What to do when you’re a motivated climber in Belgium? I’m still searching for the solution, but I’m close.
Now I’m about three months and a half back in Belgium and this blog post will be more optimistic as the last one! I’m living in a little house with another climber near Leuven. I’m working for Greenpeace and doing some route setting in climbing gyms to earn some money for my next project, I’ll need it!
In the mean while I’m training a little in gym and climbing as much as I can outside;
Freyr, Ettringen and Pfalz. To train more specifically for my next project I go running a little and try to go to trad-climbing areas.
Last week I’ve been three days in Freyr (Belgium’s famous vertical sport climbing crag) and three days in the Pfalz (Trad climbing in Germany).
Freyr is some good grey limestone sport climbing. But still I couldn’t leave my cams home! I heard that Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll and Mich Zaman climbed
’13 Boulevard du Vol’, 8a on cams so I had to give it a try to! Togheter with Klaas Willems I went to Freyr with a bigger backpack as usual. It didn’t took me to much try’s, after one try searching for the good cam placements in this quite solid limestone
I did the only 8a traditional route in Freyr. Funky! "
2 bovenste foto's: Bram Lambrechts"
After that good start of a little week trip, Klaas and I left towards the Pfalz, Germany. The Pfalz is a big climbing area with lots of little crags apart from each other. The sandstone towers or walls are mostly about 40 – 50 meters high. There is a lot of trad-climbing but also some sport. The trad-climbing there is not so hard but really beautiful. If you’ve never climbed trad on sandstone, this is a really nice place to learn it! The atmosphere of the fall with the beautiful trees and the red – brownish sandstone is amazing. After three days of climbing there the humidity was pretty high so we decided to go back towards Freyr!
Our fifth day climbing in a row happened on the small edges in Freyr! Again a beautiful fall day showed us some nice and peaceful nature! Even at the end of November the main wall can be to hot in the sun. But still I decided to try an old project back again: ‘Schwarzenegger’, the classic 8a in Freyr. I was really surprised when I did it first try of the day while hanging the quickdraws. Hanging those quickdraws is no problem compared to searching a while where to place witch size of cam!
Schwarzenegger: "Foto Werner Van Steen - Alpitec/Petzl Benelux"
That same day we returned back home where I rested a day and went running. The next day I returned again towards Freyr to do some more vertical edgy sport climbing. This time I brought my girlfriend with me who started to climb one month ago! Nice! Because of the nice Sunday a lot of Belgium climbers were hanging around on this amazing limestone wall. So the good atmosphere was already there. It was a misty and a little bit humid day in Freyr but we couldn’t complain much.
Again I did some good performances, really unexpected. I climbed
‘Banegger’, 8a on sight, although the first part of it because the second part I already climbed with Schwarzenegger. This was really amazing, I love the technical art of Freyr! When I came down from Banegger I looked at
‘Bayou Minou’, 8a+, the same start as Banegger but another end. When I came down I rested a little and did it first go! I was so surprised, I’m sure it was the good atmosphere and vibes of a nice November Sunday in Freyr.
So this is my way of
combining climbing and real life for the moment! It works pretty well!
The 24th of January I’m leaving for an amazing project far away again! I’m still not going to say what it will be!
Keep on rocking and find a way!
