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!!