Posts Tagged ‘outdoor’
After I’ve returned from Fontaine Bleau, all I wanted was to climb more on sandstone. My next weekend was already planned with another climbing trip.
A few days ago I contacted Jérôme again to make plans about Berdorf. It was my initiative to enjoy outdoors again in the forest. The advantage of Berdorf compared to Bleau is that the distance is somewhat shorter from Eindhoven. It’s about 3 hours of driving. Berdorf is a small village in Luxembourg and you can enjoy the sandstone structure in routes.
Friday afternoon we left Eindhoven. We expected to arrive about 3 in the P.M. in Luxembourg however we got stuck in traffic jam which took us another hour to get to Luxembourg.
Grotere kaart weergeven
Oh well, what’s an hour in a lifetime right? When we were halfway, we saw lots of nice landscapes. More hills, more green and yesss more rocks!
When we arrived in Berdorf, we grabbed our stuff and were eager to climb some rocks.
After a few warm up routes, I wanted to climb Bobby Brown. I heard many stories about this route. It was my opportunity to climb it. The quickdraws were already set which was really cool. I heard some information about the route before and witnessed a climber in it. I paid attention to the holds and received valuable information from Jérôme. The result was a 10 minute fight in the wall without letting go any holds! Yes, I managed to flash Bobby Brown. One of the nicest lines of Berdorf!
Jérôme started to try Hermann Buhl and I decided to join him. After a work out session, I must say that it’s pretty hard. There are 2 dynos for me. I find it difficult to climb on this wall. I have to climb very open which isn’t my style at all and there aren’t many footholds.
However when you’ve visited Fontaine Bleau, your confidence level will increase at least with 76% and you believe you can place your feet on the smallest footholds without zipping away. Meanwhile it got darker and we decided to call it a day.
The second day I woke up at 9 A.M. without alarm. A nice time to start right? We fixed a quick breakfast in the morning and arrived at 10 A.M. at the rocks to warmup.
After 3 routes we were planning to send Hermann Buhl. Just before us a Dutch guy Maarten sent the route. Now I was extra motivated to send the route as well!
Maarten was nice enough to switch the quickdraws. Thanks for that! After our first attempt (both on video) I felt a few raindrops! Oh nooooo, not now, I had the sequence printed in my head and had to climb this route today! Jérôme felt the pressure too. We had a lot of pressure and without much rest we were climbing too fast. Jérôme managed to climb the crux but just missed the dyno after the crux! My biceps felt sore and I needed a rest. I ate some baguette with cheese and cucumber and felt better again.
Time to give another go! When I arrived at the crux, I went all out and locked my arm in the left pocket. Surprisingly I managed to reach the crimp below the little roof! Yes, this means I can send it. I need to focus on the dyno! I rested a bit and went to the next hold. Baaam! A short powerful yell came out of me and I bet everyone heard me fighting!
Yes, my righthand was accurate enough to fix the sloper. After a few minutes I could clip the chain. I sent Hermann Buhl to heaven and it made me felt so good.
The routes I climbed this trip at Berdorf:
- Luftikus 6b
- Kaffisdous 7a+
- Willy 6c
- Heinz 6c
- Voleur de spits 7a+
- Bobby Brown 7c flash
- Schotte Bob 6b+
- Hermann Buhl 8a+
This was the end of my day. Later in the afternoon it started to rain. Talking about lucky eh? I have yet another competition to go on Sunday. I feel drained though. Hopefully I can recover for this competition. My motivation for routes has increased. Despite my energy level I feel like climbing this competition!
Today the first boulder qualification competition will be held at Rocksteady Bussum. The weather conditions doesn’t look so promising to me, especially when all the problems are set outdoor in the garden!
Oh well, there is only one way to find out.
Wish me luck, I’ll update you later.
Last week I received a text message on my mobile phone from Timo Tak. He’s back in town and felt like climbing outdoors. Although the weather forecast wasn’t that good I’d accepted his invitation to climb outdoors. Once in a while you need to take a risk to climb outdoors.
8 in the AM I was ready to go. I packed my harness, climbing shoes, quickdraws and enough food with me. A little later Timo arrived in his dark marine Peugeot. He was just in time, that’s how I reckon Timo.
2 hours and 15 minutes later we arrived at Freyr. Surprisingly it was dry! We noticed the parking lot was full of cars.
After some warm up routes, we were looking for long difficult routes.
We climbed about 4 hours at Freyr. Unfortunately the weatherman was correct and it started to rain a lot. We hoped for dry weather, better luck next time.
Oh well, we had fun climbing. Soon we’ll be back to finish our route.
Thursday afternoon Jort Veen, one of my sponsors, and I left The Netherlands to visit Italy. We felt like having a short holiday. It was only a matter of realising our plans.
Jort checking up on the tyres
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Jort is pumping each tyre
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Next day we were tired of all that driving. The weather was good, it was 29 degrees Celcius. What do you do when it’s so hot? Seek water of course. We went to this nice lake Lago di Cavedine to relax at the water.
Lifeguard
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Temperature: 29 degrees, water: 15 degrees
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It was so quiet. So cool, we definitely had a good time.
Later on we went to visit Arco for nice pizza’s and icecreams. We bought icecreams at several places, however only one can be the best. Tarifa Gelateria definitely sells the best icecream. Marco, thank you for the free icecream. I enjoyed it a lot!
Furthermore I climbed very little. I think I climbed 8 routes, divided over 4 days.
Awesome butterflies
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Nice stack of stones
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We ran into lots of cyclists in Italy. We even got blocked by the organisation when we were on our way to a lake. Well, we had a nice time supporting them to kill our time.
Obviously as you can see I climbed very little and don’t even have a climbing picture. This time I just felt like a mini holiday at Italy. It was unforgettable. Jort, thank you for the nice time.
Lately I have been busy with team training, climbing at different climbing gyms, work and other hobbies. My schedule seems quite busy. I noticed that I haven’t been climbing outdoors much this year. It’s time to change that fact.
My journey is already planned on this map. I just need to make it happen!
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