Monday, July 23, 2012

Fireworks in Germany on the 4th of July!

I know I have been getting lazy on the blog posts, its been pretty uneventful for the most part. There I have been just hanging out close to home trying to get out climbing when it doesn't rain.

A fun little problem in the Pfalz

Julie trying another fun little problem in the Pfalz

Cool things in the Cave we walked through in the Frankenjura

More cool things

Audrey on her walk out of the cave

Getting ready to try Slimline, an amazing route right of Action Directe!

Audrey admiring the easy looking sequence of Action Directe :)

The last month has been kind of a whirl wind! Over the week of the 4th Audrey Sneizek came for a visit. For the time she was here we decided to climb as much as possible. Which meant a few days of bouldering in the Pfalz the first weekend, followed by 5 days in the Frankenjura, then back to the Pfalz. Audrey had a great week of climbing on most of the classics of both areas.

Click here for a funny Video Audrey made of a boulder in the Pfalz!

Super Funny Vid Audrey made!

After Audrey flew home I spent the following week getting ready for our next visitors. My dad and uncle were arriving Friday and Julie and I were going to be spending the next 10 days with them. We start our time with them in Nancy France. France as well as all the other European countries have so many holidays, and that weekend was one of them in France, Bastille Day! It was interesting see the parades and all the military out in the main courtyard of Nancy. Walking around this city was a blast and eating as much food as possible.

Bastille day in Nancy

Crazy church in Nancy

After Nancy on our drive home we decided to stop at the largest US Military War Memorial outside the States. It felt good to stop by and pay our respects!

Largest U.S. Military Cemetary outside the U.S.A.

Over the following week my dad, uncle and I did the tourist thing in Heidelberg and Luxembourg. I even got my dad out climbing one day and did a few really cool sandstone towers that over look the Pfalz forest. To bad neither of us took a camera with us. There were so many sights and things to do in both of these cities, and right now I'm way way to lazy to type about every detail of this week, we'll just say I had a great week visiting with my dad and uncle. Here are just a few more of the 1000 photos taken this past week.

Gateway on a bridge in Heidelberg, Germany

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Casements in Luxembourg

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Neuschwanstein Castle

Bravarian duck dinner

Neuschwanstein Castle

Bridge over looking the castle

Monday, June 25, 2012

2 Mini Vids and a few photos

As of recently we haven't been traveling so much. Each month the military gives us a gas ration of 400 Liters. Not knowing this and just realizing it last week I have used up all of our rations! That's roughly 12 tanks of gas in 3 weeks!!!!!!!! I have never realized how much we drive and spend on gas to be climbers. So with the way gas prices are out on the local economy we decided not to travel anywhere this last weekend. We did however have a few friends stop by for a few days. Chris Wild who is on a summer long trek through Europe seeing the sights stopped by for a few days of sleeping in a bed. He has been staying in Magic wood sleeping in a hammock under a tarp for the last month. Dallas Milburn also stopped by for a few days before he had to fly back home to boulder. The last 4 days have been fun, lots of desserts, cleaning boulders and trying to climb on as many boulders as possible. We made a few small videos feature just a small percentage of the boulders we climbed on.

Fruity tastiness

Julie enjoying her cappachino

Choco Delight

Ice Cream Cappachino

Micro Froggy

Dallas in the gym

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Photo's and a mini bouldering Vid!

This was a little video I made one day while I was out bouldering alone. The footage isn't the greatest but I thought I would share some of the problems I have found and climbed so far. The rock kind of reminds me of something from the south east, like Rock Town, LRC and HP40. Its been extremely humid thus far which means low motivation on harder problems. Hopefully I will be able to post some of those next fall/winter.

Missing Gus-Gus a lot!

Over the weekend when Tania came for a visit, we tried to do as much as possible. We started that Saturday out by hitting up a local bakery for sweet tasty treats, then wanted to head over to the local 12th century castle that Julie and Tania have not seen yet. After about an hour of roaming through and around the castle I was getting the itch to grab some rock and try real hard. We headed to a cliff that I have spent quit a bit of time at and I was excited to try some harder routes. We started out by warming up on a great little route with big holds and swiss cheese pockets. Next up was putting the draws up on Julies project which climbs out a roof with huge moves. Luckily Julie crushed it and didn't have to worry about trying it again. Once I was warmed up properly I was hoping to get on a really cool looking 8b that another guy was trying and getting really close on. After watching him walk through the moves and scrubbing up all the holds I decided not to try it so I wasn't in his way. I moved my rope over under a route I have already climbed, Magnet Finger, and decided to try a link up that starts on this route and finish up the 8a crux to the right. My first try up the route after placing the draws was a decent attempt, falling off the swing move which is the last move of the route. Luckily on the second attempt I stuck the swing and was clipping the chains of this amazing 8a+ that I don't know the name of. Once we were done I wanted the girls to see a cool area where the climbers camp ground and restaurant was. The food was great and the area is amazing looking with a lot of farm animals (that you know you are eating!). The following day Tania had to catch a train at 2 so we decided to check out the largest Japanese garden in Europe, which is here in town. It was cool everything you expect at a place like this, crazy looking carp, waterfalls, ponds, and plants. There was however a photo shoot going on while we were there. As we walked in we saw people dressed up in Anime outfits with crazy ears and weapons with them. Once we dropped Tania off at the train station Julie and I decided to hit up one of the local bouldering spots The Kalmit. There is a lot of problems in this area from super easy to around FB 7C+. I will try to get more pictures and vidoes of the boulders in the area in the future, but for now here is a bunch of pics from the previous few weeks.