Introducing our Trad Rack; Black Diamond, Camp, Wild Country, Trango.

Hi, we are Sandra and Jan a couple forming the 2 Small Adventurers. We love to be outdoors and do all kind of adventure activities.  One of our favorite activities is “trad” climbing. It started in the early 90’s when I switched from “speleology climbing” to sport climbing. I got fascinated by a trad climbing course which I did with Mark and Rowland Edwards in Spain and became immediately addicted. Both San and I we love to do crack routes from micro width to off width. We are by no means experts or pro’s but just two recreation climbers that want to have trad adventures next to our regular sport climbing adventures. Don’t get us wrong we still love to do sport climbing routes with bolted protection. Please check this blogsite per country where we climbed traditional routes if you want to see some pictures.

Germany: Ettringen and the Pfalz

Italy: Cadarese

France: Annot

Spain: Costa Blanca Area

Denmark: Bornholm

Sweden:  Bohuslän

So we have been climbing trad routes for quite some time now and built up our trad rack over the years, beginning small with a limited rack. As the gear is quite expensive for a private climber it is important to choose the correct one’s for your purposes and take good care of your equipment.

Meanwhile we have a full double set of cams from smallest to the largest. With some, smaller ones maybe triple. Than off course the stoppers or nuts and some specials. Like ball nuts.

Friends or Cams.  We use  Camelot C4, Camelot C3, Camelot X4 X4 from Black Diamond

Ball Nuts.  use Camp Ball Nuts

Stoppers or Nuts. We use some classic ones from Wild County and new Micro Stoppers nuts from Black Diamond 

Some Big off-width equipment Big Bro 4 from Trango

We use also slings and cordoletts for belaying or in between relays.

If you want we can give reviews of our equipment in more detail with some tips. Please leave a comment in this blog or send us an e-mail or go to our You Tube channel and leave a comment there. Or better please subscribe and ring the notification bell to see videos of us.

2 Small Adventurers 

Thanks Sandra and Jan from 2 Small Adventurers and Jan-San-Climbing

Exploring Val Durance in France 2020, are we Climbing or Hiking?

Hi All,

This summer we went again to the Val Durance area in France for a 2 weeks sport climbing adventure.We stayed in the neighborhood of Guillestre. Val Durance is called after the river the “Durance” that runs thru the area of Briançon  and Guillestre in the Hautes-Alpes. 

Our original plan was to do lots of sport climbing, but it became more a mix between hiking and climbing. In many occasions the hiking was extremely steep and exhausting but in the end it was great fun with great views and the weather was good.

Our resting day, was a steep hike in the Ski village Risoul doing the vertical trail “very steep” to the summit. Very nice and blue sky’s. We made some video’s and pictures there. The walk back was descending steeper and longer than expected. A nice refreshment in the touristic ski resort was a real threat. 

During our 2 weeks vacation we had heavy rainfall and San her air matrass became leak so we had to visit Briançon to buy a new one. Strikingly the world cup of lead climbing was going on where Adam Ondra made his victory in a wonderful show. We enjoyed that tournament.

Again we visited magnificent crags from which the views were stunning.

Mont-Dauphin:  Shade and sunny areas, conglomerate rock, sometimes technical and hard.

Jo Trango: New area for us, long ascent since you had to leave the car down below. Nice area but became to quick sunny and too hot for real serious climbing.

Le Ponteil: Always a top location. Great technical vertical routes and adventures long single pitches with great overhangs. Experienced some rain and thunder but achieved to manage some classic routes there.

Simoust: One of our favorites locations. Less crowded than Rue des Marques and super long exhausting routes, still a lot of development is going on.

Grand Bois: Long story, as we missed one day of climbing sincw we could not locate the crag good enough but too much hiking and wrong decisions along the way. A couple of days later we found it but were still searching for 2.5 hours. Climbing was good but we were too tired.

Saint Crepin: Our favorite, nice ascent to the crag, great views and quite unspoiled routes and very quit.

Rue des Marques: Both we still have problems with this area, too many people so very crowded and the routes are full of chalk. Nevertheless great climbing

Rocher Gafouille: Nice crag with great setting above the town Briançon.

If you read our blogs you must have noted that we started a You Tube Channel called 2 Small Adventurers. Small because we are not biggest climbers.

We offer people to watch our adventures which is more than only climbing but also all other kind of activities. We encourage you to watch our videos.

We hope that you enjoy the video’s and if you have any comments please let us know. To support us making videos and blogs please subscribe and ring the notification bell so you won’t miss another video. It’s all for free.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT6gN8jKZSI&t=77s

Our channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKV27nPiEusYylUz-wP4Euw

 Thanks for watching 

Jan-San-Climbing, 2 Small Adventurers

Trad Climbing in the Pfalz a real adventure, June 2020

Hi Guys or Girls,

Yes it has been a while that we wrote something in our Blog. This had many reasons but was mainly because of my shoulder injury that kept us from Climbing and even driving. So no Climbing.

Time heals everthing.

Now in 2020 with covid19 restrictions the borders opened at June 15th and we headed to Germany to climb in the Pfalz.

Without proper training we enjoyed a one week of Trad Climbing on the magnificint red sandstone of the Pfalz. As usual we used out Trad Gear with great pleasure.

We made some vidoes about our adventure and put it on YouTube. 

Please check it out and if you have question or comments please let us know.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKV27nPiEusYylUz-wP4Euw?view_as=subscriber

You can even subcribe to support us.

Thanks San and Jan

 

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!!