Gunnar warms up in Les Tâches Rouges. The next old school bolt is in sight.
After his rock concert, Linus jams out of the Pino Prati dihedral.
The blank slab crux of The Sandbagger. Papa or mama eagle owl flies out. Their species is in worldwide decline, but here they thrive on a further off inaccessible rock.
Sheltering where it's cool. Arend, Sander, Gunnar and me have a send day.
Did it!
the crag in the sky
Submitted by margerita
Long long drive, far from home. Darkness sets in. A road takes us over forest creek ravines. I know this... these woods, fields, pastures, this Guérins sign, campervans passing, lime trees, bare feet, the tent of our friends,...
We gaze up high. Lights flicker beneath darkblue sky. Tomorrow we're lights too. Tomorrow we join, we go up for Céüse.
Zürich's milk and honey lay behind, the misty white mountains ahead. Look up to the blue sky where fog will soon reign and craziness will begin. Come and travel the sky by rocks that move more easily than the horrified uninvited guests on top of them:
I) Captain Salbit. II) Alpstein Skies. III) Gastlosen Tour... And other tales of madness.
One morning in May I walk a shadowy trail. Huh?! I turn 'round. Did I see something in the shade there?
Pumpgun. Godly moves up the depths of Mordor ( May).
Bennie around Easter in The Walk of Life (extension), an unbelievable line in the Waldviertel near Wachau (known for the 30.000 year-old Venus of Willendorf).
Alana halfway. Soon Le Cathedral is beaming yellow with spring cinquefoil.
off with no propeller
Submitted by margerita
n/a atm
To Grotta Pineta
A bitter almond tree, and if you find him a less bitter Smokey in Truffatore.
n/a
Les Mots Bleus
Broke into the secluded green hills, going on a pilgrimage to Makinodromo's Lourdes
tales of freyr
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Liuba cleans La legge delle chiodande (='The Law of Closure') after onsighting. It features far sideway moves between tufas and a few parts where holds are missing. Alex Honnold climbs it a few days later. In the back you see the uninhabited lands crossed by the Selvaggio Blu adventure trek.
pecorino power rangers
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n/a
Di Fissure ( 3 photos below).
Hans in Platons Insel on the Atlantis rock in Höllental, Rax-Schneeberg, high above the Schwarza flow. While the fireflies sleep to get ready for their party. ( six summer photos above)
Petit Dru (lines) - (1985 reconstruction of Profit's 1982 solo of the American direct) ( 3 photos).
HISTORY
Submitted by margerita
THE OLD ALPINE
TESTAMENT &
THE PROPHETS OF
FREE CLIMBING...
Green mountains all stumble atop each other. Going to Cascade, leaving Biographie in the shade where Stefano Ghisolfi has his first encounter with Bibliographie.
la vie en rose
Submitted by margerita
We'll be eating baguette in the rain amidst Burgundian sunflowers, cutting the pastèque travelling the mountain regions and lakes of the Dauphiné, taking pizza from a vending (/baking) machine in the Baronnies, crossing Mt Ventoux to walk up narrow streets into 1000+ year old villages, and back down into cherries, on to Lubéron hills and canyons.
Led it and sweat ( 4 Mozet photos above).
Wanterbaach welness
Submitted by margerita
n/a atm
Aga in Phenix
( 8 photos).
Right before the impossible send at the Sambre banks
ice climbing
Submitted by margerita
n/a atm
Into Condroz, onto the bright path, the forbidden track
Tautavel
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n/a atm
Up with the last light in La Grande Cheminée
Ben climbs Monte Oro (Our Handsome Friend Pavel).
please holds be jugs
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n/a atm
Afterwork session (the projie)
Water solo home with Ramses, Tom and Dave.
Schools impose on Western kids a view on the world, reduced to giant-ass pixels the size of nations. Rivers can be an alternative basis to build spatial knowledge on.
Notice the Tagliamento river, the last Alps river of which the course has not been strained yet.
Geum Reptans above an ice lake where we saw a big old trout.. Fish are imported in high alpine lakes for sport fishing, they can't reproduce here, nonetheless they threaten local ecology (scientific article).
Ailefroide (say: L-fwraa-du)
Submitted by margerita
Alpes — the whites — Romans said of the snow-capped wall of mountains. Brightness obscures all detail of the dazzling colors of insects, foxes, lynxes and orchids. In current societal fevers' heatwaves, the Alps provide shadow. Off highways we tread babysteps to where all becomes bigger (or we become smaller) like Alice tiptoeing into Wonderland.
Lockdown in Luxembourg
Vertical free solo limit
Submitted by margerita
For our sponsor we looked for a sensational adventure.
January mist, wet streets and rainforest. Yet Pull Marine's blank wall is in good condition. We top out.
Sharp and subtle Brodo di Calzini
Somewhere Monte Sordo
for a few climbs more (per qualche arrampicate in piu')
Submitted by margerita
Like true Ligurians we're packed with sweets. Let's find these legendary rocks! Bye steep empire of thick-leaved evergreens! Here we come Finale Ligure, hidden somewhere down where medieval buildings (Finalborgo) squeeze through the valley to reach the sea (Finalmarina). Really, only the sea never hides in the rocky Piedmont foothills.
Die Ringbolzen des Nibelungen
Submitted by margerita
Well after sundown we escape steep rocky slopes, out of the grip of beech trees, oaks and quartzite rock monsters. Southeastwards we will continue to follow that bustling blue vein down there, boding its chain of prominent cities from where we'll push through to the lands of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and set foot in Odenwald's hills.
Ballerina slab Kurz und Knackig on home grounds
Wim lays his eyes on Altmeisterschreck (oldschooler's nightmare)
Toothless at the collapsed (= by 20th-century mine industry destroyed) Grottes Schmerling. In 1829 Schmerling made the first and northernmost find of a Neanderthal. The remains were accompanied by Homo Sapiens fossils, marking the second acknowledged find ever of an old Homo fossil and the start of paleontology.
ABC to get your climbing master's degree
Submitted by margerita
Stop fighting the gravity of wisdom and let climbing knowledge come to you.
Hannes
Koen and Tom, Luxembourg
Font
Cave uprising
Submitted by margerita
'Roof works co.’ tries to escape apocalyptic scenes. The company flees to the heart of climbing valhalla Condroz, where the south of Belgium is said to be gentle. But la douce Belgique is reckoned without Modave’s cave. Guided by the lights of fireflies they'll be fighting on arrival, struggling for survival.
Luxembourg
Shine bright like a dino
Submitted by margerita
The sinking sun colors her own path through the beech trees. All of a sudden two cars slam on the brakes as two deer walk over. We are about to set foot in a vivid village, shining like it's just been built. Indeed, we don't know where to look first, as we're drawn to a lush garden. Come along west of the Rhine along the verge of Pfalz and Vosges...
Siudrama
Submitted by margerita
Us three return to the near-desert. Limestone cliffs turn into extraterrestrial monuments. Incontainable become the chunks of abandoned spaceship motherboards, devoured by all that grows. Today’s the day. Weeks into the infamous season — stonemeltingly hot! desolate! — we find abandoned Siurana reigned by cool sweeping breezes. We foresaw.
Sam
Ben in La muerte del Sponsor
Ben and Hans in El Prado del Rey with the chalked holds of Negociée in the background
Frankenjura
Fabi in Pathos
..
Ice climbing in Belgium
Pomegranate garden of Eden
Submitted by margerita
We fly above sea. The day's dying and the planet glows red like it's on fire.
Sharply a coastline starts the already pitch-black dark. Land. But soon we find the littlest of lights.
Orange dots guide tiny cars that drift in this mean dark... the dark in which we are about to set foot on the ground.
Once called Lycia by vanished people we'll call it Eden.
Hans DW
Hoa at Haut-Barr
Hans high up in the second crux of Aeroplane Klaxon, ready to link into Mona Lisa's climaxing difficulties (opened in 1985 by Arnould 't Kint).
Right of this line there is Boulevard du Vol which Arnould t'Kint finds and eventually frees in 1983*, with no difficulty grade yet to express the impossibility of what he's done. At that moment the elusive French 8th grade has yet to become considered a possible new level that is also discovered by Wolfgang Güllich (Pfalz/Altmühltal/Frankenjura-..), Jerry Moffatt (Wales), Patrick Edlinger (Buoux), Antoine Le Menestrel (Saussois), Luisa Jovane (Arco/Dolomites), Catherine Destivelle (Buoux) and several others. (*Some sources mention 1981 but a CAB interview with Arnould confirms 1983.)
Jeunesse
Flight to Nice
Submitted by margerita
I jump in, belaying Ben in projects, and Ben belays me on the go. Over the weeks we each send a series of new personal benchmarks. Kaboom! Time to team up for multipitches?
Stefan in the beginning of Glucose
Mission Dibona
Submitted by margerita
I open my work agenda. A lot of colored days are coming up. DIBONA BRAM they say.. Aha, the plan we made last winter: celebrating Bram’s research (in Paris, being awarded a PhD) with a roadtrip into France with the elusive, high and pointy cherry on top: Dibona.
Hiding for the sun, north facing Donkey Kong (Grottes Schmerling).
Les Quatre Cents Buts... (French film (1959) and slang for The Four Hundred Goes)
La Dalle Oublié
Thiebout tries to figure out Borderline near Berdorf (with an incredible send some time later)
Granitbiten at Skälefjäll
The long awaited Chamonix trip
Submitted by margerita
..to Sweden... To the probably only place in the world where a small grocery store sells crack gloves, friends, nuts and hexes (the latter optimized in 1974 by the Swedish Tomas Carlström). We will find ourselves with no bolt in sight, no chain to clip, in a kingdom of pure trad.
Grotte du Brotsch
Veni, sendi, vici in the Modave trilogy
Three lizards
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..
Triumph
Jardin Secret trilogy finale with Hans
Report Initiations
Submitted by margerita
LUAK Trophy’s flame passed on with the assistance of Liuba, which means the semester is off! So soon one thursday evening in the dark wintery streets of Leuven, at LUAK's headquarters, a light burns and lost Existenz-architects stumble in and find us stuffing the KULeuven van with the settenbakken. So the story begins, a tale of rock initiations.
LUAK Wintermeet
Submitted by margerita
Top Italia Arrampicata
Hans
Pieter
Calanques
Submitted by margerita
Ever yearned for a thrilling climbing chronicle unfolding above the azure blue Calanques? Sigh no more! Especially for you dear readers, fanciers of fancily written reports, I will decently typ here in the utmost strive of eloquence my very own clearly written, yes, with delicate care presented, link to Wim's Calanques report. Others can click above.
Chill a l'aise met de ijsvijs
Submitted by margerita
Ge hebt interesse in een alpiene startstage die u een basiszelfstandigheid geeft. Ge stelt het uit. En dan moogt ge telkens passen als een paar mensen een zot alpien plan hebben of een speciale multipitch weten maar met gletsjeraanloop en moordlustige seracs. Doe maar zo'n stage (of andere stevige introductie).
f*ck berge tenzij blankenberge
Submitted by margerita
Het is alweer enkele jaren geleden dat de Summermeet naar een alpiene bestemming trok. Nu is het zover: Chamonix. Dit jaar hebben we het KUL-buske, en nog goed lang zelfs, dus we rijden eerst naar La Berarde. We blijken niet alleen. (Fotoverslagje)
Eerste aprildagen met Sebastian, Brecht en Naomi.
Coldfingerweekend
Submitted by margerita
Voor dag en dauw, als licht al aanbleekt op het lover, ga ik op pad. Ik weet wel dat jij op mij wacht. Ik trek de bossen door en trek de bergen over, ik heb te vaak ver van jou mijn dagen doorgebracht.
Kobe
Costa Blanca
Submitted by margerita
We zijn goed op weg in de winter. De lesvrije week komt. We kiezen voor goedkope snelle vluchten, in ruime zetels, tussen bruingeschminkte glitterende bomma's. Jawel. Richting Benidorm. (delen I-VI + gsmfoto’s)
Professor Ivan and Pieter in Une saison en enfer, (re)bolted a few months ago by Flo and Félix.
Find Dave
Ailefroide
Submitted by margerita
Schapenwolkjes leken klimgrepen en een bende was al in Frankrijk rond Grenoble en Briançon. Ik moest tot dan werken. Mabon, toen wisten we het. Mijn auto werd gevuld als de kolenkachel van een stoomtrein, de koffer werd volgepuzzeld: koffer dicht.
Niels toont Marie Rose
trad bij de fransen
Submitted by margerita
EIKEBAH BOORHAKEN.. zeiden we... knuffelend met een paar sets nuts en friends. Het was tijd voor graniet en barsten. En laat de Zuid-Vogezen nu net op maar 1,2 Fontainebleau van Leuven zijn. Fotoverslag van een dik verlengd weekend:
Nneka ( photo below).
coldfingerweekend
Submitted by margerita
Leuven. We're on the eve of spring. It's sunny, friday and late. Students, back from class/working/PhD/.., have packed in two vans and a car. Tasks are divided. Driver, music maestro, midfingermanager, co-pilot, window orchestrator.. LUAK’s coldfingerweekend is about to begin.
El Chorro
Submitted by margerita
De lesvrije week is nog niet eens begonnen of een vliegtuig Zaventem-Malaga vertrekt in het holst van de nacht. Diezelfde dag nog, 's avonds, bolt een auto over bergflanken El Chorro binnen. Het zal nog ff duren voor we tegoei beseffen wat er allemaal gebeurd is. (lang verslag)
Einde Hungaria
coldfingerweekend
Submitted by margerita
(pandemonium, iemand een echt verslag?)
verslag initiaties
Submitted by margerita
(in afwachting van verslagen van La Douce France hoorde ik)
verslag Arco
Submitted by margerita
Zwoele zomeravond. Fish are jumping out. Aankomst Arco. Na La Bérarde is er een tweede summermeet. Handig voor wie de eerste ook moest skippen wegens andere dringende trip. Ik voeg me bij de cordée van Alessio, Hannes en Wannes. Drie is geen getal om mee te zijn.
Wings of barb wire
