Christmas holidays

 It's been a while since my last blogpost and a lot of things happend, but all I want to speak about now are the Christmas holidays.

My first goal of these holidays was the unfinished business in Pontives. I still had a project out there which I really wanted to climb because I was already trying it for a really long time. Since I found this boulder, cleaned it and started trying it back in the summer of 2011 this line kept always in my head. Last March, after a lot of work, I finally managed to climb the stand start wich I called "Lost Illusion". I was really happy about that, but I knew that, if I wanted to be satisfied and in peace with this boulder, I have to climb the sit. So I started working on it, but in the summer it was simply way too hot to even try it so I forgot it for a little while.
And then, after the long summer and the even longer fall, the temperatures finally dropped, the conditions became better and I could start trying it again.
It was the day of Christmas Eve and my family wanted to go swimming, but come on... swimming... on Christmas Eve???? No thanks!! I wanted to go bouldering. I wanted to go out into the forest and finally finish off this line I've been dreaming about since I saw this piece of rock for the first time. And that's what I did. Standing on top of this beautiful boulder, after investing so much time into it was the best Christmas gift imaginable.

FA of "Lose Yourself"

After all the Christmas celebrations it was time to leave home and go bouldering again. Destination: Cresciano and Chironico.
I've spent a week in Cresciano already last February and surprisingly I left without many unfinished projects, so I had nothing to finish with on this trip. But I had a ton of new stuff to try.
At the end of the trip I left Cresciano by having tried almost every single classic line. That doesn't mean that I have climbed a lot of them too, no no, quite the contrary... it means that I have climbed none of them. La Pelle, La Proue, La Boule, Gecko, Last Samurai, La nave va, Dreamtime, Le vent sombre... all boulders I tried and don't even got close on most of them.

Trying "The Dagger"

Another boulder I tried and had no success on was The Dagger. The Dagger is one of those lines I've always wanted to climb since I saw it for the first time. So I decided to put some effort into that one. Well, all in all I tried The Dagger for about an hour on our second day and for other fifteen minutes on our last day. I managed to find a good beta for the second part and the end of the boulder which felt quite easy but I didn't found a beta for the start. I'm quite confident to climb this boulder once I'll find the beta to climb the first few moves, so I'm pretty syked to go back to Cresciano and jump onto this amazing line again.
As I already mentioned our plan was not only to climb in Cresciano but in Chironico too. So we went to Chironico on the 31st (my birthday =) ) and on our penultimate day of the trip. In Chironico I felt stronger than in Cresciano, maybe because the climbing style fits me better or maybe because it was colder in there... I don't know. I also managed to climb a few nice lines in Chironico such as Souvenir, Komilator, Walker on earth, Serre moi fort, Les cliques a claques and La vent nous portera.

playing around on some easier stuff

 A boulder Rudi and I got close on and I really want to try again, is Freak Brothers. I tried this boulder already last year but I had no chance on it. I thought that this time I would be stronger and perhaps I would have a chance to climb it. As we started trying it I had to accept that once again I was to week for the boulder, till I tried this other beta with the heel hook. All of a sudden I managed to match the crimper and jump up to the lip. I had no chance to hold the swing but this step forward, just matching the crimper and pull on, was really important for my mind and my motivation. But as it was already really dark and we had no idea how to come back to our car, we had to start searching the way back to it before our phones and headlamps would stop working. Freak Brothers is for sure on the really top of the to-do list for our next Chironico trip. With many other amazing boulders I didn't managed to climb on this trip =)

Climbing "Walker on earth

Nightsession on "Freak Brothers"