Welcome Delights and Little Inconveniences - 27. März 2014
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been extremely motivated to train hard and get ready for the upcoming comeptition season as well as climbing outside. We’ve also made it out to Ticino for a few days and I simply enjoyed being out in the sun with friends. I was happy to finish off Tomahawk (7B+), a quite technical climb which I’ve already tried about a year ago. Huge thanks to Matthi for the video as a surprise birthday present! :)
Unfortuantely, I got weakend a bit by an inflammation of my middle ear and when that was finally over, I had to deal with a lower leg tendonitis. So I didn’t feel at my best lately and went to Sheffield for the CWIF without any high expectations. Qualifiers were really fun and the diversity of the problems required a lot of different climbing skills. Yet after 3.5 hours of qualifying time I felt quite exhausted and I didn’t think I performed as well as I could have but luckily it was enough to make it through to semi-finals placing 16th. Semi-finals were the next day and after a good night’s rest I felt at least halfway recovered and was psyched to climb again. I got quite close on the first problem but didn’t make it to the top. The second one suited me well with some pressing on volumes first and a few powerful moves in the end and I did it second go. The start of number three was a bit tricky and I didn’t make it far off the ground. The last one was a really cool slab and after wasting some tries to figure out the right sequence, I made it to the top in six tries. Looking back, I’m a bit angry for not doing the first one but all in all, I’m pretty satisfied with my performance which got me placed 11th. It was a great event and a good preperation for the upcoming World Cups. Congratulations to Rebekka who made it to finals and despite a few mistakes improved to 5th place. It was a very exciting final to watch but no surprise for Shauna Coxsey taking the victory. The winner on the men’s part was Tito Calyeron, impressively flashing all four final problems.
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Two weeks later, it was time for the Bouder Night in Chur where Remo and some other local guys set up lots of really fun problems. The atmosphere was great and I really enjoyed climbing, thanks to everyone who was part of this event!
About a week ago, we had a qualifying training for the home World Cup in Grindelwald. I’m not completely happy with my climbing but it was enough to be among the top 4. Thanks to Manuel Hassler and Markus Senn for setting up such cool problems, I can’t wait to try them again during training and correct my mistakes…
The past two weekends, I finally made it out to Ticino again, first time Brione this year! As always, I was stunned by the beauty of this place and the number of high end problems on best quality rock. I got to see so many new amazing problems, I could hardly decide what to try. I ended up with Frogger (8A), one of the coolest features I’ve ever seen with powerful body tension moves on pretty good holds, I couldn’t imagine anything better! The first few moves are the hardest and I got a bit frustrated at first for not getting off the ground but then I figured out the rest of the moves and even made some progress with the beginning. After that, I felt pretty sore the next day and after some hopeless tries on Sonnenanbeter (7B+/7C), I decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. While the guys tried Wie im Urlaub (8A), I found a perfectly smooth little scoop right behind it next to the river. It didn’t look so hard at first but turned out to be quite tricky and after a while the guys joined me and we all tried to figure out a sequence. After falling right at the top a few times, I finally found myself on top of this pretty little boulder. Later we were told that it’s quite an old problem and about 7A, pretty hard for 7A if you ask me, but really worth climbing!
I also came quite close on the high slab behind General Disarray, another really balancy problem and so much fun to climb! The next weekend, I came even closer but there are still a few inches missing, maybe next time :) Matthi is in great shape and could do Amber (8B) as well as Salamandre (8A+) and he and Remo both did Entwash (8A) and Forever More (8A+) in a few tries. Before leaving, we stopped at Special Edition (8A), probably the most beautiful piece of rock I’ve ever seen. The boulder consists out of a few powerful and dynamic compression moves with a slopy topout, all on perfect granite. Remo and Matthi both managed to flash this amazing line, what an effort! I gave a few tries from the higher, a bit easier start and it actually felt pretty good. All in all, I had an amazing time with great people and I can’t wait to come back soon, so many projects waiting…