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.
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| Tania crushing it! |
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| 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.
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| Outside of the Sardine Can |
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| Inside |
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| 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!
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| Me on Berlin |
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| The View |
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| The View |
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| Rest day in Gap |
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| Rest day in Gap |
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| Rest day in Gap |
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