Yesterday was the first iceclimbing training for the season.
My hands are weak but is was great fun!
Drytool training session from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.
Dibona, Eldorado and Salbit Summer 2010 from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.
After some nasty weather days we are hiding in Chamonix hoping to get out tomorrow.
Last week was a nice week whit Pic de Bure as “Height” point. Traditional 600 meter Chalk cliff 29 rope lengths 6c max.
Summer 2010 pt 3: Pic de Bure from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.
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.
