Yosemite - up to the Big Walls

Now it really has been a long time ago since I’ve let you know I’m not a fat-ass yet! So after I was in Las Vegas to clean my car, clothes and myself a little I went to Sequoia National Forest. It’s a really impressive and big forest, the trees are huge and massif! I’ve been standing under the biggest tree in the world for about half an hour until my beard was frozen of the icy cold.


The next day I drove in to Yosemite National Park! Beautiful and so impressive. I’ve never thought it was possible to see so much climbable rock, so high in one eye view.
When I arrived at Camp 4 I was a little disappointed because of all the restrictions!
In the summer season you can only stay 7 days in the park and so only camp 7 days. On top of that there was no space available anymore at Camp 4 when I arrived. Free camping just in the woods is pretty hard sometimes with the rangers patrolling trough the forest, looking for dirt-bags like me. Stories are going around that when the rangers find you, they even kick your ass and give you a fine over 200 dollars! Shitheads!

So the day after I arrived I woke up at 6 am to go and wait in line to check in for a campsite. I was seventh in line and I could conquer a one! I also slept 2 nights at the search and rescue camp in Niels’s hut! Thanks for that boy!

In this first week here I climbed 6 days and did already a lot of classics!
- Hardd (2pitches)
- Outer Limits (1 pitch)
- Serenity Crack (3pitches)
- Sons of Yesterday (5 pitches)
- Central Pillar of Frenzy ( 5 pitches)
- Kor- Beck (only did the first 4 pitches because was the same day as Frenzy)
- South by Southwest ( 6 pitches)
- The Nose up to Dolt Tower (11 pitches)
Of this last one I lead all the pitches (almost free) and Kevin followed up with the ascender! This was a super line! I’m ready for the whole 32 pitches!
- Generator Crack (1 pitch) My first Offwidth I tried! I did it almost first go on top-rope! This is so hard! The most physical style in climbing. Bouldering is nothing compared to offwidth.

So after all this I found three guys to share the gas to go to San Francisco where I picked up Florian Castagne from the airport at Saturday evening! I had been looking forward to this moment and am so psyched to share the trad-climbing/ multi-pitch experiences with someone I know!

On Sunday we visited San Francisco in a nice and sunny day (rare for this city), we were lucky! We checked out the most touristic places like China Town, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Pyramid Center and The Fisherman’s Warf! All this was amazing, I really enjoyed this time and it felt good not to do all this alone but with some good company!



After a tiring day of being a real tourist we still didn’t have a fat-ass and did already one part of the drive to Yosemite. The next day we did big groceries before entering the park and I had to fix my left lower front light of the car. After that, Flow (like those silly Americans call him) and I continued our way to Yosemite. That same day I showed Flo around and we even climbed tree easy pitches!The next day we were really motivated to wake up at 5:45am to go and do East Buttress of Middle Cathedral. We woke up this early to be in front of the crowed, and yes, we were the first ones on the route with 3 parties behind us! It’s a nice and easy line of 11 pitches and good for Florian to start in Yosemite to get used to the style.

Today we tried to climb but the rain showed us the way to the launch in Curry village where tons of people are escaping from the rain. After I finished this blog post I’m going to wake up that Belgian who is having a jetlag in my Van for the moment!

Enjoy the pictures!

Read More

Joe's Valley - The movie!

Here is a nice little movie of Joe's valley, edited by my colorado friend Thomas Seymore!

Joe's Valley from Thomas Seymour on Vimeo.

Read More

Some climbing done!

Last Sunday evening I’ve met two French guys where I was camped. Nicolas André and Matthieu Mercier. They are on the road for 6 months, first they will spend 9 weeks in the states, after that they’ll go to South Africa and New Zealand.

On Monday I climbed with Matthieu, he is more a multi-pitch climber and he even does some alpine climbing. Nicolas is more of a boulderer, and a really strong one to.
We tried to climb ‘Monkey Fingers’, an 8 pitch long 5.12b. The 12b pitch was the third one witch I tried to on sight but it didn’t work. It was a really small finger crack in a corner, even the book says harder for big handed folks! I felt it!
The rest of the route we could finish without any problems! It was a real adventure again those multi-pitches.On Tuesday we climbed with three, it was going really slow because of all the rope organizing but it worked. We tried ‘Plan B’, a 6 pitch long 5.12b. This one was definitely a little bit harder! The second pitch was a nice Indian Creek style splitter witch I lead without problems because of the Indian Creek experience. The third pitch was pretty dangerous, Matthieu lead it very good.

After that I and Nico followed. Just before the anchor was a huge pillar the size of a fridge that moved 5cm backwards when I was hanging on it. I kept my balance and leaned forward again to put my weight of the fridge sized rock! I screamed pretty loud because I thought I was falling with that fridge in my hands! Luckily nothing happened and I could continue in the 4th pitch. This was the crux pitch of the route! It was a 12b roof-crack, but long and big! I liked it a lot but I fell twice! If I would try it again I think I’m able to do it. After that Matthieu and Nicolas followed, but because it was a big roof there was a lot of friction. We also lost one Camalot #1, we bought a new one together afterwards.
Because of this crazy friction in the roof, the rope was getting used! At the end Matthieu fell and I just heard him screaming pretty loud. I had no idea what was going on because I couldn’t see him. After we did some crazy rescue style I saw that the mantle of the rope 2 meters above his nut was broken and you could see the core very well. That last part of the roof I belayed him on a thin rope we had to haul up our bag! Luckily everything worked out pretty well and we didn’t have an accident, we’ve just lost a cam. After Nico tried to get the Camelot back for 30 minutes we were tired of all the shit that had happened and came down. Too bad because it was a really nice line! Just not a line you want to climb with three people.
Afterwards in the coffee shop we looked back on the day and had a lot of fun. Those days need to be there, that’s how you get experienced!



Yesterday we wanted to climb again but the rain made us leave Zion national Park. I came to Las Vegas to pick up my title of my car and stayed at the house where my car is registered. Rian, the owner of the house, let me wash my clothes, clean my whole car out and finally wash myself in his house! It feels awesome to have everything clean. I’ve vacuumed my whole car, really everything. This all because I’m scared a bear is going to yank out one of my doors to get in for food!

So now I’m going to leave Las Vegas again and go to Yosemite! I’m really excited because I know a lot of people over there right now! And in 10 days Florian is coming!


I also doubled my rack! I've almost two full racks from 0.3 up to 3!

Read More

In Zion, Utah but without climbing!

I’ve spent two days in Zion right now! I still didn’t climb because I can’t find a climbing partner. The guy were I normally should have climbed with today, Arturro from St George, fell with his mountain bike yesterday so he can’t climb anymore.


Yesterday I walked around trough the whole canyon, I saw the climbs I would like to climb. Moonlight Buttress looks amazing, it motivated me even more!
I’ve already a lot of contacts now here in Springdale. Now it’s just a matter of time to wait until some local has time to climb.

Today I went to Bryce Canyon, 1.5 hour north from Zion. It was beautiful but I still feel frustrated because I couldn’t climb while I’m in an amazing multipitch sandstone area! Enjoy some of my pictures from the view of a tourist!

Read More

Joe's Valley and heaven food!

It has been a while ago since I wrote a blog post. I’ve spent the past five days in Joe’s Valley with Tom, Mike and TJ. Mike left after one day to take a little break in his one year climbing trip. He went back home for two weeks, really long I think! So I had to say goodbye to Mike for a long while, because from now on our future destinations are not the same anymore!

I’ve had quite an adventure with the car on my way to Joe’s Valley. When I just past Green River my van acted really strange, it was something with the transmission that was clear. I stopped at a rest area where I saw that there was steam coming from underneath the car. I let the engine cool down a little and filled up the transmission oil, it was completely empty. There was definitely a leak somewhere. I realized that I had to go back to Green River to see a mechanic. After an hour waiting I left on the highway the same way I was going until I saw a place where I could make a U-turn. This U-turn was illegal so I was happy no cop saw me. Towards Green River it was all downhill so I’ve put the car in neutral and just rolled down 15 miles, pretty slow. In Green River I saw a mechanic who told me I probably could drive toward Price the closest ‘bigger’ city where they probably could fix my car. And I did those 60 miles with one quart of transmission oil in the engine. When I arrived in Price it was already 9pm so I slept there at a Wal-Mart parking lot. The next day was a Saturday and almost every mechanic was closed, I was almost crying when I found a little mechanic named John! Mechanic John was my hero for the day! He found out where the leak was and showed me everything. Now I know my car a little better and know what was going on. He even fed me some cinnamon rolls and coffee. At 10:30am I left Price and drove 35 miles towards Joe’s valley.

That same day I climbed on my own a little because the others took a rest day. It was strange to boulder after 1 month of trad-climbing but it was a good thing for my body and strength.
The second day I did already a nice V9 named ‘Worse case scenario’. I felt I had to build up my pure power again but it came back fast.


Next day we took a rest day because of the rain, it was raining and even snowing pretty bad! We went to town and later on TJ, Tom and I watched Watchmen in the bus. That was a perfect rainy rest day activity! The next day the weather looked better in the morning. We could climb the whole morning until it started to rain again. We did some beautiful slabs on a boulder half in the river! Really beautiful climbing there. It reminds me a lot at Fontaine Bleau! Doing some nice V8 slabs with tiny footholds and big slopers. So the heavy rain sent us back to the bus to watch another movie. Rain is annoying when you’re psyched!
My 5th day at Joe’s valley was amazing, I flashed 5 V7’s and one I did second go! Everything was just flowing and going! I also did a nice and powerful V9.

Joe’s valley was a nice relief from all the dessert climbing I did during this trip. Although Joe’s is still high dessert it was still nice to climb between some trees who give that awesome smell you forget when you’re in the low dessert all the time. Most of the boulders are some amazing quality, the sandstone is pretty hard and you can find a lot of different styles. From overhang crimps to hard slabs on slopers! The boulders have a nice bleu color with orange strikes. I could stay here definitely longer but I had to leave if I still wanted to climb in Zion before it’s too hot. I’m sure it was a good thing to do some bouldering for five days in combination with all the trad-climbing. Keep my strength on an acceptable level.

Now I’m in Zion for my first day. I haven’t been in the canyon yet, I’ll do that in an hour! I’m excited. I just don’t have a climbing partner for today. Tomorrow I will climb whit Arturro Calvo, he is a climber who lives in St George. A friend of mine, Lauren Lee, connected me with Arturro. He doesn’t speak much English, most of the time he speaks Spanish. So good for me, I hope to learn a little bit Spanish. I’m planning to try Moonlight Buttress one of these days. Before I try that 10 pitch V 5.12d I want to try something easier to get used to the style!

In Joe’s valley I made my best dinner ever! It was so good that I’ll give the recipe on my blog!

- First you learn how to make a campfire if you don’t know how to do it yet. Wait until you have a lot of nice hot red cols.
- You wrap a whole sweet potato in aluminum foil and throw it in the cols for about 40 minutes.
- Wrap some onion and carrots in some foil too, add some pepper, garlic salt and olive oil! Throw this package of heaven in the fire for about 20 minutes (depends how good your fire is.)
- When the vegetables are almost cooked you take them out of the fire and add some honey and cheddar cheese. Now, throw the package of ultimate heaven back in the fire for 2 minutes!
- When both, potato and vegetables, are ready you take them out of the fire.
- Now you take your time to make heavens bites! First you take a salty cracker, put a slice of sweet potato on top of that cracker. On top of that you put a piece of smoked trout (river fish). And as final touch you put the honey, cheese vegetables on top of the tower of happiness!
- Take that piece of happiness and enjoy your life!

I hope someone will try this because it’s really good! I feel definitely a better person right now!

Read More

Send of 'Air Swedin' 5.13R

Bitch yeah! Life is good!
After the really nice rest days at Tom’s dad Condo in Moab Kevin, Liesel and I went back to the lovely Creek! Tom and Mike left to Joe’s Valley to do their boulder thing again!


On Monday Kevin, Liesel and I woke up early enough to go and try ‘Air Swedin’ again! I tried it once more in top(gay)rope and then gave it a real try with all the gear! This was my second try on lead and my 4th try in general. I felt way better while I was climbing but I screwed up my beta just before I could place the C3 #0 BD and I fell, I fell deep, really deep! I was psyched! Not scared at all, just really concentrated! I love that feeling, that’s why I climb! After that try, the line was too much in the sun to try it again! So I waited the rest of the day. I wanted to climb but I had a pretty bad headache so a just slept in a little place of shade behind a little boulder. When that headache was a little better I climbed a little to stay awake and ready for a second try in the late afternoon when the line was back in the shade.
At six pm I tried it again! And guess what? I flew up that line like it was nothing! I was in the best focus ever! And it’s pretty necessary to be in a good focus if you do the crux of a 13R 3 meters above a tiny piece of gear! I love this line and am glad I could do it!

The day after that Indian Creek for me was open again! We went to the 4x4 wall where I did my first 5.12+ (‘Hydraulic Pump’) only in my second go! It’s a nice .5 to .75 BD splitter with some lay-backing and two difficult corner switches at the start and in the end!
Those two last days where great and I feel I’m really getting in to crack climbing!

On Wednesday I had an easier day of climbing but a lot of hiking was involved! Ken (One of my favorite Canadian!) and I did the North Six Shooter! This is one of the two obvious towers in Indian Creek! The hike took us two hours but it was worth it. We did the line called ‘Lightning Bolt Cracks’ (5.11-). This is only a three pitch line but it’s at the highest point in the Creek and it’s nice and exposed! Ken lead the first pitch and I lead the second and the third because of the rotten anchor at the second pitch. The last pitch is a 5.9 unprotected squeeze chimney! For the ones who don’t know what a chimney is, just think about a crack in the rock that is too big to place fingers, hands, arms, feet or legs! But the crack is big enough to crawl in to! So I got as deep as I could into that crack and used my feet, knees, back and hands to go up! You can see at as two opposite walls with nothing to hold on and you just compress your body between the walls and struggle your way up! And the squeeze of squeeze chimney means that it’s pretty small. My head and helmet got stuck a couple of times! Really scary climbing because once you relax your body, you just slip down! Even this was an awesome experience and I’ll do it again!
The view from the top of the tower was amazing, we could see all over the Creek, Canyon lands and the Abajo Mountains.


Yesterday I found somebody to go to Zion National Park but this morning he changed his mind and decided to go home today according to his original plan! So I still don’t have a climbing partner for Zion! I really want to do ‘Moonlight Buttress’ (V 5.12d), a hard but classic 9 pitch climb! It is hard to find a partner for this climb because I want to free-climb it. Two weeks ago Lauren told me that she news some people who lives near Zion where I maybe can climb with! I’m going to try to contact them because I don’t want to leave Utah before I did some big walls on sandstone! Today I left Indian Creek for real; I’m going to join Tom and Mike at Joe’s Valley for a couple of days! It was really sad to leave this place! Indian Creek is by far my favorite place in America until now. I’m really going to miss this place! Everything was perfect! Tons of different walls, beautiful free camping, far enough from civilization, nice people, all climbing grades, beautiful environment, high quality sandstone and easy to gear placements! You see? This place is amazing!

This is a little tick list of my best climbs out here:

- Air Swedin 5.13R
- Hydraulic Pump 5.12+
- Tenderloins 5.12
- Slice and Dice 5.12
- Not That Funny 5.12-
- Comic Relief 5.12-
- T-Bones Tonight 5.12-
- Swedin-Ringle 5.12-

Read More

Taking some Air!

Last week was quite a mixed week. The first few days after my last blog post it rained a lot and all the areas were pretty wet. So we took two days off. We all crawled in our cars and read our books. Another activity was to get all in my van and find as much gear placements as possible!

After two of those rest days we tried to climb a little, I did four routes but we needed to be selective with the lines we did. Some stuff was still wet and it can be dangerous to try hard stuff that is climbable but still too wet to place your gear safely. So we did some easy lines. The next night it rained the whole time nonstop, so for sure the routes where wet. So that following day we climbed in the late afternoon. I only did two lines, but I was happy to put my hands in some cracks! That same evening Tom and Mike arrived in the Creek. They’ve been in St George for about two weeks where they bouldered in Moe’s Valley. It was so great to see them back after only 3 weeks. I wish our future destinations were the same but unfortunately we have different plans. It was their first time in Indian Creek and also the first time they were going to climb some cracks with trad-gear.

The next day we all woke up with tons of sun in our dirty faces! Awesome, I was well rested and ready for a nice and long day of crack climbing! The motivation was high and the fingers and hands where healed. I went to ‘The Scarface Wall’ with Sam, Tom, Mike, Kevin and Liesel. Kevin and Liesel have already been climbing in Indian Creek for two weeks. I met them in Bishop a month and a half ago.
It was the first day for Mike and Tom to climb some cracks. First Liesel taught them how to make tape gloves like you see on one of the pictures. Pretty funny, I laughed a lot with Mike because before he could even tie his tape glove on his hand he dropped his construction of tape a couple of times in the sand. An hour later their hands where finally mummified and the torturing could begin! They tried some lines first on top rope before the trad-climbing challenge could begin.

I did two new 5.12-‘ses. They are both nice, thin and overhanging. The first one I did was ‘Not That Funny’. First, I had no idea where that name comes from, until I did the second 12- next to it. That line is called ‘Comic Relief’. It is a line with three roofs in a corner. It’s pretty funny to see people climbing that line because most of the time your scrunched up in the roof and you’re hands are moving blindly to come out of the roof! I did both of the lines. I needed three tries on ‘Comic Relief’ because I placed my last gear before the crux over the last roof where I needed to smear my foot afterwards. So I fell pretty funny trying to place my foot in the corner where the gear was. No problem, I loved to do the whole thing again five minutes after that second go.
Tom and Mike were dead tired (like everybody on their first day) from this first day of crack climbing. Like they said before they went to bed at nine pm; Everything hurts!


The next day I was even more exited to climb! Me, Kevin and Tom woke up at 7 am to go climbing at 8 am. We started so early because I was motivated to try ‘Air Swedin’ 5.13R again in the morning before it got too hot. With the song ‘Bad Boys’ of ‘Inner Circle’ blasting through the speakers of my van, all singing out loud, the day started!



We went up to the magic line. I put up a top rope on it reaching the chains from another line on the right. After Kevin and I tried ‘Air Swedin’ on top rope I gave it a go on lead with all the gear, ready to fly! While I climbed, Tom went up on a fixed line I prepared in the warm-up on the right to take some pictures.

The first part until the chains was going really well. It’s a nice splitter size .75 Black Diamond. At the chains of the first part (‘Swedin-Ringle’ 5.12-) I placed three pieces of gear size C3 #2 BD. This is a crack a little bit bigger than one centimeter. After placing that gear, when I was already a little bit pumped, I reached to the left slopy rail.

Then you go up for about 3 meters without placing any piece of gear. This three meter section is the crux. I fell there on my first lead try that day! The reason for not placing gear in that section is because it’s just too hard to place gear. The next piece you place is a C3 #0 BD, really small! To place this cam you need to do a tricky move, on top of that you place it without seeing the crack! It’s a blind placement, just hoping it’s good and clip it! After that the hardest part is over but it’s still tricky and scary. After that last C3 #0 BD you go up for 2.5 meters without placing gear until you can place a C3 #1 BD. Also pretty small gear. From then on you can start placing some bigger gear again! I fell once in the crux! It was really exciting, I was just so happy the gear placements stayed in the crack!

I’m glad there are some nice pictures of this climb. I’m definitely going to try that line again!
That afternoon I did two more easier lines and went to town in the evening with the whole group. After 1 month of cooking in my car, going out to a pizza restaurant all-you-can-eat was so luxury.

After 2 hours of dumping pizza in our stomach Tom, Mike and I went on a mission through Moab to sneak in one of the hotels’ hot tubs and swimming pools! At the first hotel we failed but at the second hotel I asked some people who were in the hot tub to let us in because we completely forgot our room key card! That worked easily! Just do the stupid Belgian thing: Me from Belgium! Me and friend forgotton key!



We could chill out the whole night in a nice hot tub! After that we went to the condo of Tom’s dad and his friends. It’s a house they rent for several days when they are in Moab. They are here to do some mountain biking.
This morning we took a nice and long shower at this place, we are all clean now! Feels really good! Or like Mike said when we first walked on the street all clean: Oh whaauw, this is crazy! I just want to dance right now!
You see what a shower can do for a dirt bag!

Enjoy the many pictures and check out Tom and Mike’s Vantasy!














Some crazy morning faces! I love it!

Read More