08.31.09
Posted in Climbing at 11:51 pm by tesstess
Or not. That was the question of this weekend.
After weeks of searching for lands, making offers, meeting house constructors and talking budget we needed some fresh air and took a ‘weekend off’ to go up in the mountains.
We started off saturday afternoon, drove up in the Mercontour and walked a couple of hours up to the feet of the mountain ‘St Robert’ (next to Mont Gelas, for the ones of you who know).
We found a lake where we put up the tent. The weatherforcast had forseen some light rain in the afternoon, as so often in the mountains. We got no rain on us, but the clouds showed us beautiful scenes. A real life 3d cinema, sometimes horror, sometimes romantic. We sat down and enjoyed it together with a cup of wine.
Talking about horror movies I went to see the ‘Inglorious Bastards‘ on cinema this week, followed by ‘The Ring’ at home the night after. Gave me nightmares and really bad sleep. So now when the weekend came I knew I would sleep so good in the tent, with only the nature around.
In the nature, there are animals. Animals like to eat. A couple of weeks ago, Anthony and Thomas went up camping and climbing and got all their food eaten at night by a marmot (murmeldjur). This night we kept the food with us in the tent. Unfortunately it didn’t help that marmots are very cute and nice animals, both of us stayed awake half the night listening and looking for the marmots to come in under the outer telt wall to search food.
Seven in the morning the alarm went off, time to get the tent together, eat breakfast and head up towards the summit, 2919m above the sea, about 300m of climbing following a ridge. You can see it on the photo above, st Robert in the middle and mont Gelas to the right. We started from lowest ‘V’ you see if you follow the sky/mountain line from the left on the photo. Then you climb up, down a little, up, down a little, and up, until you get to the summit.
It was supposed to be clear blue skye in the morning, but the clouds stayed on. When we came up to the start of the ridge and could see over to italy, hm, no, that was exactly what we couldn’t do, there was no italy to see, only clouds, we hesitated to even start the climbing.
But since the beginning was fairly easy quoted, we went on up to one quarter of the ridge. On the first peak, just before it was about to get a bit harder we decided to turn around, too risky. In fact further on it would have been impossible to turn back, we would have had to continue to the summit even if it started to rain or worse…
Of course we were a bit dissapointed well back down again, especially when seeing that the summit were still not completely covered. However there were quite a lot of dark clouds around the valley, so in the end it was a wise decision. Instead we went down to the coast and the beach, 20 degrees warmer. Playing in the big waves is quite some fun as well, finally I think heaven can wait.
05.15.09
Posted in Climbing, Hollidays at 10:12 am by tesstess
Corte
What is better than having 10 days of vacation in front of you, staying at a horse farm (knowing how much I love horses) and climbing in the wild and beautiful nature?
We started our vacation in Corte, a small village in the middle of Corsica. From Nice we took the boat with the car, 6 hours to reach Bastia. And then about an hour to Corte.
The first morning was nice, the discovery of the mountains and the nature, and with horses everywhere.
Just next to Corte lays ‘la vallee de la Restonica’, where we climbed the first three days.
Two new things found: mountain of granit and wild cyklamen.
First day I was still having a bit of a cold and wasn’t in the best climbing shape, we stayed on a normal climbing site and felt for the first time this new kind of rock.
After the climbing we went back to the farm and went on a horse ride. And I forgot to bring my camera! 45 min up on a mountain, beautiful view, and 45 min down. Wonderful horses, arabs, as made for the difficult terrain. Then we ate at the place we’re staying. It’s a special atmosphere among people staying at bed&breakfast, everyone talks and tells stories, not as in a resturant where it’s almost taboo to talk to the neighbour. It surprised us this first evening, when we came and sat down at the long table and 15 people asked us what we had done during the day, where we came from and where we were going.
The second day we went to climb a summit called Sorbello, a 180 meter long route, divided in 4 parts, most of them 6a. But first we had to get there, this is what blocked our way:
First goats on the road, in corsica they let all animals just go free everywhere: goats, pigs, cows, dogs, and even horses in one place. Then, everytime we wanted to find the beginning of a route, it took us 45 minutes of searching for the path. Anthony had shorts and his legs was full of scratches after. The bushes are nice to look at with flowers and all, but there are lots of evil things with torns in there as well.
This rock has so funny shapes! They were wonderful to climb in. And often they made perfect wholes for the ‘breakpoints’.
Off towards heaven. Here I’m climbing the last section, it’s a 6a.
This is how I look just before I go climbing in first, full with roaps, and quickdraws, and a smile which says ‘look at me, I’m so good and I’ll climb in first’. Or something like that. Always as nice to be up on the top and make the mandatory summit photo. In my photos page there are some more photos of the climbing itself if you want to see. I’ll only write about a selection.
The third day we went to a normal climbing site (not a mountain to reach the summit). I was in a good mood and managed to climb a beautiful 6a+ in first, and a 6b in second.
Anthony climbed the 6b in first on the second try.
Bavella
We said good bye to the horses, Corte and Restoinica and drove 2 hours down to Bavella, the mountains in the south.
Found on the way:
Beautiful views. Pigs on the road. Anthony went and touched them, me I was a bit sceptic.
The climbing of the day was ended after the first step because it started to rain. To bad. On the photos you see the 6a+ we climbed. It’s flat, more flat even than you can see. And nothing to hold on to. You put your hands flat on the rock and hope the degree of leaning of the wall is big enough for you to not slide down. Very particular style. And then just after you have those big ‘tafoni’, as the formations are called in the corsica language. Where you can climb roofs without problems, the wholes for hands and feet are big and confortable.
We stayed in a small village called Quenza, in a, from the outside quite ugly bed&breakfast, and from the inside, one of the most beautifully decorated houses I’ve been in.
Our room with mezzanine and Vietnam style.
Here are the rooms for apperitif and dinner.
A bit left of the middle of the photo you see a ’smooth’ mountain. It’s a very famous route going there, called ‘the back of the elephant’. It’s mentioned in the book of over the most beautiful routes of the world, one of the easiest routes in that book, but still a very, very hard one. And of course the dream of Anthony to climb this one with me…
But first we had to warm up.
The meteo announced the worst weather of all this week for the second day in Bavella. Sun in the morning but thunder and rain in the afternoon. I think initially we had planned to do normal climbing but since it’s much more beautiful to climb up to a top we decided to try a long route, but short to be long, only 130m. It should be only 30 min walk to get there, but in fact the guide counted the walk from a refuge, to which Anthony calculated with the map that it should be another 30 min, so I was ok to try it thinking that it was ok to be a bit wet on the return walk, and if it started raining during the climb we would just go down like yesterday.
Well, it turned out that what was quite short on the map in reality was very steep paths - it was a 2 hour walk just to get to the refuge. The path was in the forest, so beautiful and calm. The sun shining and the temperature perfect for walking. We were following the very famous path named GR20, so no risk to take the wrong path, just to follow the small red and white marks.
In our plan was also that there would be a gardien in the refuge and that we would stop by there to eat lunch on the way back but it’s still to early in the season and the gardien had not yet moved out.
When beginning to climb we could see the clouds over Bavella, but on top of us only blue sky and a warm sun. After the first lenght of four we saw that the clouds had grown bigger, we felt some drops, but we thought still that they would stay over there. In the third lenght it started to rain, quite a lot even when it was my turn to climb, and we even heard the thunder far away. The relai was not too good to use for going down on so we decided to have a look at the last lenght. First it we had to walk 20 meters to find the start of it, it stopped raining but everything was wet. It’s very slippery to climb when wet…
Luckily the last lenght was climbing using a crack, so Anthony could put ‘friends’ (his own points) in several places between the real points. It was a 6a and quite hard even in dry weather. Next to the crack was simply a flat wall, leaning, but without anything for the hands. Anthony managed at last to reach the summit, and I managed on my turn to climb completely without using the rope or points, I was proud when at the top, as can be seen on the picture above, it’s when I’m just coming up on the top.
The name of the route has a connection to a woman that suicided there a long time ago, the name is ‘La fille qui m’accompagne’, meaning approximately ‘the girl who keeps me company’. It’s said that when climbing you can still hear the woman cry. On the summit we heard something, I thought first it was someone in the forest on the bottom who had opened a tap with water, but it was strange that it was moving from one place to another. Anthony were thinking of the woman. Then we understood that it was the thunder making these sounds, it’s like when you stand over high voltage ‘ledningar’. I wanted to go down. Quick. We found the good place to go down and in two times we reached the ground. It started to rain again. We went to get our shoes and bags, good to put the feet in real and dry shoes. And then it was just to start walking, with 2,5 hours of rain and mostly uphill infront of us.
In the middle of the bad luck with the weather we got to see those salamanders, only coming out in wet weather. Crazy how these ‘wet’ animals can live in a forest normally so dry all summer.
Two other wet animals. Anthony didn’t even have a rain coat and was wet all through.
We had found one package of cookies in anthonys sack, he gave me 3 and ate 1 himself just before starting climbing. When starting to walk back at 4pm we were already so hungry, and when reaching the car almost dead. Anthony was weat all through, but me I had my jacket so only the legs and feet wet.
Here is the view of ‘our’ mountain taken on the way back when the sun finally won over the rain.
I think we’re the first and only guests in the cafee in Zenza where stoped on the way back who bought and ate an ice cream and a hot chocolate at the same time. I can say it is very tasty after such an adventure.
Even more tasty was the dinner back at the bed and breakfast. Echines de porc avec pruno and tagliatelle. Super this ‘restaurant’ they have!
The last day in Bavella we climbed a route of 230m, very beautiful. After the day before I was too tired and had to dissapoint Anthony by saying I had not enough energy to try ‘the back of the elephant’.
It’s high. And here, when having to climb a bit sideways, if falling I would swing in a bow, which is worse than just falling straight down, much more risk to hurt yourself on the mountain, well, here the wall is flat, so I couldn’t really break anything. Flat also means: nothing to hold on to. Very technical and interesting climbing!
One of the middle points were like this, you secure yourself on the point, and then you ’sit’ over the emptyness, 150m up on the cliff. Stunning views.
Happy ending of the 6 days climbing.
Porto
The vacation went on to a softer mode, and we went up the west cost of Corsica as real tourists. Anthony took thousands of wonderful photos. I’m longing to have a new house so I have more place to put them up on the walls.
Anthony showed me this nice beach where he spent lots of summers as kid, fishing under water with his dad. When putting the feet in the water we never thought it was possible to swim, but then after some minutes it got better and when finally in, it was really nice!
A small village with lots of flowers, mostly geranium/perlagoner and roses, and two churches, one grec and one french.
How life is nice!
After this crazy beautiful day we finally reached Porto, where we stayed in a small cottage on a camping.
Porto with it’s big beach of small round stones.
The next day we followed a small river and stayed several hours on the small beach just under one of the bridges built on the time where Corsica belonged to Genova.
The water was freezing, just melted snow…
But who can resist so clear water?
The bravest one of us.
In the afternoon we took a walk to ‘Cappo Rosso’, a tower also built by the people from Genova.
A silent and beautiful day.
The last day of the vacation we rented a small boat.
But it’s not because no license is need that it doesn’t go fast… 9 horsepowers.
We visited the small village where the closest road is a 2 hours walk away, and most communication to the outside world is done by boat.
We saw mountains in all kinds of shapes, and we also saw several eagels!
We went in a small cave where the water was crystal clear and looked at all the small ‘aquarium’ fishes.
In the afternoon we took the smallest and most turning road I’ve never seen, along the coast between Porto and Calvi, to stay there over the night and take the boat to Nice the morning after.
We found a field full of flowers.
I’m so much recommending to go to this crazy beautiful island, especially in May. It was my first time, but far from the last!
04.26.09
Posted in Climbing, Lindy Hop at 1:37 pm by tesstess
I’ve ache in all my muscles today. Yesterday we climbed for 5 hours, and then direct after I danced for 3 hours. Intensive day.
We went up quite early, 8 is early for being saturday, and went to to Chateaudouble, a climbing site in the Var, one hour by car. Just before the site we stopped in a small village to take coffe and croissant in the sun, feeling the village atmosphere. I had forgotten how nice this site is, first a small walk in the forest and then full south with view of forest and the village.
We started with a long route, devided in three. I’m not anymore scared to go in first so Anthony started, then I climbed up to him and went first in the second route, then Anthony climbed up to me and continued doing the third one in first. All three was in 5c and I found them easy and beautiful. We did 7 routs in total, I found all expect the last quite easy, Anthony says I improved a lot lately, makes me happy. I don’t notice it, I mean I don’t feel better, it just feels like the routs got easier. The last one we did was a very physic 6a+, I made it in first but I had to fight a lot, lots of bad words in swedish.
In the late afternoon I met up with Gwladys and Louic at the the ce room in amadeus and we practiced lindy. The goal was to test to teach with Gwladys, using Louic as betatester. Don’t remember if I wrote it already but I’m planning to start a ce club in Amadeus, teach lindy hop and organize to go together to different camps around in france. We decided the name of the group to ’swing&soul’ because we plan to not only dance to swing but also to more modern music, it will open up to interest more people. So yesterday it was Louic who taught us what parts of the basics that are hard. I only taught medium, advanced and acro classes before, never the pure beginners, it’s really a different methodology, but very interesting. We’re soo looking forward to teaching a group!
03.02.08
Posted in Climbing, Visitors at 11:52 pm by tesstess
well, then it goes another way.
This weekend Katarina came to visit me. On saturday, we had found a place to make a promenad on horse while Anthony would go skiing. Anthony realized on the friday that we only have one car so we had a problem, but this problem we solved by asking the neighbours to borrow a car from them which was not a problem. Then, friday evening when I was getting Kat at the train talked on the phone with Anthony who just had remembered that he let his skiis for reparation earlier that week and that it would be a bit hard to go skiing without skiis. Ok, so the car problem was solved another time. And a third time on saturday morning when the woman from the horse place called and said it was cancelled, I think because of the wind, it was almost storm. Me and Kat were really dissapointed, we long so much to be with horses both of us.
So instead, the saturday was spent inside, me and Kat doing pearls, and Anthony working on his website. You’ll see not too far from now (I hope) the new site of Anthony that his doing with some coaching from me. It’s a site about all his sport activities, where he will enter data about the things he does, and also have a kind of blog functionality.
Today, sunday, we have been climbing in Castellaras (one hour from us, above Grasse) with two other friends. Katarina said she was a bit scared of hights, but on her second try she was up at the top (which was infact quite high) fast as a squerril.
The sun were shining, and with 20 degrees in the shadow you can imagine how much it was in the sun with no wind. Almost to hot to climb! Luckily it came a bit of nice warm wind later in the day and made it perfect.
I must say it felt a bit strange to see the snow on the other side of the valley… in contrast to the heat and the flowering fruit tree (Anthony thinks it’s apple or pear).
We finally moved out the frog this weekend. He talked to us the morning before so we know it was alive when we moved the big plant out on the terasse. It feels good to have kept it alive all winter!
05.25.07
Posted in Climbing, Hollidays at 12:36 pm by tesstess
For two weeks we’ve been out on adventure with car and tent. First we went to Bandol, and found a nice camping where we stayed three nights. From here we went climbing at different sites and we really liked the place. On the picture above we’re doing a long route called something with “wind” in the name. Very good name: it was increddible how windy it was!
We have funny video clips from this one, ask next time you’re here and I’ll show you!
This time I have 96 pictures to show which is far to much to copy in to one blog post, so please go to my photo page and look at the album there to see all.
Cassis et les Calanques
Second camping was in Cassis, a small city just before Marseille. From this sweet city by the coast we took the boat (on the picture) to go in les Calonques. It was wonderful to come out at sea again, I missed it. Too sad we don’t know anyone in our region with a boat!
From the boat we saw climbers doing a travers along the water. If they fall, it’s direcly down in the sea!
The callanques are truly beautiful.
The boat takes tourists out to see the clifs and back, but there is possibility to go off at the clifs and then catch a later boat back, which we did two days in a row. The first day we were a bit late there, and just had some hours before the boat back. During this time we climbed the peak (below) in the middle of the beach, had our lunch at the top, and when back down again we took a swim in the turquoise water. 16 degrees = very cold. But fantastic once in.
The second day we had a clear goal: to climb one of the sides of this calanque. It’s 130 meters high! And divided into four routes. The start is just to the left of the beach.
This time we have helmets on. Not that I think they would save us if the ropes broke, but in this kind of routs there are sometimes stones falling down. And once, I didn’t look where I was climbing and hit my head in the rock above, and was very happy there was a helmet in between. As you can see we’re having two ropes, so it felt pretty safe.
The last route was a 6a, meaning the hardest level I’m doing on normal walls. Here it was so high that my brain didn’t remember how to climb, it just said “no, no, no, this is not possible to do”, and I had to use the rope to help me up.
Not a picture for mums.
We walked over the cliff and looked down in the calonque on the other side. The walls were really going straight down 130 meters into the sea! Impressing!
In the evening we were so happy to be back to the tent and I must say that after this kind of experience, you’re appreciating all small things much more. Like eating pasta and tomatoe sauce on a blanket.
Marseilles
After two nights in Cassis we went to Paul and Odile in Marseille. They bought an house half a year ago and are in the middle of doing big renovations. The kitchen was from Ikea, of course 
and it was very fun to see their plans. I instantly began longing for my own house to renovate.
To my great pleassure Odile loves pearls and she showed me her jewelry: bracelets and earrings, almost all done with swarovsky. She promised me to teach me how to do one of the bracelets that I really fell in love with so the next day we went to the local pearl shop to buy the “ingredients”. Oh, yes, on the way there, I must tell you, we passed infront of Ikea and me and Odile began talking about it. I told her about a small chair (one for standing on) that I wanted for a long time and couldn’t find. Odile said she had seen it in this Ikea and together we convinced the men to go in fast to buy it. Well there me and Anthony also found a small garden table and chairs, really cheap, just the kind we wanted for our garden at home. And, as Anthony said, why not buy them now so we can use them in the camping next week! After this the car which was full before, was really full.
In the afternoon we went touristing in Marseille. Along the coast it’s a nice city, but for me the city is too big, to dirty, and too many buildings in bad condition, especially in the outer parts of Marseilles.
We took a walk to a small harbor and ate sallad at a small restaurant.
We also visited the church on the top of a mountain in the middle of the city.
The next day we took the car and went one and a half hour up from Marseille to do a hike up on a mountain. A small mountain this time, and easy walking on a well used path. It was a very nice day.
Camargue
So, after Marseille, the natural place to visit was Camargue with it’s white horses.
This place is flat. Very flat. We went out with the car on those small roads in the middle of nowhere. And when we had been driving for a looong time. The road ended, blocked, and we had to turn around. At one place there was some hourses and caravans. Very ugly place, but we wanted to see.
Only problem was that the road was under water. Scary. But we went in anyways.
At last we found some horses, and pink flamingos. It was a nice day. But the car, the poor car, so muddy!
Cousins
Unfortunately the weather put a stop for our plans to continue to Tarn. The weather forcast told rain for one week. So we went earlier than planned to the cousins of Anthony and stayed there three nights. They just had their first baby, a couple of weeks earlier. So sweet!
From here we also could go climbing and we found the perfect climbing site. What this region really is known for is the wind. It’s allways windy. But this climbing site was protected from wind and had a view of the sea. The level of the routes were easier than usual, so I did 5b an 5c in first position without problems. I was so proud! Then I tried a 6a in first and also this one went well. It was harder of course, it’s my first 6a in first and I was so happy when I reached the top! We have started to enter all the routs we do on a website called www.8a.nu and it gives me more fighting spirit to put up goals for me there and to see the results after. At the end of the day I was very tired, but Anthony just climbed a 6b, and I thought that why not try it, to work hard with my muscles and if I fall nothing happens so it’s really nothing to loose. This route was harder, a lot harder. But, guess what! I did it! I was surprised all evening, repeating to myself “I did it, I did it”.
(picture from outside Bandol)
Home Sweet Home
We finished our hollidays by returning home earlier than planned. On the highway the first part it was so windy that it felt like the car would lift, but some hours closer to Nice it had calmed down, and when finally back at home it was hot, sunny and just a small warm breeze in the air. In swedish there is a way of speaking “Borta bra men hemma bäst”, meaning it’s good to be away, but home is the best place, and now it was really true. We were so happy to just be in our garden.
I began oiling the table and chairs from ikea and painting the bedroom windows and Anthony finished the flower bed border around the raspberries.
05.02.07
Posted in Climbing at 8:51 pm by tesstess
The last weeks we’ve done two very nice climbing days.
Here is after climbing in Chateaudouble. It was a hard and long walk up to the clibming site and after a whole day of climbing all of us was very tired, but far from as tired as Aline (to the left) who hardly could walk when we at last came back to the cars.
All three new beginners did very well indeed this day, I was very impressed with them Sorry I didn’t remember the camera while up there…
This weekend we went to Saint Jeannet with Sabine, Mathieu and Mariam.
Mariam never tried climbing before but also impressed a lot by not being scared and for the first route of the day, a 4+, she did it almost as fast as me!
It’s really a beautiful view from here, and the mountain has several places to climb. We started at one place and then went up to another small hill on the cliff to eat and continue climbing.
At the end of the day we climbed/walked up to the top and passed two more climbing sites on the way.
On the way down through the small village below I and Anthony found a sweet house for sale. It had a small garden and a view all the way to Nice and over the sea. It’s the sea at the top of this picture. And this one was not too expensive, we saw the advert in a place further down the street, but we realized it was too far from Amadeus. Too sad. Would have been so nice to live with that view, in such a calm and authentic village and with the mountain just behind the back.
03.30.07
Posted in Climbing at 11:21 am by tesstess
Last time I was climbing, just before leaving for my holidays here in Sweden where I am now, one of the responsible of the gym asked called my name when I came and then picked up this bottle of wine, cheese and sausage you can see on the picture. This was a price, for me! I was surprised and did not understand a thing. They explained to me that last months, when the climbers filled in a paper with all routs they had done, I was the girl who had managed to do the highest number of routs
I was so motivated to climb after this, and a bit sad I had to wait two weeks to climb again. But on Tuesday I will, since I’m coming home on Monday.
I can explain a little how it works in there for you who never saw this kind of strange walls. As warm up, I just climb on what ever holes you feel for taking, usually big ones where not so much technique is required. Then I’m starting to do the routs. The people taking care of the gym have put up routs in different colors, where pink is the easiest and black is the hardest, which means not only hard, but totally impossible. I’m doing all pink, some greens, and sometimes some yellows. The route usually starts quite low with a tape in the color of the route. I put both hands on this whole, and the feet on other wholes which have tapes next to them in the same color, and then starts to climb. I’m only allowed to use wholes where my color is put and the goal, usually somewhere close to the ceiling or even in the ceiling, has two tapes in a V-shape and there I have to hold both my hands for three seconds. It will take between one and five minutes to do one route. As you can see on the back of the climbing gym on the picture, some walls are leaning, which means it’s very physical to climb on them. Goood for the stomach
I go climbing Tuesday and Thursday lunch between 12 and 14. Anthony, Thomas and Matthew are coming from Amadeus too. It’s really great to have this two hour lunch where you can do a sport like this!
It’s a little bit expensive to climb inside, but as Anthony pointed out to me just some days ago, the dancing weekends with courses are almost as expensive as a yearly pass to the gym, so I have to admit that it’s not too expensive after all. I’m just so used to pay for the dancing, and it have meant so much to me that I never reflected over what it costs.
Anna came with me to try the climbing gym when she was visiting me, but it didn’t take many minutes before her muscles were all shaking of tiredness. It’s very heavy to climb when you’re not used to it, and new muscles that most people never use. So very good for computer people! Anna loved it and said she would see if she could start in Stockholm when she came back home.
Now it’s warm enough again to climb outside so for all visitors from Sweden (or anywhere else from) we will take you to the real mountains to try this wonderful sport
01.15.07
Posted in Climbing at 4:29 pm by tesstess
Yesterday we went out climbing in L’Esterelle, the red rocks beyond Cannes. In the morning it was cloudy and cold outside but a few hours later the sun was warming us from a almost blue sky.
Emelie and Sylvain was with us out. Emelie is Swedish and he is French, just like me and Anthony, except that they speak swedish among themselves. It was nice to speak some swedish again
First Anthony climbed an easy route in first position, and then I went up on the same in second position. On the way down I didn’t look where I put my feet and sprained my left ankle. It didn’t hurt at once, but I know this kind of thing since I’ve done it lots of times before. Fast down and fast on with the bandage I luckily had in my bag. I allways keeps this one with me nowadays. Then it begun to hurt.
Aj aj aj. It hurt a lot for about an hour, then it calmed down and in the afternoon I could enjoy the wonderful view, and I even secured Anthony when he was climbing, sitting down on the ground with my leg up.
Best veiw one could have at a time when the only possible activity is sitting.
Hurt but happy!
07.21.06
Posted in Climbing at 11:04 pm by tesstess
We went to the same place as last time, close to Monaco.
In the background you can see the climbing site. For me these are impressing mountains, but Anthony told me stories of walls several hunred meeters high which obviously must be way more impressing. Hope I get good enough on climbing to see them some day.
Below follows the story of how to climb in first position.
Philippe gave me the real spelling on those things you put in the rings, it’s degaine in french, and quickdraw in english. I needed lots of those so that they would last the whole route. On the second picture I’m about to take one of the degains and put into the first ring, and in the third picture I’m taking the rope through the degaine. And then it’s on towards the next ring.
When at this height, I’m really happy there are someone at the ground allways ready if I fall, and to give me advise when stuck at difficult places.
I can understand the most basic climbing terms in french now, and words like left, right, hand and foot. But I think I will prefer advises in english for some more weeks… Translating words is not the main thing you want to do when stuck up there.
Philippe and Anthony.
I like this picture of Philippe. It’s allways a nice feeling to be on your way down, first because you just made it to the top of a difficult route and second because you get to float in the air, and jump on the wall side all the way down.
At the end it got so dark that Anthony climbed the last rout with a torch on his forehead.
07.12.06
Posted in Climbing at 10:31 pm by tesstess
Yesterday was the third time I went climbing and this time Magnus came along and took lots of pictures for you to see!
We went to a site where I haven’t been before, it’s a bit longer to drive from Sophia Antipolis but when there the reward is big since it is a truly beautiful place, just near Monaco and with a fantastic view over the sea.
Here we are on the way from the cars up to the climbing site.
At the mountain side there are lots of routes, some just a few meters apart, and each route has a level. Anthony and Nicolas check the climbing book to know which route to climb.
And off they go. I and Philippe are on the ground while Nicolas (on the other end of my rope) and Anthony (on the other end of Philippe’s rope) went up on a route each in first position. First position is to climb first and hook on the degens (French word for tva karbinhakar med en tio decimeter lina emellan) in the small rings on the mountain side. It’s around two meters between the points so this is the least safe part of climbing. Last time I went in first position on an easy level, its lots of additional things to think of and much more difficult than climbing in second position when the rope is already drawn through the top ring.
Nicolas on his way down.
And Anthony coming down.
Nicolas is just reaching the ground again.
Now it’s my turn to climb. Here is the knot, like a double eight. Note the difference in length between the climbing shoes and my perfectly fitting dance shoes which I wear everywhere. The smaller the climbing shoes are, the better they are for climbing.
I made it to the top! Breathtaking view from up here, and it looks much further down than it looked up. The route was about 27 meters and the ones I did the other times were around 12 meters.
Magnus had lots of fun experimenting with the camera, here is the test when tilting the camera a little bit, and wops how much more difficult it looks to climb at once. Philippe was the most advanced climber with us this time.
I’m eating my sixth breakfast this day.
Here are some more nice climbing photos.
This day we had only time to climb two routes before it got dark. The last picture is of the small town beneath the climbing site.
