The last 6 weeks have been extremely busy with visitors, travel and house/dog sitting. But before this adventure started I have to tell you about all the new boulders I had found and started cleaning. I remember walking through these boulders, which are situated just outside the hospital Julie works at, when we first arrived in Germany. My thoughts on them were, if they ever dry up there could be a lot of problems in this area. Well after a long dry spell I decided to walk them once again while I waited for Julie to get off work. To my surprise they were bone dry! At the same time other local climbers found the same area and were excited about all the new boulders. Everyone jumped in and started cleaning boulders, with close to 40 problems established now and probably close to 40 more to be cleaned and climbed! I think in the first week alone I cleaned and climbed close to 15 boulders. Here are some short clips of a few of the problems.
Julie Killin it!
Dave Hume Warming up!
I started this adventure on Sept. 8th, that day I took a train to Geneva to meet up with a friend, Nick Greenwell. From there we were heading to climb on what I feel is the best sport climbing cliff I have ever climbed on, CEUSE! To me Ceuse has it all, hard powerful technical moves with rope stretching heights. For me there is just something magical about being there over looking the french countryside, with gliders soars just above us. Nick and I spent just under 2 weeks climbing on this cliff. I have to say I had a better climbing experience this time around. Unlike the spring trip I was actually able to climb quit a few amazing routes. The one I was most excited to try was an 8a La Couler du Vent. I had tried this route once in the spring and to me it had some of the best stone I have ever climbed on and I knew I had to climb it. On our first day I decided to give it a go and surprisingly I one hung it. With all the bouldering I had been doing I must have stored up some endurance because that one hang came out of no where. I proceeded to one hang it though for a week before I finally had the juice to pull though the upper crux. After that I wanted to climb every remaining day we had there. After that day I went 5 days on and on the 5th day of hiking and climbing I thought I was going to die at the end of it all. Lets just say I climbed a lot of phenomenal routes and anyone that rock climbs should visit this cliff!
I can never get to much of this!
Left blue streak is La Couler du Vent and the right is Berlin
There is a particular day that comes to mind when I think back on this trip. The wall was the Cascade Wall and this wall is PERFECT for sunsets, close to the best sunsets I have ever seen. Nick and I decided we wanted to have our own little sunset photo shoot. We ran over to the wall Nick tied into a route called Super Mickey (bigger jugs than anything the RRG has to offer) and cruised up to a certain point and clipped in direct. I tied him off and ran back up the hill a ways and proceeded to snap as many photos of him "climbing" as I could. When he was done we switched places. The whole time this was going on I was thinking, we are huge dorks!!!! But you know to me climbing just doesn't get any better. Nick might think other wise though, in true Nick fashion he decided to wait until the last concivable moment to send his project. He tried this route Berlin the first day we were there and last day, last burn of the trip he sent! That is one sending process he will probably never forget. NICE JOB NICK! This was a fun successful trip that will never forget.
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