Sunday, August 17, 2014

The monk life

Well...a random person just asked this funny question: "Do you still climb?"


...

uhh... the brain takes a while to comprehend. The neurons are putting together this impossible picture to understand the question. Seems like "to quit" and "climbing" are stored in different brain hemispheres.
What do you mean, random person? I go climbing so I stay alive.
...
I answer something like: "Well yeah... I like it a lot" but I'm thinking to myself, isn't it quite obvious? I'm floating 5 cm above the ground, I feel I'm radiating an aura of happines, I feel fit and healthy. I just got back from a climbing trip where I met people who like the same things as I do, I did what makes me happy and I spent all the days outdoors, breathing the fresh air but staying dirty and not caring about that.
It's everything, from the simple movement, the action potential in my neurons when I latch each hold on a hard route, the moving meditation, to the climbing culture, the places and the people it makes you discover and everything else which is not "just" climbing.

The trip is the best source of psyche. The promise of being able to once more taste the adventure, get scared on a high runout and enjoy the silence in my head when all the thoughts are pushed aside to be able to focus only on the next move, this is what I run on.


Right now I'm in Škofja Loka living the monk life. Studying pretty much the whole day, get out in the evening for a hard training session or a run to get the blood going. Always trying to focus and not let my mind wander and daydream about the routes I've done and all those I still want to do. C'mon, it's going to be worth it. Try not to get depressed. I feel sometimes I would need a bunch of friends from the crag or Barbara Raudner or Chris Sharma or some crazy strong Spanian bastard next to my studying place shouting VENGA BASTARDO!!!

I'm telling myself to stay patient. I'm enjoying the journey, I like the fact it will take me to have a job I will probably love doing and be good at it, I'm trying to focus and memorize all the important bits of information. The climbing is the spice, though. I'm already obsessing over a full day out at the crag, man I'm psyched for the project in Čreta, maybe it could go now?? Could well be I got stronger in this Frankenjura place. It definitely felt like I'm training my Fingerkraft at my limit, every day. Oh and the Petzl Roctrip, I'm whoppin syked on that thing. Time to commit, it's going to be worth it!

setting off for Nikita, 10-



high on Nikita... thanks for the pics Olga!
My Frankenjura "best ticks" for this trip:
-Silberne Sterne 10-/10, a sick bouldery route which was at the limit of my crimping ability
-Respektlos, 10, a Markus Bock route with a more power-endurance style
-Rock wrestling, 10-, nearly onsighted this 45 degrees overhanging pumpfest, more Euro style but doesn't have that much jugs! Anyway, in the Frankenjura, stuff is hard!
-Nikita, 10-: super classic, endurancey and tricky.
-Witchcraft, 10- onsight: ticking this classic first go was a lot of pleasure! It's essentially a power endurance route but reading it (or pretty much anything in th FJ) is hard! You see many pockets but have no clue what's inside. Luckily I didn't mess up.
-Red skies over paradise, 10- onsight: cruxy testpiece where the campus training was well paid off.
-Fisherman's Friend, 9+ onsight: an 80 degrees slab with two crimpy boulder cruxes which kind of reminded me of Fontainebleau... "look closely for the foothold... adjust... crimp hard and grit your teeth... sideways dyno for a good flat hold!"

10- translates to french 8a+ but I honestly feel the two classics I did onsight are hard 8a's.

Above all, thanks to everybody I met on this trip and who helped me out or made it really memorable! I will be back :)