After a couple of really humid days where conditions were poor the wind finally changed direction and we found ourselves at a slightly damp, but very climbable Diablo. I warmed up a little before joining a growing number of damp climbers on the dry bag ledge and began to prepare myself for today’s route of choice. Tony Lamprecht, Iker Pou and I decided to try our luck on Loskot and Two Smoking Barrels which was made famous in the climbing film Dosage 2 and features a huge all points off dyno,north face denali jackets, 15m above the crashing waves.
After watching Iker and Tony fall off, it was my turn to give the route a shot and I nervously traversed towards the start. I was unsure of how I would feel about hurling myself uncontrollably off the rock so far above the water but once I set off up the wall all nervousness disappeared and I launched for the twin pockets with all I had. My hand went in, but just as quickly ripped out and I squealed like a school girl as I headed towards the drink. Puta.
After drying off again on the ledge, it was time for round two. I set up for the jump, and could hardly believe how far away the pockets looked. It seemed really unlikely but I went for it anyway and a second later I was horizontal, holding the swing and letting out a whoop of joy. Screams erupted from above and below, “ north face cheap” I thought. I felt happy and relaxed, but soon remembered there were still a few hard moves to go. Tony was screaming the beta at the top of his lungs and thanks to his instruction I made it to the last move. I tried to static a long reach to a two finger pocket that I should have slapped but my hand could only hover 5cm below the hold. With nothing more to give, the sea was calling; I picked up speed, splash.
That single moment of catching the jug was one of the best I can remember in climbing and epitomised all that Psicobloc is about. I didn’t try the route again. For some reason, getting to the top did not seem important and I wanted to keep that moment of contact special, at least until my next visit.
So far during this trip Big G has climbed each and every 8a we’ve been to, and a broken down van wasn’t about to stop him questing to Voralpsee to add Alaska Kid to his ticklist. The team had some hard and fast decisions to make so we huddled up and broke out the plan. Gaz and I would leave with Nina whilst James and Mark would stay with the van until assistance arrived. It wasn’t an ideal plan but James is our Dad on this trip so he had to take the responsible role whilst Gaz and I jetted off with Nina to deal with the more fun side of this north face denali.
We were flying fast and light, although we’d brought some warm clothes since Nina had warned us that it would be cold up there and to expect some snow. How much we’d underestimated what we were getting into would be revealed until we were questing in to the crag. In the car park there was perhaps 20cm of snow, but most of it had melted. It didn’t look too bad but things only got worse as we got further in.
Below the crag of Voralpsee is a majestic lake which sits in a basin nested amongst tree and snow covered mountains. It’s exceptionally picturesque and in summer I think it would be a stunning location to go rock climbing, but on Wednesday the lake was about 50 percent covered in ice and nearly everything else was covered in snow. The Voralpsee season doesn’t really start this early, but being foolhardy (or brave) we thought it wouldn’t be a problem. The snow was initially ankle deep which was annoying as our feet were getting wet north face denali jackets, but not a huge problem. I stopped to film Nina and Gaz walking along the side of the lake in the snow and it turned out to be a good decision. As they were walking I suddenly saw Nina fall waist deep into the snow, her feet actually going through to the water of the lake! One step further it was Gaz’s turn and echoing around the basin were his shouts of frustration blended together with my laughter. Trying to walk sideways up the bank proved impossible as the snow was too deep so they bravely pushed on, constantly falling through the snow before eventually arriving at solid(ish) ground.As the eager readers may have noticed north face denali, there was a distinct lack of a blog post yesterday. This was due to some rather unexpected circumstances, which you’ll read about below. I want to offer my sincere apologies for ruining your day, but I hope that this post will make up for it. This could end up being a very long post, as lots has happened, but I’ll try to communicate it as succinctly as possible (well, perhaps not as succinctly as possible...).
On Wednesday morning we woke up in a random location (as normal) and Gaz took the captains seat to drive us the few hours to Voralpsee. Everything was going well, but at about 50km from the crag I heard a strange noise the north face jacket. It wasn’t the strange noise (or smell) of Gaz or James’ morning display of masculine stupidity, but something that was perhaps more serious. To understand more fully how we’d arrived at this point it’s worth explaining the back story. Early on in the trip I heard a noise from the engine that I wasn’t convinced was normal, and I mentioned to Gaz that I thought there might be something amiss with the turbo. He responded by saying that the noise wasn’t audible if you turned the stereo up, so he did just that and drove on. It definitely didn’t seem like a serious noise, but something that I logged in my mind. Now fast forward to Wednesday morning at about 10am. We’d already been driving for a few hours when the noise suddenly became a little worse, which caused us the great problem of being audible over the music. Within the space of a few km the noise had become louder and rougher, so we did the only sensible thing and pulled over at the north face denali jackets.
The RV had no power and clearly something was wrong with the turbo. Being top class mechanics we opened up the hood and stuck in our heads, only to see a bunch of black hoses connecting various bit of metal. Not much help there. I guessed that the turbo had broken internally and was hopeful that the broken blades hadn’t done any damage further into the engine. We didn’t start it up again and James made the call to Fiat Assistance, who called European Assitance, who called someone else, etc. Whilst James was doing that Gaz was setting some different wheels in motion.To rectify this situation James arose at 7am and boosted off to the hire car office, demanding better service, bigger cars, and a couple of blonde floozies. He managed 2 out of the 3 and vowed that the 3rd would be complete before the trip was out. He returned to the climbing wall with our new ride, which was neither pimping, large enough, or fast. Our new ride was an Opel Zafira! It was now approximately 9am and we’d all had about 3 hours sleep so we began to brainstorm (badly) about the plan for the north face jacket. We had to get to Pfalz, which was 4 hours away, and climb the classic route Magnetfinger. Normally this would be an easy day but without the RV it was difficult to plan where we’d end up staying. Then someone came up with the bright idea of phoning the garage to check if a miracle had occurred and they’d managed to receive the new turbo and fit it. Someone must be keeping an eye out for us as the unbelievable had occurred and the mechanic said it would all be ready for 5pm. This was amazing news but it left us with a serious conundrum. How could we pick up the RV at 5pm and also go the pfalz to climb? At this point an injection of caffeine helped to get the brainstorming into gear and we came up with this genius plan. We’d hang out in Zurich,north face denali, taking it easy and resting our weary bodies, collect the RV at 5pm, then head straight to the Pfalz. What this meant was that our schedule would be a day behind but this was not in any way acceptable, so stage 2 of the plan dropped onto the table. We’d arrive at Pfalz late at night, sleep for a few cherished hours, then arise at dawn to get on the route. Once James and Gaz had done the deed we’d leave for Frankenjura, which was only a 4 hour drive, then tick the second route of the day; Slimline. After that was dispensed with we’d drive on for another hour to do a lecture and slideshow, followed by the first leg of our drive to Poland. Without a doubt this was a grand plan which could seriously break us, but this is what we decided we must do to get the trip back on schedule. There were many variables that could easily destroy the plan but we were pumped up and ready to take on the challenge. Dare to Dream north face denali fleece...
We reloaded the van, put the kettle on, and got back on the road to Pfalz. Being back in the van was like returning home after a long trip away. The slowness, the cheap build quality, the gas guzzling, the instability, and the lack of leather were all forgotten about. We had a kettle, we had the ability to walk around, we had beds, we had all of our gear, we had it all. We felt on top of the world again. Ten minutes later it was all forgotten as we settled into the slow lane for the arduous drive to our next destination. The ETA was around 1am and this was the first of the many variables with potential to go wrong over the next 24 hours! To Destruction!
The previous day I’d been telling Nina that we’d see to it that she was duly rewarded for her assistance in rescuing our trip on north face denali. I’d asked her what we could possibly do to show her our appreciation, to which she replied with a far too humble “nothing”. At this point James was off dealing with the broken down vehicle so I came up with a plan that he was sure to go along with. I told Nina that she should ask James to repay the favour by first providing her with champagne and secondly to show her the time of her life with a striptease from the two big men of the trip. She went along with the plan and James, being the most obliging man I know, of course agreed. Gaz was easy to get on board as he seems to do almost anything when the camera gets turned on... a true professional!
This was fairly early on in the north face jacket, and afterwards the party was pushed forward by a 4/4 beat, with everyone pulling out their best dance moves. It wasn’t a party of great numbers but those who were there were super friendly and super psyched. This was a very rare moment of hedonism for us whilst being on this trip. We were all determined to enjoy the night rather than think about how little sleep we’d get or how much driving we’d have to do the following day.
Now that we were in a car we’d been calling forward to people we know in order to try and score a place to sleep and everybody we asked was kind enough to say yes. However, there was one problem with our Alfa, and that was the size. We’d already left most of our stuff behind in the RV but we still weren’t sorted.north face denali jackets. Leather seats and cruise control don’t make up for things like a kettle and the ability to walk around whilst driving (which is both dangerous and illegal so we never do it!).
I reverted back into Mr Motivator mode and this time I knew James had the self belief to make it happen, so he set off. He was really having to try hard on the moves, but he kept going, fighting each move whilst getting higher and higher. He reached his previous high point but it was clear that he had something left in the tank and this time he hit the undercut then reached up to the jugs, pulling over to clip the chains much to his relief. This was probably the greatest ascent of the trip for many reasons. It was probably the hardest route of the trip so far, it was the second route of the day, it was initially dismissed by both the guys as being too much for them at this point of the day, but James really reached north face denali jackets very deep into the bottom of his hat and pulled it out. Just to show quite how much he’d used his mental toughness, I asked him to pull on again so I could record some of the moves and he genuinely couldn’t hang some of the positions. He’d given everything to get to the top and afterwards he had nothing left. It was inspirational stuff.
Gaz had to stop, his body shaking, his head hurting, and his 100% record broken. This was the first route he hadn’t done, and in my opinion was due to bad circumstances rather than his inability to do it. I think that with a full night’s sleep and a rest day he would have crushed this route despite having to use his back 2 fingers in the holds! The day was going well thus far and we were in the car at 5:35pm,north face jacket, making our way to the local climbing wall in Forcheim. As we drove to the wall we passed many of Frankenjura’s famous crags and thanks to the beautiful weather they were well populated. The same can’t be said for the climbing wall, which made for an intimate lecture. We may have amazing luck when it comes to conditions, but it’s not so amazing when it comes to organizing dates. The lecture coincided with one of Frankenjura’s biggest beer festivals, so taking that into account it was rather impressive that the audience was a cosy 10 people.