Bouldering in Algund

Yes! I can climb again. The three weeks of rest are over! It's been three hard weeks but now I am even more motivated to climb than before. 

Yesterday I went to Algund with Alexandra Ladurner. Unfortunately she has been injured for way too long but now she is finally not feeling that much pain anymore and she can climb again. It is really cool to climb again with her and it is also cool to see that she is getting really strong again (she is getting close on her first 8A).
So we went up to Algund, as I said, and first we went to the boulder "Tragic waste of Power" which Ale wanted to try. She managed to do all the moves again (last time she tried it a foothold broke) and I'm pretty confident that she is able to put the single moves together the next time. 
Afterwards we went up to this boulder called "The Egyptian arete". I've tried this boulder already four years ago and I thought that it is going to be a really quick work. In fact it took me a little longer. I tried this boulder about twice a year over the last 4 years and I never managed to climb the topout because I was always trying it with the wrong beta. But then, about a month ago, I tried another beta and I was finally sitting on the bloc. I was so happy, even though I had just climbed the topout. 

Yesterday I had to finish it off, and I finally did. On my last attempt of the day (it goes always on the last try of the day or the trip) I was standing on the top of an amazing boulder which was in my head since I tried it four years ago.   

Last year... still not having found the beta for the topout                                                                      pic by Marc Zipperle

Few days in Osp

Almost two weeks have passed since we came back home from our trip to Osp. It has been a cool time down there and we got to know the "Bora" (a cold and heavy wind) quite well. All in all we were quite lucky with the weather even though it was raining one day and so the next days almost everything was wet. Nevertheless we have been climbing every day (5 days in a row) without any rest.

Tortuga                                                                    pic by Marvin Kobald

On our first day I climbed some of the routes on the really left side of the wall in Mija Pec and tried once a route called "Eagles" in the middle of the huge wall. 

The next days I have basically just been climbing on the routes in the middle sectors because I liked them way more than those on the left hand side. On my second day I managed to climb "Eagles" on my third go and a really amazing route called "Oktoberfest" on my second go. 

searching the most inspiring line                          pic by Marvin Kobald

On our third day I started to try a harder route which is about 20 meters on the left of "Samsara" (I don't know the name of this route). The route is really bouldery and so I was surprised as I was able to climb all the moves. Because of that I was really motivated to give a few more tries into this awesome climb. 

yes, we were in 5 to sleep here =)                              pic by Martin Dejori

Unfortunately the next day it was raining. Nevertheless the route looked quite dry but as I was hanging in there I found out that one hold on the crux move was wet. This one wet hold was enough to make it impossible to try the route seriously. 

would have been motivated to climb here...                           pic by Marvin Kobald

The following day was already our last one and the hold in my project was still wet, so I finished my trip to Mija Pec with a flash of the super classic "Samsara" and a few attempts on some other routes. 

It's been 5 funny days in Mija and I can't wait for our next trip (this time hopefully bouldering =) ). But for now I will be resting for the next 3 weeks without touching any hold. It is going to be a hard time...

Dreaming about going out climbing!

Well... I have not a lot to tell!
Lately I've just been training. After the WYC in Singapore I decided to concentrate on bouldering so I am basically just working on my bouldering strength.
In the film "Progression" Paul Robinson says: "I had sit in school and I'd wish I could be going out climbing" (I hope it's somehow right like this). Exactly the same thing happens to me now. I'm sitting in school and I'm dreaming about all the amazing crags around the world. I'm dreaming about just being out there bouldering. So of course I cannot wait for the next holidays.
The plan was to go to Fontainebleau from 26th Oktober to 2nd November. I was really excited but unfortunately we found no driver =( I'm still really disappointed that I cannot go back to Fontainebleau but I hope the next time I will find someone who is motivated enough to drive all the way up to this magical forest.

I'm really sorry, but we don't knew it: it is forbidden to climb on
this boulder because of the risk to break it down.

But I really don't want to stay at home during my holidays so I will go to Osp with a couple of friends. Osp is for sure really cool too, but as I've just been training for bouldering I will just be able to climb easy routes, or at least really short ones =) We will for sure have a lot of fun, but... yes, bouldering would have been more fun!

 

Singapore - a wonderful experience!

It was 27th August. I woke up in the morning being really excited because in a few hours I would start my journey to Singapore for the World Youth Championship.

After the last European Youth Cup in Imst (where I finished in 11th place, what means first out of finals) I was like really disappointed and I wasn't motivated to climb competitions anymore. You have to know that because of the lack of money in the FASI (Federazione Arrampicata Sportiva Italiana) this year we have to pay all the competitions we are taking part, on our own. In the special case of Singapore it would cost us 1000 € (without counting the food, which is quite expensive there). So after the comp in Imst I was not motivated anymore to go to Singapore and I thought it would just be a waste of money (I could rather spend this money on a trip to Rocklands or so), but the flights were already booked and so I had no other choice.

So, back again to the 27th of August. As I said I was really excited and I was also motivated again because since Imst some time had passed and I had the chance to train and built up some endurance which was still missing. I felt stronger now but I also knew that I was by far not strong enough to compete with the best, so my goal was to reach the semifinals.

I left home knowing that it would be a really long journey till we would finally reach Singapore but nonetheless I was excited. I met up with my friends Andrea Prünster and Andrea Ebner and the father of Andrea Ebner took us to the Milano Malpensa Airport where we met the rest of the Italian team (this team turned out to be a really amazing one). We checked in our luggage and went to our gate. Our first flight to Frankfurt was pretty short and after about an hour we were walking to our next gate where our next plane to Singapore was waiting. Since the airport in Frankfurt is the biggest one in Europe, we even had to take a train to come from one terminal to the other one!

This is not good...

Our plane to Singapore was an Airbus A380, one of the biggest planes and I was really impressed by how big this plane actually is. But all in all, as long as you are not sitting in first class, every plane is very much the same: pretty much uncomfortable. So we were sitting inside this big plane watching some films, eating some disgusting food and hoping that the 12-hour flight will pass as quickly as possible. I don't know why but unfortunately I'm not able to sleep on a flight, so it's been really hard for me sitting there for 12 hours, but at about 4 pm local time we finally reached Singapore.

Would have prefered to take this flight =)

As I stepped out of the airport I almost got kicked back in. The last time I felt something like this was in a 90 degrees sauna. I had to struggle to even breathe and it was so incredibly hot and humid. But it slowly got better and I had to live with it anyway. We had to wait for quite a while till our taxi came which took us to the hotel. After about 24 hours of travelling I finally lay down on my bed being really tired. But it was not time to sleep yet. We had to go to the climbing wall for the opening ceremony. After that we got a kind of buffet there with some typical food. We then decided to go for a walk but I just wanted to go to bed as quickly as possible because I was really tired since I had not slept for more than 24 hours and the competition was on the next day.

I woke up feeling quite strong and confident for the competition. I did not even feel anything of a jet lag, so I was pretty happy about that. But as I saw the breakfast my confidence fell immediately and I already knew that I would have to buy some Nutella and some bread. I didn't know what I should eat so I decided to take the "american breakfast" which was mainly some kind of toasted bread, an egg and two sausages. It was not really good but I had to eat something to gain some energy. We then went down to the climbing wall which was about 5 minutes away from our hotel. First of all I had a look at the starting orders. I would start as 51st so I had plenty of time until it was my turn.
As it finally was time to climb the first route I was warm and felt quite strong. I started my climb and had some trouble on the starting section but then reached easily a fairly good rest. I shook both my hands and was ready to climb on. But then, two moves after, I suddenly came off. I still have no idea why, I wasn't pumped and I hadn't even slipped off. It is still a surprise for me. So I was really angry about this kind of "mistake" but finished the first route in 26th place with some more guys in 26th (26 enter into the semifinals). Knowing that, if I wanted to climb the semifinal, I would have to climb much better the next day I finished my day swimming in our amazing pool.


On the second route I started much earlier (as 14th or so). I really like it to start early so I felt strong again but also knew that the route is was going to be harder than the first one. I climbed better but nevertheless I was definitely not happy with my performance. I was quite sure that I wouldn't make it to the semifinals but I had to wait until the last climber. In fact he went off before me and so I ended my second day again as 26th, and that meant that I had reached the semifinal. I was super happy but I also knew that once again I had to climb a lot better than these past two days.

I woke up in the morning of the finals and as I opened the curtains I couldn't believe my eyes. It was raining. It was raining heavily. Definitely way too much to climb, even though the wall was overhanging. Since the wall wasn't covered it got completely wet from the backside. The starting time of the semifinals was delayed and delayed. At noon it eventually stopped raining. Of course the wall was totally wet so the the starting time was set at 15.30.
I was the second to start (we were in two in 26th place) so I had to be prepared for 15.30. At 15.15 we went out to have a look at the routes. The first part of the route looked kind of strange but the second part of the route was looking really cool on a lot of crimps. We went back into isolation. The first two climbers had to be ready immediately, so I set down there on the chair and was waiting for my turn. The first climber went off quite early so I walked out my way to the route. I really wanted to reach the "cool - looking" second part of the route but the first part turned out to be way harder than expected. I climbed quite well and got the first sequences in the right way but then, exactly as on the first route, I suddenly just came off. Ok this time my foot slipped a little bit but that's no excuse for why I fell off again that early. Almost everyone of the climbers after me had some trouble at the start but most of them passed me, even though a lot of them climbed just one or two moves further than me. I finished in 23th place but if I had done three more moves I would have been in the final. But ok, now it was time to enjoy Singapore and I was really syked to watch the finals.

Singapore at night

The next day we spent just swimming and watching our team-mates in the speed competition.


We had now two days left in Singapore and we decided to visit the city, since we were living on an island (they were celebrating the birthday of the island: 40 years =) ) a little bit outside of the actual city. I really hate cities. You just walk around all the day, you enter in 1000 different shops and at the end of the day your legs hurt terribly. Despite that I went with the other guys into the city, because it's a kind of "must". So we took the "Angry birds cable car" and the metro to get in there. As I entered the metro I was impressed by how many people were sitting there staring at their iPhone or any other super big mobile phone. No one is reading a newspaper, or at least they are reading it on their phone. I felt like I was 100 years back in time with my old Nokia.

This guy is definitely cool!!

Angry birds cable car

So we took that metro to China Town. Basically we visited one big street which can be considered as one mega store where you can buy anything you want, faked or not! It didn't last long and I was totally wrecked. But it was still quite early and the other guys walked in and out in a million different shops, so the only option for me was to fight myself through this "nightmare" street following the other ones. And then we finally reached the end of the street and I just wanted to return back home and jump into the swimming pool but it was not time to go home yet. Some of us wanted to visit "Little India" and so we took the metro to "Little India". As we arrived there and walked through some streets we were surprised by how ugly this place actually is. We even saw two guys fighting on the street. Strange people there!
No one wanted to spend more time there and so we started our way back home (finally). I was just so happy when I jumped into the (a little bit too warm) water of the pool. I survived another city!

China Town

Little India

Little India

Since we were living on an island with a lot of adventurous attractions (wave house, sky diving...) we decided to spend our last day trying some of them. The first one should have been the wave house but as I saw the prices I changed my opinion. Some other guys of our team tried it nevertheless and I was really jealous watching them. I spent the rest of the day in the swimming pool and in Mc Donalds.

This is good =)

Our hotel with swimming pool!

At 6 pm it was time to start towards the airport. After quite a while in the metro we reached the airport where we visited Burger King for the last time and then we went for the check in. It would  be a long, long journey.

After the 12 hours flight over half of the planet we reached Frankfurt where we had to wait about 4 hours for our next plane to Milan. That plane should start at 9.30 am and when it was time to get on board they said the flight was canceled due to a strike of the Lufthansa. I was already destroyed from all the waiting and now we had to wait till 16.30 for the next plane to Milan. It was a nightmare!
Then, at about 4 pm, they called us for the boarding. I was so happy when I finally set down on my seat. Come on, just one hour was missing and we would be back in Italy.
After a "short" one-hour flight we walked out of the gate to get our luggage. We were waiting, and waiting, and waiting. But no luggage. All our stuff had probably got lost somewhere in Frankfurt. It was unbelievable. I was completely devastated. We had to give them our addresses and phone numbers so that they would be able to send us our luggage back home as soon as they would find it. I just wanted to go home!!!!!!!

My parents picked me up in Modena north and brought me directly to Merano because I had to go to school the next day. I was super tired when I finally lay down on a wonderful bed. I had one single thing in my mind before I fell asleep: despite this horrible journey back home it's been AWESOME!!

     

               

Once again... a perfect day!

Yesterday I climbed an other route with my friend Andi. The route is called "Da pozzo vecchio pazzo" (9/9+) and is situated on the Tofana di Rozes wall. I've never climbed on this wall before so I was really curious and for sure really excited too.
It was a long drive and when we finally got there and I had a look at the wall I was really disappointed, but not because the wall was too small or not nice. Just because the whole wall was covered by some big cloudes. I remained optimistic and said to myself that these clouds will be away once we are on the bottom of the wall. Indeed, as we reached the wall the cloudes moved slowly away.
Now we had the problem that both of us wanted to try to onsight the first 7c pich, so we played the rock-paper- scissor game. Andi won and started into the first bouldery pich. The crux was a little roof where he had some problems. It was a hard boulder so he fell there. He then tried to find out a good beta and went down again. It was my turn. I clmibed the first 10 easy meters and fought my way through the boulder. I was really happy that I managed to flash the first and hardest pich. Andi followed me as second.
The next piches were easy, nevertheless every single one was amazing. And then we reached the seventh pich. It was my turn to lead and I started having a lot of respect because I'm always a little afraid of 50 meter piches. I climbed and climbed. It was a one of the biggest fights ever. After more than half an hour of climbing I finally reached the end of the pich. I set down and wrote a sms to my mother: What a perfect day! It can't get better!  


By the way: In the next days I will put the report of our trip to Singapore online. Stay tuned =)

Having fun with some friends

The last two days I have been climbing with my friends Andrea, Marvin and Alberto. A part of climbing Menhir once again I felt really week and tired so I'm taking some restdays now.
The first day we decided to go climbing in Eiszeit, a cool crag with some of the best routes I've ever climbed.  Unfortunately a big part of the wall was wet. I climbed two routes there and then Marvin and I went down to an other wall to try a project in an amazing roof. It turned out to be really, really hard. At the beginning of the roof there is a boulder which might be somewhere in the 8A range. We weren't even able to climb all the moves. The second part of the roof is easier but it's still possible to fall there. All in all the route is awesome. I guess i found a new project =)
On our second day we walked up to Menhir. They where all very inspired by the route and very syked to give it a try. Basically I walked up to this route again just to explain the moves to my friends an to belay but then I wanted to climb something and since there is just this one route I had to climb this route =) And I managed to climb the route again without any rest.
We had two nice days.

I will rest now for some days and on Monday I have a flight to Singapore for the World Youth Championship. It is the first time I'm travelling out of Europe an I'm just so excited!
  

Moments I'm living for

Who of you guys knows this song: Anton aus Tirol? For all those who don't understand what DJ Ötzi is singing about: he is singing about a really beautiful man. And exactly this beauty fits perfectly the route, called Anton aus Tirol, I climbed yesterday with my friend Andi.

Andi asked me the day before if I would be motivated enough to climb Anton aus Tirol with him. First I wasn't sure at all but then I said to myself: come on dude, let's go for it, it will be fun. And it definitely was fun! I think I've never climbed such an amazing multipich before. Everything was just awesome! It all started with the second pich, a 7b overhang. The features in that overhang were just incredibly perfect. This overhang was followed by some slab piches which were as good or ever better than the second pich. The best pich was the seventh, a 40 meter long 7a on perfect rock. Well the last pich wasn't that good anymore, still pretty good though but just not as good as the previous ones, and then I was sitting there in the sun, on the top of an awesome, proud 300 meter wall thinking: yes, these are the moments I'm living for!

Menhir - the adventure

First of all I have to tell you what Menhir is.

Menhir is a single pich on the big and amazing "Meisules dala biesces" wall. Well, Meisules is known for some of the best alpine routes in the area, but Menhir is different... something special.
As I said it's a single sport climbing pich. There are no other routes, neither easier ones nor harder ones. So you walk up the slope just for this single route. Already this makes Menhir something different, but there are more things that make this route so special.
For example the length. Menhir is 45 meters long, a real endurance test piece.
This route is also pretty much conditions dependent. In the winter you can't climb over there because of the snow and the low temperatures. So if you want good conditions you have to try Menhir in the summer. But also in the summer the conditions are different. If you try the route in the morning the sun shines and it's really hot. As soon as the sun disappears the temperatures drop and it's almost cold. The conditions for climbing are perfect in the shadow but for belaying it's quite cold.
All this things make Menhir so special and so amazing.

But let's get to the ascent now:

Some moves after the crux                                                                                                                            Pic by Martin Dejori

 I tried Menhir for the first time about 2 years ago (2010) with my good friend Rudi. He almost onsighted the route and did this 45 meter pich on his second go. Impressive =) But I had no chance. I did every move quite easily and climbed through the crux, wich might be a 7a boulder, on my first try. Nevertheless I came not even close on climbing the whole route, I had by far not enough endurance.
Then, one year later (2011), I went up once again, but walked back down with the same result as the year before. I needed to get much more endurance.
This year my motivation for this route was much bigger and I really wanted to climb the whole pich. At the beginning of the summer I thought that once again I have not enough endurance because I was mainly just bouldering, but the bouldering strenght helped me a lot on this route. And finally my dream came true.
It was the third time I went up to try Menhir this summer. The second time with my friend Andi. Because of the lenght of the route I never did more than 2 tries but Andi said we might just have one try because it might start raining every second. Last time Andi was the first to start and this time it was my turn to start. I wasn't sure if I should climb up just a little piece to get warm or if I should immediately give it a serious try. I gave it a serious try! I felt confident and shaked my way up the wall. My fingers were feeling strong and I wasn't getting pumped at all. After about half an hour I clipped the chain not even being really pumped. I was just super happy and I still am super happy.
After me Andi gave it a burn beeing really motivated now that I have climbed the route. He climbed easily through the crux but fell of some moves after. He wanted to climb up as far as he can once more to built up some endurance, when all of a sudden it started raining! Well, after a few seconds it was not just raining anymore, it was hailing! We were in the middle of a big thunderstorm. Since the wall of Menhir is not so steep there is not a lot of space to be covered from the rain so we decided to pack up our stuff and run down to the car. Run, run, run... and when I was finally sitting in the car I was just laughing. I have never been so wet before... a real adventure =)

First blogpost

I have always been syked about having a personal blog where I can write about all the stuff that happend lately in my life. So... here it is! My first blog =)
(Oh, by the way... sry for my bad english)