Things we have done 30 min of the house.

Since returning from Ceuse, Dallas Milburn and I have been staying busy locally.  There is a lot climbing within a 30 min. drive of us.  It isn't the best in the world but it will have to do for the time we are here.  As I have mentioned it kind of reminds me a little bit of the RRG.  The same sandstone and is located in humid rain forest like climate.  The climbing on the other hand is a bit different, the routes tend to be shorter and more power based.  It is a fun time none the less.  There is also a ton of bouldering, although it has been hard to find.  The bouldering guide for the area is out of print and we can't find one to buy so it has been extremely difficult to find the boulders.  Asking the locals hasn't seemed to work either, all we have heard is "you'll figure it out".  Its kind of frustrating but what ever ill just have to walk a lot of cliff line and do it the old fashion way.  The boulders that we have found are decent, most of which are cliff bands with drop offs.  Think of the RRG and HP40 have babies, that's what the bouldering reminds me of. 

Me on some 13a

Dallas on Magnet Finger 13a

Climbing isn't the only thing that we have been doing.  Just the other day Dallas and I made a 5 mile round trip walk to a 12th century castle.  This castle over looks a the valley and all its tiny villages.  We were shocked and amazed at how old the castle really was.  There were stalactites 1 to 2 inches in length hanging from the ceilings and walls.  When you snapped a picture when the flash on the walls would have a crazy green glow from all the algae and calcium that has built up over time.  There were bullet holes and cannon balls all over the exterior from all the different wars in the past.  It was definitely an amazing experience, and nice it is just a walk from the house!

A wall in the middle of the woods on the way to the castle.  We think it was a Holocaust memorial wall where people were executed, felt super weird standing there next to a all the bullet holes in the wall!

 

One of the many passages through the castle

Outside of the castle, built on and around the cliff

Entrance to the castle with peep holes on either side

Stalactites

Stalactites

Thinking an air hole and or a hole for transporting things

Craziness on our walk back

Our living arrangements here are great.  We live on top of a very nice ladies garage which over looks a swimming pond with a Bar/Restaurant attached, and huge park with a ton of cool toys!  There are miles and miles of trails in the hills around us and there is even some rock, i guess we'll see if it is climbable in the future.  I am excited to take advantage of all the cool things later this summer.

Ceuse and More

As many may already know from the social net workings of FB, I spent the last week in Ceuse.  But the weekend before also needs some mentioning.  A few weeks ago our Honda Element arrived, we were psyched to be out of the tiny little Fiat and have our own car back.  During the first week of having it, there was something noticeably wrong with it and it needed taken into the shop.  We thought we took care of this problem back in the states but the American dealership was to lazy to actually find the problem which we found out once over here.  But anyways, the mechanic needed the car for a week so we got yet another rental.  This time though we didn't settle for a teeny tiny Fiat, this time we went with the BMW Hatchback!  I was so excited to be able to drive a Beamer on the autobahn.  I picked Julie up from work and from there we headed east to visit with our friends Frank, Mandy, the kids and the new nanny Tania Peret Allen!  I was so excited that there were times I had no clue how fast I was traveling.  I has always been a goal of mine to hit the 200 kmh which seemed to happen extremely easy in this car, while being passed by many others leaving me in the dust!  Once at Frank and Mandy's we had an amazing weekend of pocket pulling.  The cool thing about the Frankenjura is there are so many little sectors that you can go to a new one just about everyday for a year.  We hit up a few cool crags the first day warming up on some 8s and doing some 9-s and 9s.  Then the fallowing day we wanted to take it kind of easy and try and get some mileage so we went to an area with a lot of tiny sectors.  When we made it to the area we noticed that the majority of the cliffs were taped off with signs saying keep out predatory birds.  Apparently there are a lot of predatory birds in the area so where one is nested the cliffs around are closed until till the birds are done with the area and move on.  Luckily there were a few open cliffs close by so we did some fun pocket pulling!  When we left I couldn't to see how far I could push the Beamer this time!  Need less to say it was a fast journey hitting top speeds of 230 kmh!!!!!!!!  The crazy part about this was I WAS STILL BEING PASSED!  We made it home safe and sound and I had to pack for Ceuse since I was leaving bright and early the next morning.

Tania crushing it!

Frank is a friggin beast!

Julie dropped me off at the train station bright and early at 6:30 am.  I sat in the bakery waiting for my train chewing at my fingernails.  This was the first time I have ever used a train, not know how the whole precess worked and knowing any of the languages in any of the counties I will be in.  Luckily Frank and Mandy showed me how to read my tickets the day before which turned out to be super helpful.  I made it to Grenoble flawlessly!  Here I waited for a few of my buddies, Jonathan Siegrist, and Dallas Milburn.  They showed up and off we were to the icon CEUSE.  Ever since the first month I started climbing I have dreamed of coming to this cliff.  Hearing story after story of perfect limestone, probably the best cliff in the whole world is all i heard for years.  Pictures just don't do this place justice.  We made it to the camp ground only to see that we were going to be staying in a sardine can (its a camper, locals call it a Caravan).  This thing had to be at least 30 years old and stunk!  We made light of the sardine can and couldn't wait to get out to the cliff the next morning.

Outside of the Sardine Can

Inside

Inside with Dallas

We have all heard the rumors that the hike up to Ceuse is intense.  Well all those rumors are kinda true.  It was an average of an hour everyday we went to the cliff.  It is one of the best made trails I think I have ever hiked to a climbing area.  Its one consistent grade the whole way and never lets up.  By the end of the hike on day two I thought my legs were going to be giving out on me (I was in pretty bad shape when we first arrived).  Once at the cliff it just feels magical and exposed.  Surrounded by mountains and tiny little french towns, the views are to die for.  The climbing, well lets just say it is amazing and run out with no chalk anywhere!   The warm ups felt extremely hard and the hard routes felt even harder!  Everything about climbing here was hard, so don't head to Ceuse if you want to be lazy!  The whole week of climbing was a humbling one for myself.  I haven't climbed higher than 45ft in four months, just about every route in Ceuse is 90ft or higher.  I managed to do the warm ups and an ascent of a super classic amazing 13a called Berlin.  The rest of the time I was getting my ass handed to me by every other route.  I can not wait to return in shape and ready to take some shit down!!!!  September can't come soon enough!

Me on Berlin

The View

The View

Rest day in Gap

Rest day in Gap

Rest day in Gap

Rain Rain Rain!

So the last few weeks have been going extremely slow.  The rain here seems like it is none stop.  We have had 3 days with no rain in the last 19 days.  Two of those days were spent in the Frankenjura pulling on some pockets and the other none rain day was spent in the dentist office.  We moved into our micro apt. 2 weeks ago, its in a great location.  There is an amazing little pond (assuming man made) with little beaches and blocked off sections for the little kids to play, and a pub for all the elders to enjoy.  We have yet to check out all the hiking trails out our door, once it stops raining I'll be able to check it all out.  Last weekend Julie and I headed east to the Frankenjura to visit our friends Frank and Mandy Byron.  On our way we stopped in Heidelberg and picked up another friend Dave Hume, stuff like sausages in our micro Fiat we flew down the Autobahn doing 160kpm!!!!!  Once at Frank and Mandy's we had to get out and check out the cliffs.  You will all have to forgive me because I don't remember the names of anything so I have to throw out a bunch of numbers.  On Saturday we headed to a nice quiet cliff that was around 45 to 55 ft tall, with 3 to 5 bolts on any one route.  The warm ups that we did (low 11's) were sparsely bolted with 3 bolts on each route.  10ft to the first bolt then another 15 ft to the second and 8 ft to the 3rd then another 8 or so to the single bolt anchor.  They were super fun routes be I think we all over gripped a little trying to get use to the run outs.  After we warmed up we all moved down the wall to check out some of the 5.12s.  We all had a ton of fun on these, the bolts were a bit closer and the moves were a lot harder and more interesting.

Some little 13a in the Frankenjura

Frank Byron

Dave Hume

The insanely run out wall we went to the first day

 The next day we decided to go to an area where Dave wanted to meet up with some friends.  When we walk down the hill the massive, and I mean massive crowds were overwhelming.  These routes were around 25ft tall and there was probably 15 routes on this one particular wall, with around 30 people either climbing/belaying or being complete gumbies.  We decided to check out another little sector that was a little taller and a little less busy.  Here Julie and I warmed up on a few routes that reminded me of a chossier Rifle.  Once warmed up we moved over to a cave with some harder more powerful routes.  Here I punted on a 13a first try and did it on my second try.  Julie decided to check out some of the routes on the left side of that cave, she led everything she got on that day!!!!!  Once we left the Frankenjura I knew I was going to have a super busy week.  The week consisted of getting the Internet working, and going to the climbing gym, dinner with new friends and going to the dentist.  Really busy for ME :) 

Yesterday Julie and I had to go to the "shoe town".  We learned about this town when we first got here and found the climbing there.  In this town there is a shoe museum along side 50 or so shoe stores.  It was interesting seeing all the super old shoes along side Roger Federer's championship shoes, to Hitlers shoes.  Shopping around there wasn't much I wanted and surprisingly Julie didn't see much either.  We left the town with a new shirt and only one pair of shoes, nice cheap shopping day.

Today was once again a crazy rainy day.  We at least made it out to the rock which was extremely greasy.  I did however manage to do a new 13a/b called Magnet Finger.  Once I was done on that I decided to try and give a cool looking 13b/c to the right a try.  This route has a techy  vert section that goes right into an 8 ft roof crux where you grab one of the coolest slopers I have used out side.  Unfortunately I blew the OS when I couldn't hold the core tension with the HUGE swing with the feet cutting.  Next time I guess, hope its drier!