Chironico by winter...

As you know, I've been to Chironico not so long ago and temps were not to our advantages.
I was really funny to walk to the boulders with almost 50cm of snow and the cold was not helping either.

We had some fun anyway, being the only climbers around. One thing to know about if you wind up climbing there with similar conditions, there are two places that allow climbing, "La soucoupe roof" and "Alphane moon roof". there might be other climb able places but then it would require a long walk in the snow and without proper equipment to walk on the snow it is just too complicated...

The parking place... Better bring a shovel to make a way and a good place for the tents...

 

The "Soucoupe" roof. Easy to clean

 This picture below shows that cold makes everything harder... Like we used to say, living in a fridge all day is quite funny sometimes...All gets frozen, stoves gas canisters as well... So better make a fire, oh yeah buy some fire starters and dry wood otherwise you won't go far...

Frozen towel...

 Alphane moon, 8a had its top hold broken. It's now been glued back on so it makes a nice place to climb with one 8a and its sit, 8B.

Stalactites !!

Below is a picture of a cool project, which I got close on but we decided to leave after spending two days climbing there.

Me in "Bella Luna" 8B

Réponses à vos questions sur ce blog !

Bon, c'est vrai que j'écris toujours en anglais sur mon blog, à vrai dire je ne sais pas trop qui le suit en Belgique, et vu que au final je connais plus d'étrangers que de belges, je souhaite dorénavant créer une série d'articles permettant au lecteur de s'impliquer un peu, via des échanges avec moi.

Alors mon idée est très simple, bien qu'étant octogradiste, je souhaiterais faire partager mes connaissances acquises après 10 ans de pratique. Il est vrai que j'ai donné cours pendant quelques temps en salle, que ce soit à des débutants ou à d'autres plus expérimentés.

J'aimerais donc, par le biais d'articles, tenter de faire découvrir aux gens qui pratiquent l'escalade, d'autres aspects qu'ils n'ont peut-être pas pris en compte.
Je vise ici toute personne ayant un rapport avec l'escalade quel qu’il soit, un jeune qui commence, un vieux de la veille, un parent, peut importe.

Mon idée est simple, posez moi toute question, faites moi part de vos expériences, de ce que l'escalade vous a appris et j'en ferai part ici même.

Pour ce faire, un seul moyen : Mignon_olivier@hotmail.com

Je ne suis pas spécialement un fin connaisseur des méthodes modernes d'entrainement, je peux donner des conseils, si vous cherchez quelque chose de spécifique, vous orientez vers des professionnels qui sauront répondre à toute question. Ce que je peux en revanche faire, c'est expliquez tout un travail psychologique, une manière d'aborder le sport qui  vous permettra de progresser ou de découvrir autre chose car on a  vite tendance à oublier que dans le sport, le mental joue pour beaucoup dans la performance. 


Les choses se passeront comme suit : SI je reçois des questions par mail (ce que j'espère), j'en ferai part et y répondrai sur le blog à hauteur d'un article pour 3-4 questions.


De plus, j'essaierai de publier un article tout les mois sur un sujet relatif à l'escalade, que ce soit une polémique ou des exercices pour progresser.
 

Font for a week-end #1

Well, I've had an other trip to font this week-end and it feels better and better. So to refresh those who read this blog, I was in font for more than one week not so long ago and it had been my worst trip ever.

So after that trip I had to rest for an entire week to heal my skin and recover from tiredness. I was hoping that I could finish some of the projects that I spent time on during the last trip life "Gourmandise" or "Sideways Daze". I only had two days and the first day, the friends I was with, decided to go to "rocher canon" and I only climbed a little bit, sending one 7c ( which I probably used bad sequence on...) and tried briefly "la baleine, 7c+" which is just something I'm never gonna send...

Anyway, I was just looking forward to the next day because I'd go to "rempart" where all my projects are. I started the day in "Gourmandise" and was able to dispatch the "raccourci" graded 8a+ on my first attempt. This is cool but first, the line has no reason to be considered legit as it is just a variation due to some misunderstanding or I don't know what about the 8B start... Anyway, I tried the start but I find myself missing a bit of power for the very powerful move to the lip of the roof. I had to stop trying as my fresh recovered skin was starting to become a bit too pink, and I still wanted to give "Sideways Daze" a few attempts.

On sideways, I had one "ok" attempt, not more, my skin was just too soft for me to hold the little crimp. Anyway, I went down to the central place to try a 7C that I've tried many times, "Tristesse". The crux is to grab a pinch right hand and then to do a high foot step next to your left hand, move that gets me really scrunched and thus, making it way much harder for me. I tried as hard as I could but after being unsucessful for some tries I just stopped, having still one thing left to try for the day, "T-rex" a nice 7c+.

I was able to send it after a couple of tries, including one where I fell on the last move, being a bit scared to bump for the last hold, as the fall there is quite unpleasant as the problem is surrounded by two big blocs...

So overall it was a good day and I can't wait to get back on shape to try harder stuff in the forest. For now, time is to training and doing my school training course which will last for 3 weeks so I guess I won't climb outside that much for this month but I'll try train a bit more, although I'm not sure schedules will allow that...

First real trip to Fontainebleau.

Well at first I planned to go to Ticino and despite our syke, facing snow and  cold, walking in 50cm of snow, it was not that we were not syked but after a couple of days we decided to head for warmer areas.

We headed towards Varazze and after some trouble finding the area, we were forced to admit that conditions were not any better than in Chironico... Well we headed back to Chironico for an other couple of days but we finally decided after fighting the cold for two days and an encouraging message saying conditions were great in font, that that place would be the place where we'd spend the rest of our trip.

So here we are in font, the weather is perfect, maybe a bit too cold but better than Switzerland. We spent the first days sleeping outside but it was really not in our advantage, we got really tired and decided to find a warm place to stay at. We got this information about a gite in Arbonne la foret, you can find it Here
The place is just awesome, really friendly, we've been given appetizers, and more... I really recommend it, price are about 40€ a night for 3 persons.

I've been trying a bunch of 8B's in the rempart area, but my skin just got so bad I didn't do nothing for a week... So now on the last four days I climbed one day then was forced to take two rest days because of a small crack in my skin I made while trying "Sideways Daze".

Well I just hope I can find some power and have an "ok" skin for the last two days of my trip to give proper attempts on sideways and Gourmandise. Although I won't probably climb nothing this trip, it is a great experience to climb such conditions, and font is just amazing and I will try to climb here as much as I can in the future.

See you, Olivier