Something other gyms can learn from Hi Hi.

INTO THE WILD 2

Is there Wild In the Netherlands? No!! Yes!!

Like last year, we headed again into the forest to live some adventure.

After the heavy storms in the Netherlands a lot trees had been falling down and there were serious warnings of falling branches called widow makers. So the Dutch authority advised not to go into the woods. Ok? So we were prepared to be cautious and be careful with our route and picking our camping place.

Again the circumstances were harsh, a winter snow on some areas and drawling foggy rain making the whole area wet.

First thing: Making shelter to prevent becoming too wet and making fire to get some heath

During the day and evening we had a foggy rain but later the evening we had even some sunshine
Next: Chopping Wood to get thru the day and evening it took me 3 hours.























New thing we learned; cooking on open wood fire. San sat down and became the "fire master" and she cooked water for our thee and coffee and started to bake our bread in our special prepared "Dutch Oven" (not realy but an old pan from our home kitchen) After that she made  with chicken legs and a bunch of vegetables a great diner. Whauw!!

Late evening the sky broke open and the stars were visible, directly the temperature dropped to -3 deg C.

Early morning we lit up the fire and made thee and coffee and some bacon and eggs. Jummy!

Carefully breaking down our frozen tent and tarp we headed home again. Our clothes smelling of burned wood. Hi Hi.

See you next time San and Jan!

Costa Blanca 17' 18'

Hi,

Yes indeed we went to Spain again this year. The rainy, cold days in the Netherlands did us again decide to head off to get some lovely sunshiny warm weather in Spain. I was struck with a terrible cold cough and San was still facing her neck injuries.

This did not kept us from travelling to our winter location to do some sport and trad climbing.

The first week we pushed ourselves hard in new routes.

The second week of our holiday it was planned that the family of San's sister was joining us so this year we decided to rent a bigger and more luxury house with an open fireplace and an outside kitchen. Great!

Trad in Sierra de Toix Este

Trad in Vall de Guadar

We visited some new area's and learned again that it takes some time to get used to the new styles of climbing. We enjoyed the first week with climbing adventurous trad routes and the second week climbing some easier routes with the youngsters. Every evening we had to collect wood for the woodstove and fireplace.

New Crag's visited:
Tallat Roig: Near the Alzira city, great crag with multipitch and single pitch routes Trad and Sport.
Bolulla: Raco Roig left side: always spectacular views of the Barranco of Bolulla area.

Tallat Roig



Barranco de Bolulla



San in Guadalest

Delicious Food; Fish and Paella from the Woodstove!!!

Life is good!!!!!!!

Climbing with the youngsters!