Pics of the Week-reminiscing...

The beautiful Gorges du Tarn...with the cold outside it`s time to remember the blessed weeks of sunshine...2 perfect weeks with one amazing human being (Verena) and a funny guy who also officially owns the copyright for all of the above...Mr. Markus Jung

Happy Times...chilling out after 8 straight hours of climbing

Big Wallhella

I`m spanked! Big Wallhalla was a blast, even if we only made it to 4th position. It was the hardest thing I`ve ever done. I have never pushed myself to the limit as much as I did yesterday. I´m on the way of becoming an endurance climber-on the way, not there yet! To climb 26 35 meter routes in those 8 hours felt gutwrenching! But it was a really cool experience, the routes though exclusively vertical and fingery were really cool-seems like I´m better on crimps than I thought, even though I will always prefer a good pocket/sloper/tufa over small crimpers...
I guess Verena was a little disappointed at first, she needs new climbing shoes badly and we would have won at least a pair if we had made the top three but there was no chance to make it...I mean, strictly speaking, there was. We would have needed three more routes to score 3rd and if there hadn`t been such a queueing up for the routes in the end, we would have made it. But regrets are useless...the vibe was good, the music throughout very chilled and except for a couple of jerks that you always get there was a cool bunch of climbers around. We hung out after the comp and had a few drinks and a pizza and spent the time talking and doing the usual after comp party things:)
After that we went to Verena`s place to take another sip...I´ll never take Butterscotch again...it`s too damn sweet!

I made it home by hitching a ride at around 2 am in the morning...coolest ride ever! Those people seriuosly saved my health-the next bus would have arrived two hours later and considering that I was both tired and a little intoxicated I would have probably fallen asleep...which is not the thing to do in Chiemgau November nights.

A few photos will be posted as soon as they are available...

New Projects???

After a somewhat epic journey that involved calling Mr. Markus Stadler a couple of times I finally found my way to the Burgauer Wand again. Hiking through the misty November air was really good and refreshing, fall is an astonishing season here in the Chiemgau. I roamed around scoping for the possible projects Jan Mersch had hinted at and found the main sector completely bolted-and not too attractive too. Kinda blocky...Jan had told me that a lot of the future lines would be found at the crag to the left and there I found a pretty cool little cave that will probably yield a couple of bouldery roof routes with possible 30m+ extensions possible, though spoiled by a no hand rest after the roof`s lip. The rock seems amazing. Still I´m in doubt whether to bolt these lines when Shorty visits me in December, the approach being long and tiring...I`m not talking about king lines here in the end. I will thus continue to look for better projects. At least I`ll keep those in the back of my head...

With the Walhalla comp drawing nearer the weekend will be spent training in the gym. A week after, a comp of basically the same format will be held in Rosenheim and I´m intended to score this one, too. Hopefully Verena will get in shape in time again after that terrible bitch of a flu. If not I´ll have to compensate- after all it`s a team competition. I`m in the best shape I`ve been for a long time and with a week left I´m determined to improve a little...

I`m currently listening to Papa Roach. Unfortunately I cannot turn the shit up, the old §$%&? living in the flat under me would complain in an instant. I despised her from the beginning, here we go...

I have also received a few very kind e-mails from the US gyms I asked for an intercultural project position. Hopefully this will work out, I´ld love to do something climbing based in the US.

Change I do believe in

He has done it. Or, strictly speaking, the US citizens have done it. Barack Obama will become the next president of the US. Although this blog is normally climbing oriented and based, this is something extraordinary and amazing, considering the ammount of what he had to overcome, especially during the past weeks when the political race in the US took up a pace that we in Europe can hardly comprehend. There were lies, especially Mrs. Palin, arguably well suited for casting stones at others, was constantly singing the song of Obama being well befriended with a terrorist. 

What I think is that in a time where the world needs consensus concerning the most important issues like global warming, the fight against terrorism, poverty and Aids, a man is needed that brings a difference. We need a change in policy. Even if politically one eyed, one cannot deny the fact that the US still is and will continue to be for the next years the most important and driving force in Western politics. The US sets trends, politically, culturally and economically. Europe, though wanting to be a political player on its own, still needs the US. The US however, also need Europe, considering the mess they are in in Afghanistan or Iraq. The world needs each other, there will be no solution to the global problems of the 21st. century without dialoque and respect. 

Barack Obama will hopefully be the man bringing the difference. He is young and fresh, he is new and other than flip flopping John Kerry, a man whose words you can believe in. He will not work wonders, he is not a wizard making all the issues mentioned above disappear with a wink of his wand but he can be trusted in bringing what is most needed in American politics after eight years of Bush`s government: Change. I do not believe in miracles. 

But I do believe in the next four years of American policy. I will travel to America from February to April. I`m looking forward to coming to a country that in the right time has made the right descision.

Good luck to you, Barack Obama. The world is neither good or bad -it`s what we make it. The next four years (and hopefully the next eight) you`ll do a lot of the shaping...I think you`ll do a good job.