Yangshuo

We finally uploaded some pictures from our trip to China & Hong Kong. Check out the Picasa Album China Hong Kong.
We spent almost our entire time in China in the Guangxi province. After a few days in Nanning a big city, where we didn't see a single foreigner for days, we went on to Yangshuo one of the more touristy places in China. As Yangshuo is the best (at least the most popular) place in China for climbing we decided to make it our home for the coming three weeks. We enjoyed great climbing in a beautiful karst landscape, made friends, enjoyed great food, but also experienced a flood in the area, weeks of rain and we didn't see the sun once in 2 weeks.
Hong Kong was a very interesting experience where you can spend 20 min just to get across the street, because you have to walk around the corner get into a building cross the skybridge into another building get down again out of the building through a subway and so on...

After super humid China and super busy Hong Kong we decided to hit the beach next, so we are finally going to Thailand!!

Stuff

It's been a very long time since my last post. Sorry. Lots of my friends stopped posting as well, what's going on? Erik? Adrien? Dani? Romain? Andi? Come on!

Today I sent my first 7b in Ötztal / Tumpen !!! Very proud. 40m tiny hold madness. very techincal. My style I guess.

I've been bouldering in the Zillertal at the Sundergrund, a magical place. Especially on that day - Snow all over the place. On the boulders all around them, really pretty. O and how gorgeous the granit boulders are, those shapes...
I learned something there: Flip-Flops are quite handy in the snow (you don't mind if they get wet)

Sundergrund

Lately I was climbing a lot, it was just too warm for skiing (for my taste at least)
but earlier this year I did some great skiing in austria: Saalbach & Nordkette (Innsbruck)

Adrien and Anna, from Grenoble and Sweden, came to visit me, which was really nice. It felt so lovely to talk french again. They stayed almost 2 weeks so I had the time to show them some of the best climbing spots in Tirol and we went skiing in very good conditions - lots of powder! Definitely the best days this winter. We also met Joaquín from Spain who stayed in Grenoble last year as well.

Saalbach 2008-02

Zillertal / Fürstein 2008-02-14

Schleier Wasserfall 2008-02-08

Adrien and I did a wonderful multi pitch in the Zillertal at the Taufenkopf, got the dust off our protection

Taufenkopf 2008-02-16

last and surely not least, I've been struck by love. More about that another day. too tired now it's already 05:00

Dschungelbuch

War heut mit Tom und Denise im Dschungelbuch, war voll geil. So fein in der Sonne, überhaupt nicht kalt, obwohl es eigentlich nur so um die 5°C gehabt hat. War jetzt echt schon länger nicht mehr draußen Klettern, dem entsprechend hats mir auch getaugt! Ist schon was ganz anderes als in der Halle.
Link betreffend der Bedrohung des Klettergebiets durch den Steinbruch: Rettet das Dschungelbuch

Dschungelbuch 2007-11-28

Nachher waren wir dann noch im Kino und haben uns Free Rainer angeschaut. Hat mir gut gefallen, kann ich euch empfehlen. Geht darum wie die Medien uns manipulieren wollen, ein paar kommen drauf und zetteln ihre kleine persönliche Revolution an.

UPDATE: War heut schon wieder im Dschungelbuch! So geil! Diesmal war ich mit dem Marco.

summer 07

I told you that after my trip to pakistan I climbed in Italy and I was about to leave to France. So what did I really end up doing with the rest of my summer?

Arco 2007-08

Well my plan worked out quite good. I went back to Grenoble and climbed with Cyrille and Dave in Céüse. Then I did an amazing multi pitch route in Omblèze with Dave. After that I went to Chateauvert with Dave, we climbed a couple of days there and did a multi pitch in the Gorges de Verdon; Luna Bong - a classic.

Céüse 2007-08

Omblèze, Hirondelle des Faubourg 2007-09-04

Luna Bong, Verdon 2007-09-08

Dave went back to his new home, Grenoble, while continued to go further south. I went to Adrien's place in Nice. Adrien was training for the World Cup in free diving. Free diving means breath-hold underwater diving with various activities, in the competitions they try to go as deep as possible. So I joined him twice. It was amazing to watch him and his friend Guillaume train they go so deep and make it look so easy. Vision was really good so I could see them descent for quite a bit but nevertheless they disappeared into the darkness. I kept looking down, waiting for them to reappear, for ages it seemed to me. I was far from holding my breath long enough to watch, while I simply floated on the surface. They went to over 50m without fins, whereas I was struggling to get to 13m with the cable.
Interesting sport. It was not holding my breath that was limiting me to go deeper, which would have expected, but it got hard to equalize and bear the pressure on my lungs. It's really hard to explain. As you go deeper the air in your lungs gets compressed, you can feel that in a bizarre way. You feel the your chest getting squeezed and get stressed out, which makes things even worse. Everybody told me to relax, surprisingly that worked. You have to avoid getting tensed, stay calm and relax all your muscles, closing your eyes helps as well.

Well of course that wasn't all we did in Nice, we also went climbing (you ought to be surprised here!). We've been to the Gorge de Blavet, Col sur Loup, Gorges du Loup, and Baou de Saint-Jeannet. I did my first 7a flash there, odly enough on my sixth consecutive day of climbing.

Gorges du Loup 2007-09-15

Baou de Saint-Jeannet 2007-09-10

After that I went to Spain, I stopped by chez Fanny in Avignon, checked out that lovely town by night with her and moved on to Andorra, where I wanted to do some shopping (climbing equipment of course) but ended up not buying a single thing. Interesting country though, they got a very special architectural style there. And every house in a town looks alike, very homogene. One town especially cought my attention as all the houses had flowerpots in front of every single window they also had huge flowerpots in the street and everywhere the same red flower. Sadly I've no clue wich kind, but it was very pretty.
In Spain, well in Huesca to be precise, I met Willy, Clari, Dani, Javi again and got to know some of their friends. We did some bouldering, climbed in Rodellar and another small crag, have to ask the guys for the name again. Great climbing but not as much as I would have wanted to. We had to chill and hang around. Did my first 7a Onsight in Rodellar. Nice!

Rodellar 2007-09

I stayed there for a week and then I went back to Grenoble. I climbed at la Balme de Yenne with Pierre-Alain. The weather was bad so I went south again with Clarisse and Dave. We climbed in Orpierre and the Calanques, where poor Clarisse dislocated her shoulder. Dave's photos here.

Went back home, just in time to start my courses at the university in Innsbruck.
I really had a great time.

Topo Khaplu, Pakistan

Je me suis évanoui! is the name of a route Romain Girault and I established in Khaplu (Kghaplu), Baltisan, Pakistan. It was the first time I did a first ascent of a route - a real adventure. Moreover the route was quite difficult, we gave it a 6b and there were to aided moves A1 that I couldn't free climb. If I would have had the choice I wouldn't have chosen a route that difficult for my first establishment, but hey that's the catch you don't know what to expect - you stand in front of about 300 meters of rock that has never been climbed before, you got no information at all. I'm glad everything worked out in the end, wasn't a walk in the park.

I lead all the pitches in traditional style, meaning that I used friends and stoppers to protect the route, no bolts 'n spits.
For more details and info: Link to the Topo
Topo images

Plans for the rest of summer 07

Hey everybody!

Sorry, still didn't find the time to write about my trip to Pakistan. Romain posted quite a bit on his blog, so if you know French check it out.

So what did I do since I came back? Well, I spent a couple of days in Grenoble, climbed a bit. Threw all my stuff into my car and moved to Salzburg, Austria. Threw all my stuff into my parents house (they were very delighted to see so many bags and shit lying around everywhere). Spent some time with my family, which I haven't seen in a long time. Climbed a bit in Salzburg.
Threw all my stuff in the car moved it to Innsbruck, where I could move into my old apartment - so lucky, that made things so much easier. Climbed a bit in Innsbruck.
Went back to Salzburg, had to give away my car, because it didn't pass the technical inspection. Too rusty - repairing it would be too expensive. Apparently nobody wants to buy it in Austria, so it's probably going to be sold to russia.
Got a new car !! (well, :-P new to me) Big up for my parents for helping me out :D
Went to Arco, Lago di Garda, Italy to meet Erik the Viking and Petra Catalina. (By the way thanks to the Belgian for recommending me the Monty Python movie. Good one! How did your marriage go? Best wishes to you three!). Climbed a bit in Arco. Got to know Stefano and Alberto, two nice guys from Arco, climbed with them.
Next stop was Graz, where I climbed with Judith, Georg and Natti.
Now I'm back in Innsbruck, preparing my trip to France and Spain. Going to go to Céüze tomorrow, then Nice and around southern France.
On 18 September I'll be in Rodellar, Spain - climbing with Willy, Dani and probably some more Spaniards.
End of September I gotta go back to Innsbruck. That leaves me about 5 weeks of traveling around and climbing.

I would have loved to go to Norway to climb with Erik the Viking there, but the flights are quite expensive. It's got to be another time.
The Frankenjura with Jana and Ludwig will be postponed to a long weekend in fall, looking forward to it.

Those are my plans for now - if you wonna join me somewhere, give me shout (well maybe calling or mailing is better). If you're somewhere not too far let me know maybe I'll stop by...
Try calling me on my French cell phone first, then the Austrian number, it is more likely that i got the French SIM card in my phone.

Chamonix, envers des aiguilles

J'ai passé un weekend génial à Chamonix avec Jordi et Mariana - nous sommes aussi connu comme "la cordée international". On a vraiment eu la chance avec le météo, il faisait beau tous le weekend et quand nous sommes partis il a commencé de pleuvoir. On et monté au refuge envers des aiguilles samedi matin et a midi on a attaqué une grande voie de 350m en terrain d'aventure. C'était magnifique: le meilleur granit, les fissure, les coincements, les écailles, les dalles, les friends, les coinceurs, les hex (chez nous ils ont un surnom rigolo: cloche de vache)... Incroyable. Le deuxième jour, pareil! encore une voie magnifique qu'on n'a pas fini, parce qu'on ne voulait pas rater la dernière funiculaire.
C'était le meilleur truc que je pourrais faire pour tester tous mon nouveaux matos que je viens de recevoir. Tout as bien marché! C'était parfait.

Voila les photos:

Envers des Aiguilles 2007-06

J'étais déjà la-bas en septembre 2006 avec Heidi et Pierre. voila les photos, ils sont sur picasaweb dépuis longtemps:

Envers Des Aiguilles, Chamonix 2006-09-24

Plans for summer 07

Well well... My plans for this summer:

• Stay in Grenoble until the end of June
• go directly to Pakistan for some mountaineering
• come back end of July
• move to Innsbruck
• spend some time at home, Salzburg
• climb all over Europe (we'll see about that)

Pakistan: Trek and climbing in the very north, Karakoram, with Pierre, Sylvain and Romain.

Climb all over Europe: I'll start classes in October, so I'll be free in August and September. I thought about traveling with friends in Europe. No precise plans were made, I don't know where I'll go nor with whom. If you want to come along, please let me now!
I dreamed about Norway/Sweden, Germany (Frankenjura), France, Spain... I'm open to suggestions

Calanques & Châteauvert con los españoles

He pasado un fin de semana genial con Diego, Guille, Willy, Dani, Luis, Clara, Heidi, Pierre-Alain y Irina! Todos nos fuimos a Châteauvert para escalar, increíble, me encanta este sitio! La organización era muy española ;), era una maravilla que hemos comido algo caliente. Que difícil es despertar los españoles, bueno especialmente Willy! Además realicé que mi hermano Felix es muy español ;o) A ver los fotos:

Châteauvert 2007-05

Después cogimos los carros (no son coches tío) para ir a los Calanques al lado de Mairseilla. PSYCHOBLOQUE!! (Deep water free soloing) Es todo que digo. PSYCHOBLOQUE!!!!
Muy chido! Así se dice 'puta madre' en México, pinches españoles ;o)
Los fotos: (ya faltan las fotos de los otros...)

Calanques 2007-05

Dani started writing a blog as well! Check it out

Mont Aiguille

Erik wrote a funny post on his blog about our trip to the Mont Aiguille!
Check it out

Châteauvert Video

I uploaded another video to YouTube. This time Dani captured me on camera when I red pointed my most overhanging route so far. David belayed me and did an amazing job in instructing and motivating me throughout the route. It's a 6c+ called Tintinguette in Châteauvert. A fantastic route! It starts off with some pretty hard moves, very technical, with a difficult dead-point into a two finger pocket. Then I take a short rest and get into the most powerful move. A very long move in the roof, where I have to get further and further right on a bad hold, till it finally gets good enough to continue. Then straight up into the hole in the ceiling where I jam my knee, to take a rest before the final moves. I love the hole, feels so great when you know you've done the hardest moves and can take a rest with your feet in there and you hanging out of that orifice. After a short rest I get out of the hole, only a few moves to go...

Fifoxtasy on YouTube!

I uploaded my first video to YouTube!



It's a video about me trying to climb a 7a in "La Balme de Yenne". Dani belaying me. Willy as cameraman. JB and Willy motivating me with lots of "Allez!" and "Geht scho". Willy pretending to motivate me some more in German LOL!

Châteauvert

It's been a while since I put the Châteauvert pictures online, but I forgot to write something about it. Well it's one of the best crags I've ever been to, that's for sure! Dani and I went there from Grenoble and met David and Dodo who came all the way from Austria just to climb there. We wanted to leave Grenoble at 18:00, Dani told me he'll pick me up, but in the end he was 4 hours late. I know, I'm always late as well, but he's even worse ;-) but there is another thing I have to add: He is spanish, I should have known. lol don't take me too serious on this one :D

UPDATE: I added the photos Dani took to the album

Châteauvert 2007-04

Another great climbing spot Pierre-Alain showed me is La Balme de Yenne. Not to far from Grenoble and overhanging, you can even climb there when it rains. Here are some photos

La Balme de Yenne 2007-04-24

Photos of Pont de Vence:

Pont de Vence 2007-04-21

And Pictures of Les Saillants de Gua:

Les Saillants de Gua 2007-04-17

Glésy

War vorgestern in Glésy klettern, das wahrscheinlich landschaftlich schönste Klettergebiet in der Umgebung von Grenoble. Muss unbedingt nochmal dort hin wenn es richtig heiß ist, dann werde ich mich zur Erfrischung unter die Wasserfälle stellen, ein schönes Platzl zum Grillen wäre auch da... Leider ist der Fels ein bisschen brüchig, aber trotzdem ganz interessant zum Klettern.

Glésy 2007-04-03

Rasiert habe ich mich inzwischen auch! Vielen dank für eure Votes, wer noch nicht abgestimmt hat, kann das natürlich noch nachholen um mir seine Meinung zu sagen.

Hey everybody! First of all: Thanks everybody for actually reading my blog! Yesterday I talked to Pierre-Alain, who asked me how I liked the Gorges de Verdon. I was surprised and asked him how he knew about that - "I read it on your blog" he responded. :-) Makes me happy to hear people are reading this. Thanks.
Secondly: Sorry for not writing anything for a long time, it's not like nothing happened I was just too lazy to blog; and of course not having an internet connection at home is a good excuse ;-)


Well, right after my last post I went to the Gorges de Verdon, with Jordi, Joaquín and LLuc. Three Catalans (not Spanish!), who only spoke Catalan to each other. Catalan is a language which is kind of between Spanish and French, so I did understand more than I expected and more the they expected me to understand I guess. It was fun listening to them, in some conversations I didn't understand anything, in others I understood everything (well, at least I had that impression).

We didn't share the pictures we took yet, but as soon as we do I'm going to upload them to my picasa site. (and put the link here)

Un WE en belledonne

Les 13 Janvier, nous sommes partis avec Romain, Sylvain et Heidi faire un couloir facile qui mène à la pointe du sifflet. Cette sortie a été l'occasion pour nous de sortir pour la première fois de l'année les piolets, crampons et tout l'attirail du parfait petit alpiniste. On craignait un peu les difficultés pour la montée mais celle ci s'est passée sans encombre, nous n'avons même pas sorti la corde. En revanche, la descente sur l'arête Nord fut beaucoup plus intéressant. Philipp nous a montré tout son talent en posage de protections ( un peu trop à mon gout vu qu'il commencait à faire froid). Le soir, Mélanie, Nicolas, Laurent, Isaac et Manu nous ont rejoint au refuge (Habert d'Aiguebelle) ou nous avons mangé une grosse fondue, joué au poker et au Yam's. Le Heidi, Romain, Laurent, Mélanie et Philipp sont partis pour faire une arrête Sud, cependant les autres sont descendus. C'était la premiere fois que j'ai grimpe avec des chaussures de montagne et ca m'a étonné que ça marche bien. On a passé tout la journée au plein soleil, on n'est pas arrivé au sommet, mais c'était jolie quand même. La crux était spécial ;) On a grimpé à plus que 2000m en T-shirt, les températures sont la folie.


Sylvain et Philipp

Pic du Pin

Pic de Pin 2006-12-30

Yesterday I wanted to climb the Pic de Pin with Sylvain and Romain, but unfortunately we didn't have the time to finish the route. It didn't really matter if we reached the summit or not, it was a nice hike and a beautiful climb. Sylvain and I really have to get good shoes; waterproof, warm and with a stiff sole. We'll see next year (which starts tonight!) Happy new year to everybody!
We're gonna have a big party at Heidi's place tonight à la Tronche, with a nice view of Grenoble. Whohoo

Trois Pucelles below freezing point

Les Trois Pucelles 2006-12-13

Well, one day after my last post this might sound like I did this just for the pictures... Anyway(s), today I did a multi pitch at the Trois Pucelles. A marvelous climbing site next to Grenoble. You can check out the pictures I took at my webalbum; you might also want to have a look at the the older pictures (I have been there before), that way you can see this crag from two different perspectives.
The route we chose was real nice, but it was so damn cold! There were icicles in the route! Snow everywhere and not the slightest sign of melting. The sun helped a bit, but when she was gone. My fingers got so cold, I couldn't feel anything. When I touched the rock or the metal of my quick draws there was no difference in temperature.
Well, in the end we made it too the summit, got back to the car with the last rays of light, where a snack awaited us... It was a great day.

Une vipère !

Hier j'étais aux Lames, un secteur vachement jolie à côté de Grenoble. C'est tellement proche, on peut y aller en vélo. Quand on est y arrivé il faut monté encore plus à pied. C'est où j'ai rencontré un serpent orange et marron, avec une tête triangulaire. En faite j'ai mis mon pied en haut, par-ce que c'était raide. Il y avait un peu du terre qui a glissé et sûr la terre surfant la serpent. Juste à côté de ma chaussure ça a arrêté. J'ai pensé que je vais pas bougé et l'ai laissé passer, mais le serpent a vu que c'est très confortable et chaud sous mon pantalon. Donc il a décidé de monté dans la jambe de mon pantalon! Vous pouvez imaginer que je n'étais pas d'accord. Le reptile a disparu dans mon pantalon, j'ai du réagir! Donc j'ai fait des mouvements avec mon pied, que j'avais appris dans mon nouveaux stage en neurologie d'un patient qui a parkinson. Enfin il est tombé et s'est enfui. J'étais un peu choqué, surprenant n'est-ce pas? En plus j'étais tout seul.
Quand j'ai raconté l'histoire aux autres, ils m'ont dit que c'était un vipère et qu'il sont venimeux. Je crois que j'ai eu de la chance..

Intruducing my brother and my mom to climbing

St. Pancrasse 2006-10-28

Bastille 2006-10-29

I spent an awesome weekend with my mother and my brother in Grenoble. It felt great to be with my family again. As promised long ago, I went climbing with my brother in St. Paincrasse (le Luisset), my mother came along to read a book and watch us climb. I eventually convinced her to try it too. I think they really liked it, because later that day when I asked them what they want to do the next day, my mother said: "I wouldn't mind to go climbing tomorrow again." Very diplomatic, but I got the message. My brother and I didn't "mind" either - it was settled - we went climbing to the Bastille (Failaise du Père Gras). You'll find pictures from both crags in my foto album. I'm particularly proud of my mum, I mean, how many mums out there would go climbing with you? My brother, Felix, basically kicks ass in any sport he does, so it didn't surprise me that he made a lot of progress in those two days. It's been great spending some time with my family, too bad my father couldn't come.