The last days

Phuuu... it's going fast now. In less than two weeks I will be back in the Rocklands. Yesss!! :)
I'm really excitet and I'm wondering, how it looks like down there in the meantime. Sure... the boulders are the same. I assume that it hasn't rained new boulders since then in 2005. :)

Oh man... it's quite a long time ago and many things have changed! In 2005 we had still lived on the old campground. As we arrived there on a weekend in August, we were just a few people there. I don't remember exactly how many... but definitely not more than 6 or 7 people. During the weeks we were almost alone up there. Just two french guys, Marc Momet and Fred Sansoz (Liv's brother) stayed at the campsite with us... the whole three weeks. What a great time we had!! So funny!
From time to time we met three Turkish girls, which slept in one of the pakhuises, but that was it for now!! It was a real adventure out there. However, I think that's history. Today it is a huge rush to the Rocklands and we will not have the same experience as eight years ago. But anyway... it will be awesome! ;)

Some impressions from 2005:

Almost alone...



Fred enjoys the scenery...

Wild life... :)

...and some climbing too...

We will be back soon...!! :)

So I didn't climbed much the last days and I will not do much more the next two weeks. I want to be completely recovered when I arrive in South Africa.

But I was not quite idly. Last week I climbed two lines at the Sustenpass. The first one was "Fred's, 8A+", which I almost climbed the first day I tried it. But it was at the end of a long and hard bouldersession and therefore I was not able to finish it up.
The second day then i just needed a short warmup and after the first real try I stood on the top. Felt pretty soft for 8A+... but it is definitely my style. It's hard to rate anything, which fit's me perfectly. But no matter...

The same evening I changed to Martin's big "Highlander-project" at the Traumland-bloc and tried the first part of it. It's a traverse to the left into "Traumland, 8A". I came pretty close, but had not enough power left.
Three days later I went up to the Sustenpass again, despite of some little risk for rain. When I arrived, everything was in dense fog and some holds on the bloc were still wet from the rain the two days before. One of the holds of the traverse I had to dry... otherwise the traverse would not be possible. At least with my solution. But it worked well and some attemps later I reached the startholds of "Traumland"... even if completely destroyed.

Cool... two nice problems before my trip to the Rocklands. And both with very little effort. The shape should be good... the Rocklands can come...!!! ;o))

cheers