Marianne entered the competition tout a bloc and i was her “cheer leader” for 2 days. After tout a bloc we where going to climb whit my family. My little brothers never lead climbed anything so now was the time to learn them what climbing is about. A little movie for up-date edited by Marianne.
It was a struggle to leave the Netherlands. I had to fix my van: new rear bearings new Vuseeballs .But finally we left the 10th. The first stop was Baume les Dame for some sport climbing. After a warming up I climbed a nice 6c through a little cave. To find out the 6a after that was really shitty. After a nice swim we drove on to breakdown the car on a Sunday.. After some phone calls we where picked up by “depannage” during the football match Holland Spain..
So the next day the garage took a look at my little van around 2 in the afternoon. They managed to make the oil leak even worse.. But fixed the rear axle and oil leak in the end. So around 19:00 we where back on the road.After a 100 km test drive we stopped and took some sleep.
So on Tuesday we finally arrived in Ailifroide to go out and climb the Fissure de Ailefroide to warm up.
Again a long weekend working for me but next weekend Climbing 
.
Last days it was chaos in the City because of Le Grande Depart of the Tour de France.
The complete city was closed down from east to west. Realy nice because i live south of Rotterdam and work at Heigtspecialists on the Euromast in the City center….
Because of the Tour we also had to wear a nice yellow bannana shirt. Witch looks great wile Abseiling from the euromast.
Photo: Dennis van Hoek Thijs on the rail
So after a season of climbing with the Ion its time for a new rope.
The Ion worked really good for the last 9 months. It was my first “skinny” rope. It took a bit to get used to it.
But now I’m sure a light rope works great. The Nano is even more skinny only 9.2 mm.
Perfect for onsight en hard redpoint attempts.
And the nice bright Orange will be really good for ice and granite pictures.
Photo: Dennis van Hoek
Only one more week of studies and than its time to go out!
The plan is to aim for Ailefroide and along the way we will stop in Cham and a lot of sportsclimbing areas.
To get strong for the longer projects in Ailefroide. Lets hope my van makes it through the summer.
Dibona, Photo: Matthew Buckle
Yeah !! New Petzl Gear.
Today it is Christmas “Sinterklaas” And my Birthday all in one
A Big box was waiting for me at Beversport Rotterdam. So i brought my bigpack (which was to small) to bring all the gear home.
Because of some Backorders i’m still waiting for most of the ice gear.
But most of the stuff is here, and its looking Great.
Cant wait to get out and use the stuff where it is made for!
CLIMBING !! :)
Thank you Petzl !
Last week it was “Bever” sale so I bought 2 new BD cams size 4 & 5 for a reasonable price.
Marianne also bought some new cams so we had to play with them.
We set up a little experiment wondering what the weight difference is between the new and old one’s.
Here is the result of the test. All the different cams we own are in.
After a long night a early start (8:30) . We started in Mordor again in the 2e cave. Warming up in Diablo. It took me 2 pushes to get true the crux. but i screwed up after the hard part.. Marianne was going realy strong working out the long move’s true the Crux. So the 3e time i made it true the Crux and climbed it al the way. Firtst 7c for me!
Because of the warmt it wasn’t realy nice on the main wall so hour 7b+ Mut der Verzweiflung project is still on the list.
Movie in progress
Beacause we climbed whit 3, enough time to film and shoot picture’s so here is a little short movie of Rick.
A long weekend again so 2 days to go to Germany and climb some Basalt. I worked mostly on my air-time..
It was a bit wet again en mosty but we found some nice projects and climbed some cool routes.
We climbed Gunman 7b during my OS i was unable to clip the top anker and almost hit the deck. So it took me 2 more try’s to overcome the fear and finish it up.
New projects:
Diablo 7c bolted nice long hard move.
Mut der verzweiflung 7b/7b+ trad during the first push i popped my blue 0 cam…. some flying again.
And I’m still working on May flower on own pro… can’t get used to hand jamming.
Marianne made a nice Short-movie
Yess!! its official I’m sponserd by Petzl. Yesterday we signed our contracts. So we will be equipped whit the finest gear to climb the nicest and hardest lines.
The weather is realy nice the last week. Unfortunaly i have to finish a lot studie stuff.
But this week new symester so some time to breath again and go out. Today I was climbing whit Marianne who is back from iceland (read all about it here) . We had a great time at the Zuiderpark boulder.
Photo: Marianne van der Steen
Photo: Dennis van Hoek
Blok op Zuid Bouldering from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.
