Escurço Vermell (Red Viper) at El Trinquet.
Exploring Kamaleon while the sun sets on the mountains of Montsant.
Thiebout onsights Somnis Inoxidables, just before the heaven's floodgates open at Clot del Boixar in the Montserrat massif.
Clip it! Alana sends Romanée-Conti in Beez.
heart of the alps
Submitted by margerita
I admit, I just wanted a catchy title here. Actually the Alps have many hearts, but surely a fiercely beating one is the Uri canton where glaciers hang on sheer vertical walls of misty granite, while the Rhône, Rhine, Aare and Reuss spring up and flow down legendary mountain passes, set to stir, shape and inspirit boundless lands downstream.
Pol enters the short but intense line of Tailormade in Burnot ( more photos of August)
High in the icy sky
Submitted by margerita
n/a
Glacier de Saleinaz
The bright blue Durance valley slowly emerges out of the blinding morning light. We'll take this valley to Lac de Serre-Ponçon.
Holzerkante, a classic of Falkenfluh.
basler JURA
Submitted by margerita
n/a
The start of Nordwand's crux on a blank crystal wall, in the forests near the ruins of Prandegg, in the region of Linz.
FRANKENJURA
Submitted by margerita
n/a
Gummitwist mit dem Antichrist. Just us and the inhabitants of the forest.
Hermann Buhl. Liuba just stuck the right-hand catch. Now she continues a tricky sequence to two slopey microholds from where you have to make a committing long move. Magic if you stick it. ( one extra shot + three more April photos)
Alana strings together some engaging laybacks in L'Academique (mid March)
pais valencia
Submitted by margerita
...
The hills near Calles reveal a Roman aquaduct.
Two weeks ago Calles-village made international news by recording the warmest January temperatures that were ever recorded in Europe: 30.7°C, marking yet another extreme weather event. Back home, the following month of February becomes the darkest and warmest February to date.
Trempoline. Legendary day with the train to Esneux.
HansDW warms up in Dansez sur moi
ciao ragni di lecco
Submitted by margerita
...
Crow's rock
Niki drops out Le Cosmos whilst clipping
greetings from Modave
Submitted by margerita
Flashback: It's June, we're plagued by heatwaves and Hans is passing by. We need a cool and breezy north face, so we revive our old Modave project and explore its mind-bending extensions. Time to see the fireflies popup at dark. Time to dance up through Modave's darkness..
manikia
Submitted by margerita
Take a Greek product and look at the map that's probably printed on the package. Above Athens you'll see a long-stretching island. Often such drawings wrongly connect it to the land. Either way, some shape there will depict the large unnegligible island of Evia where I am now. Let's find world-class climbing in hidden canyons, sheltered from storm Elias.
escape to Chamonix
Submitted by margerita
A weekend to Chamonix! Now high-season is over! Right? Turns out it's the busiest weekend of all. Streets are packed. And from every high-up window people lean out to catch a glance of the world's toughest trail athletes running the 171st kilometer, the last, of the painfully-steep UTMB. We go up into the wind and tradclimb to Le Brévent's top.
Wolf in Cap'taine Coeur de Miel
pink skies
Submitted by margerita
Photos by sundown dingos.
mountains of legends
Submitted by margerita
We made it deep into the spiky Dolomites where the Ladin tell their sagas. We learn of the Sciliar witches. The Pale Mountains. The mermaid of Lake Carezza. Or the Rëgn de Fanes. Meanwhile, in the background, hostile rock towers disappear into the clouds. If only these rocky peaks could talk. They'd tell of Dibona, Comici, Cassin, Varale and Piaz.
This stag-beetle feels at home in Flône's oak forest. She's probably not mad that an extremely wet July follows a record-breaking dry June.
Locally, the last five summers broke records, three of them with drought, two with rain. Statistically the Belgian summers became more variable, and on average 30% drier. Winters have become 30% more wet.
After an infernal series of low-percentage moves, Liuba escapes Tribut Croquettes' merciless overhang
( two shots of the workout before)
Monkey See, Monkey Do towering up Bois de Mâle Plume
We heelhook our way through Toothless on a hot evening
lands of the banana slug
Submitted by margerita
I was going to call this story land of the bears... but we didn't see one. In the coastal rainforests of the Klamath mountains our furry fellas stayed as much a myth as the old Sasquatch. But where do you start to look? We're surrounded by dinosauric ferns. Tall ancient trees bend over us. And, inland, strange rocks emerge in the Trinity subrange..
Mariposa wilderness
end of the road
Submitted by margerita
Bye San Francisco! Adios Monterey! Adieu Pacific Coast! I race across the agro-industrial sordidity that fills the San Joaquin valley, until the first foothills of the Sierra Nevada bring salvation. They will lead to Yosemite with the whitest of snow, pierced by black burned oldgrowth. Then we'll drive around the snowy range and start into the East Sierra.
Nico fights his way up the aforementioned line
Jordi puts the puzzle pieces together in Gincobiloba
Dave seconds Ligne de Fuite on Easter (Notice yellow flowers of buckler-mustard, a plant of the high mountains. In the Benelux it has its last refuge on the rocks around Freyr and Comblain.)
Rocher Amont's three obscure slabs
Pigeons and starlings
The promise of clouds brings us to Racó de les Espadelles. We pass Jorge Diaz-Rullo cruising in Moriarty and now we walk under True Hero.
HDW scales Mélanine's dolomite, a line overlooked by topos and registers
Around christmas the day had started all white and spikey with ice caps on the river. Simon and me both send our project on Al'lègne. (Picture of Cool Cat Flo)
pomegranate garden of eden
Submitted by margerita
The world below has been growing bright red like a dying fire. The glow reaches beyond the horizon.
Then a mean sharp-edged blackness crops up. We seem to close in on land. We cross over it and enter complete darkness..
'till orangey dots will light up and curve onwards into the unknown.
Once named Lycia by vanished people we'll soon call it Eden.
the kalympics
Submitted by margerita
Olympians make a mythical effort to do what humans are said they cannot do. Their epic name suggests their feats might even be worthy a glance of the gods inhabiting Mount Olympos. The Kalympian on the other hand hopes the gods aren't watching too much, just to skip the embarrassing struggle with banana-addicted goats and old scooters.
Goatie above the Aegean sea
We started in Neuberg an der Mürz. The expedition now leads into Obersteiermark's Alps and we are about to find Konstante, the unbelievably ninja-defying vertical route that requires next-level sorcery.
Road to Atlantis
chillertal
Submitted by margerita
n/a
A horn of plenty, also known as black chanterelle or trumpet of the dead.
Gunnar speeds up in Les Tâches Rouges. The next rusty old-skool bolt is in sight.
Did it! A long time project has come to an end! That arch totally knocked me out of the field the first encounter. Today I finished this whacker. Lots of thanks to my beta buddies and belayer!
the crag in the sky
Submitted by margerita
Darkness creeps. It's already been a long drive far from home. For a while now it's been going steeply up. Oh! First familiar forest creek ravines and then bosky pastures strike our eyes: Guérins is close! Soon we're barefeet! ..Worming into a tent under lime trees. Yes! At arrival, lights will flicker high beneath the dark sky. Tomorrow evening we'll shine.
Alpstein, Switzerland. If you look closely you can see chocolate streams splash over the hills.
misty mounties (weekends around zurich: a compilation)
Submitted by margerita
Zürich's milk and honey lay behind. Steep valley flanks pierce through clouds and finally disappear into the misty sky. That's where the madness will begin, where rocks will move easier than us, horrified and perplexed guests of spiking granite blades. Be cautioned by our tales:
Captain Salbit (autumn), Gastlove (spring), The White mountains and Alpstein.
Ground, grass and gravel silently crunch under our feet. Daylight begins to show itself confusedly through tangled overhanging growth. Huh?! I turn 'round. “Did I see something there in the shade?” Four eyes open and fix on me.
Pumpgun. Godly moves up the basaltic depths of Mordor ( May).
On Easter, Bennie climbs 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
The birds are back. (photos)
To Grotta Pineta
A bitter almond tree, and if you find him a less bitter Smokey in Truffatore.
santu vitu
Submitted by margerita
Il Don viennese made me an offer I can't refuse. I came to Palermo and then followed the coast, passed Castellammare Del Golfo and continued to the infamous Capo. I immediately got hooked on the orange stuff, needed more and soon I was broken, a dead man walking, still lobbying for another crag although it was killing me.
Les Mots Bleus
Broke into the secluded green hills on a pilgrimage to Makinodromo's Lourdes
tales of freyr
Submitted by margerita
n/a
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
Submitted by margerita
Popeye eats spinach and it makes him ridiculously strong. But we all know that's just a cartoon on television. If you really want to get silly strong then you got to have this soft fresh Pecorino from the grocery store at the gate in Ulassai, a village of centenarians on Sardinia. It's sweet, not expensive and better than anything you'll get at the pharmacy.
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. ( five summer photos above)
Petit Dru (lines) - (1985 reconstruction of Profit's 1982 solo of the American direct) ( 3 photos).
we stand on the shoulders of giants
Submitted by margerita
-THE OLD ALPINE
--.TESTAMENT &
THE PROPHETS OF
-FREE CLIMBING...
Green mountains all stumble atop each other. Cascade hosts the evening sun. We come from the shade where Stefano Ghisolfi has his first encounter with Bibliographie.
mount aiguille from chichilianne
Submitted by margerita
...
la douc(h)e france
Submitted by margerita
After the sunflowers of Burgundy, we'll eat baguette in the rain; we'll cut the pastèque on a voyage through mountains and lakes of the Dauphiné; we'll live in the Baronnies and we'll hike up Mt Ventoux to come back down in narrow streets that are more than 1000 years old. Then we'll buy cherries from a farmer and enter the canyons of the Lubéron.
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
Submitted by margerita
n/a atm
Up with the last light in La Grande Cheminée
Ben climbs Monte Oro (Our Handsome Friend Pavel).
please holds be jugs
Submitted by margerita
n/a atm
Afterwork session (the projie)
Deep-enough water solo 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. Here, 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.
Fran climbs Fränzi in 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 going for the last funky move to finish off this vertical battle
The Oregon Monster in La muerte del Sponsor
Ben and Hans in El Prado del Rey with the chalked holds of Negociée in the background
First time Frankenjura!
Fabi in Pathos
..
Ice climbing in Belgium
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
gorges du Verdon & du loup
Submitted by margerita
In Berdorf I belay Ben in his projects. And Ben belays me in mine. We achieve memorable milestone sends. Time to team up for multipitches? We refresh our multipitch skills in Freyr before we drive to the windy canyons of legends where we become little dots on a heavenly wall.
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.
Hans hides for the sun in the 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)
Smögen, Kungshamn
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
Submitted by margerita
..
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.
Apocalypse snow!
Submitted by margerita
Top Italia Arrampicata... Or: LUAK's Wintermeet goes ice climbing in Cogne and Lillaz, hidden in the Aosta valley.
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)
First april days with Sebastian (in Mike), Gabriëlle, Naomi and Brecht
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)
End of 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.
Open the door and Bilbo jumps in
