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News From Abroad

Berlin, Germany


So yeah, I'm in Berlin now, chillin at the Garner estate. I spent a week at Ceuse, which is possibly the best rock in europe. Moderately to way overhanging with big giant holds. You lose perspective for which way is up standing next to these walls because they are so uniformly overhanging. Everything looks straight up and down, yet the rope hits the ground 20 feet out from the base. The approach is an entire hour of walking up hill, and you gain like 1800 feet of elevation. You can watch planes flying around between you and the compground.

I'll spend a few days here and then go see about climbing some more stuff. July 7 is the day to remember as far as running with the bulls is concerned. I'll keep you posted as to whether I survive.

permalink written by  Jason Kester on June 27, 1998 from Berlin, Germany
from the travel blog: Europe, North Africa 1998
tagged Climbing and Ceuse
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RE: news from abroad

Barcelona, Spain

I'm finally calibrated to this schteeep limestone. I got a 1 hang onsight (I dont think that's a term, but you get the picture) on this 7a+ (.12a) that I'll have to go redpoint when I get back to ceuse. Orpierre rules as well, by the way. It's a 45 minute drive, but if you leave the campground at the same time, you're climbing at the same time as you would be at ceuse, but much more rested. It's mongosso steep, with huge holds for the most part, and z-clippable bolts. "A rezt day for zee mind", as the austrians say. I usually tag #'s 1, 3 & 5 on redpoints. I onsighted a 6c+ (.11c), and have this 7b+ (.12c) down to two hangs.

permalink written by  Jason Kester on July 11, 1998 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Europe, North Africa 1998
tagged Climbing and Ceuse
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Re: Jump from a sree finger pocket - right hand

Sigoyer, France

Yeah, it pretty much rules here. I think I'm better too. At least I've finally figured out how to work a route effectively. I got this 7b (.12b) on my 2nd redpoint attempt after an hour long session of working the thing on lead.

Oh yeah, I took BIG WHIPPER number two the other day, at the hands of the same belayer chick from BW1. This time I was 5 feet above a bolt & 15 feet right resting on a ledge (and enjoying a giant sport loop) when I pulled off a hold. Moral: Orpierre rules, just dont eat your lunch below the cliff if you dont want to get clobbered by falling rocks. Oh, and dont worry, the french will probably bolt the hold back on.

permalink written by  Jason Kester on August 7, 1998 from Sigoyer, France
from the travel blog: Europe, North Africa 1998
tagged Climbing and Ceuse
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Re: Ceuse??

Portland, United States

"G. Losier" wrote:
> I need any type of info for Ceuse. Easy to find partner? camping? How
> far from Gap? thanks

I spent a little over a month there off and on last summer. I would highly recommend the place. Partners are always easy to find, and most of the people even speak english.

The crux can be hitching from Gap. I had times where I was picked up within 30 seconds of sticking my thumb out, and at least one 8-hour ordeal to get the 25km up to Sigoyer. From downtown, walk out a ways on the D994. Scribble out a sign that says "Freisineusse(sp?)" as well as "Sigoyer". That should inspire the through traffic to at least take you partway. Anyway, at Fres..., head left on the D47 and follow the signs to Sigoyer. Hopefully by now you're in a car with a climber. Otherwise, walk the mile uphill from Sigoyer to Les Guerins campground.

Les Guerins is a turbo plush campground by US standards. It has free hot showers, refrigerators, washing machine, and a woody in the barn for rainy days. Not bad for 3 bucks a night. Gerard, the farmer that owns the place doesn't speak any english, so it's always fun trying to pay for camping. He also sells bread and chalk, as well as really cheap ravioli.

According to the french, Ceuse is the place to be is southern France when the weather is too hot at Buoux and elsewhere. I was there from June to August and there were always plenty of people to climb with and bum rides into town from.

permalink written by  Jason Kester on March 25, 1999 from Portland, United States
from the travel blog: Europe, North Africa 1998
tagged Climbing and Ceuse
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climbing at Lake Tahoe

Tahoe Vista, United States

I think we explored (drove along) most of the lake except for south lake tahoe, which for some reason, a lot of people said was not worth it. Actually stayed in Tahoe City, not Tahoe Vista but google maps doesn't have it!? It's funny to cross the border into United States and instantly see some casinos.

I climbed at the Boulders above the Snowshed at Donner Summit, the Split Boulder near the campground on the road to Donner Lake, and at DL Bliss State park. Checked out the Ladder Boulder, Middle Bliss and North Bliss. Got way too obsessed about problems at Middle Bliss to go anywhere else! Next time, I want to send that reachy V2 and the arete problem (#37). ah, maybe in winter conditions...

also was introduced to the coolest slackline ever, as well as swimming spot. Tahoe is very nice. Tourist season is a bit mad, but the lake is impressive, and there are Boulders galore! I Hope to be back again in November, but we will probably just go to Bishop in Sarah's new impreza!

permalink written by  Joyee on September 10, 2006 from Tahoe Vista, United States
from the travel blog: Lake Tahoe, Summer 2006
tagged Climbing, LakeTahoe and Slacklining
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Tonsai! Tonsai! Go Now!!!

Tonsai, Thailand

What up, team?

Sorry it took so long to get these photos up, but I haven't really been back to the states since Thailand.

What you'll find here are the Best of the Best, from which you may be able to select a few that are actually worth keeping. There's tons of them, so you're probably better off downloading these four huge zip files and checking them out on your own computer.

http://www.blogabond.com/UserPhotos/218/climbing.zip
http://www.blogabond.com/UserPhotos/218/drinking.zip
http://www.blogabond.com/UserPhotos/218/scenery.zip
http://www.blogabond.com/UserPhotos/218/whaeva.zip

And while I have you here, check out Blogabond. This is what I was building all those afternoons that I would forego beers & buckets and retire to my porch with the laptop. Be sure to get accounts for yourselves so that we can keep tabs on you in your future climbing trips!

Jason

permalink written by  Team Cobra on October 6, 2006 from Tonsai, Thailand
from the travel blog: Winter on Tonsai
tagged Climbing, Tonsai and TeamCobra
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The search

Hawzen, Ethiopia

With internet access so scetchy in Ethiopia I was unable to write blog reports as I went along, but the trip was so utterly awesome that it definitely deserves a little airtime.


Ethiopian experience
Three weeks before departure, I was hooking up with a friend-of-a-friend to go on a climbing trip. I had left England, and was based in the States for nearly three months. I thought this was a great opportunity to get some girly climbing time in a new area of the States... except that it was in a different continent!


Homeward bound
It transpired that there was an all-girls trip planned to check out the climbing potential of the enormous sandstone cliffs and pillars in the North of Ethiopia. Prepared only for winter sport climbing at Smith, plans started materialising, and another week had passed. I didn't truely believe that I would be going until I was actually on the plane; there was so much organising, and a long roadtrip from Portland to LA (where I left the States), via Smith Rock and Bishop to accomplish in the meantime.


Addis street
Touchdown in Addis Abba was much like landing in any third world city, and was somehow comfortingly familiar in that way. The city smog, honking horns, smell of old cars and hot tarmack filled the air. Shacks lined the road selling everything from clothes to phonecards to fruit under the same corrugated roof.

Lucy

I spent 3 days recovering from jet-lag and checking out the city, spending one day visiting the markets, and and day on the museums, paying my respects to our first bipedal ancester Lucy in her 3ft glory.

The team amassed slowly. Majka was already in Addis when I arrived, then Gabe, the photographer joined us before our flight to the North. Mekele was an interesting town, somewhat cleaner and more up-market than Addis, but then that's not hard! There's a cool Italian-style Castle for Emperor Johannes IV that acts as the museum, and a tour with a theatrical guide was well worth the £1.50 cost.


Girhalta Escarpment
We just spent one day there before heading up to our first climbing destination Hawzen. The three of us had a few days climbing and exploring before the rest of the team, Kristie and Caroline arrived to join us.


Audience
In our first few days, Majka and I soon discovered that the rock was not as solid as we would have liked it to be and we had some fairly hairy experiences, pulling off flakes and losing footholds. We did, however, arrive on the summit of one of the Sheba spires, by the sheer (5.10) face, which was quite exhilerating;

Escorts from Theodros
marred slightly by the fact that the local children had found an easier ascent around the backside, and met us only 10 feet from the top! It did, however mean that we had an easy way off, with the benefit of their knowledge. We called the tower 'Theodros Tower', after Emperor Theodros who shot himself rather than surrender to the enemy, and the route we named 'Learning the Hard Way', in honour of the children.


Hawzen Hotel
The hotel we were staying in in Hawzen turned out to be much better than expected. It had a shared shower and a Turkish toilet with a door that didn't shut, but at least everyting was clean,

Me? Donkey

and the people that worked there were really happy and helpful. The beers were only 30 pence too, and as cold as you like on a hot day!



permalink written by  Chickadee on March 25, 2007 from Hawzen, Ethiopia
from the travel blog: Ethiopian Rock Stars
tagged Climbing and Ethiopia
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¡Pantalones Pantalones!

Onate, Spain


Poking the Henge!
These last few weeks have gone by fast. Flew to England, bought a new car, packed Helen's entire world into said car, booked a ferry ticket and drove to Portsmouth, visiting everybody we knew in England along the way.

Here's the plan in a nutshell: I needed some time off work, and Helen needed to get out of America. Frankly, I needed to get out of America too, since I seem to work so much better from a little terrace overlooking a square. I like my walls made of stone.

We've been looking at places to live in Europe, but haven't settled on anything for certain. So now we're just going to roadtrip around for a while until we find a place worth stopping. I guess the requirements are a cool town with a good vibe, plenty of climbing nearby, and of course, a fast internet connection so that I can work. Once we find all that, we're gonna stop for a while.


Breakfast at Apellaniz
Now we're in the little town of Onate, having done the whirlwind tour of Basque crags around Vitoria-Gastiez. This is a really cool town, and the climbing up the hill in Araotz looks pretty good. If the rest of the climbing around here is as good as what we've seen, we might not make it out of Spain!

permalink written by  Jason Kester on May 20, 2007 from Onate, Spain
from the travel blog: Living in Spain
tagged Climbing and RoadTrip
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Railay--Quite Amazing

Krabi, Thailand

Jocelyn finally finished her self-indulgent trip to Malaysia and joined me in Railay Beach on July 21 for six days of climbing and beach relaxation. It was a great time. In fact, so great we decided to shift all of our plane tickets back two days to spend extra time in Thailand and less time in Cairns at the end of the trip.

So, our planned five days of "hard" climbing turned into six days of "hard" climbing. We actually did climb pretty hard considering neither of us have been climbing much over the last 5 years. We visited 7 walls in six days, climbing approximately 26 5.10s and 5.11s. It was a great time. I don't feel as strong as I once did, but I am inspired to start climbing more again.

Given that climbing was our focus, we also managed to do a few other activities during our off-days, including beach reading (yeah, we both devoured the newly released Harry Potter 7 while in Railay--bought it at the Bangkok airport), kayaking to an island that was probably 1 mile away from our beach (it was a beautiful day with brilliant green water and amazing clouds in the sky), soaking in amazing sunsets (by far the best of the trip) and eating (we ate almost every meal at Mom's Kitchen, a cheap place with great food and an entertaining 50-something, free-spirited Thai women to talk to).

For sure, Railay is a great place to climb/hang out and a great place worth spending 3 weeks.


Sunset in Railay Beach

View from Tyrolean Wall in Railay


Joc climbing A Man Can Tell 100 Lies (6a), Wee's Present Wall

Carl climbing The Sit Spins (6b+) , Dum's Kitchen Wall


View from top of Wee's Present Wall

Amazing sunset in Railay

permalink written by  GoBlue on July 28, 2007 from Krabi, Thailand
from the travel blog: Carl's Circuit
tagged Climbing and Railay
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Visible from Space?

Cairns, Australia

One of the lines they like to tell you when visiting the Great Barrier Reef is that it is the only living organism that can be seen from space. Actually, you hear this often about a lot of things. Turns out it isn’t quite true—lots of things can be seen from space (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp7/luletters/lu_letter5.html).

But anyway, the Reef was amazing in so many ways. The fish life, coral life, colors, etc. It was also a lot of fun to do an introductory dive in the Great Barrier Reef. The day was even more enjoyable because we successfully were able to dive with no accidents and neither of us became sea sick! Woo hoo! I think we would have liked to do it again, but the weather turned nasty with high winds and it would not have been nearly as enjoyable.

Instead, we spent our last few days indulging in other outside activities and enjoying the great weather. We golfed at the Cairns Country Club and climbed/bouldered on some really interesting, sharp volcanic-like rock on Trinity Beach near Cairns. We contemplated driving 250km south to Townsville for a few days of climbing, but opted out of it. In doing research for this though, it looks like there are literally thousands of climbing route options in Queensland that haven’t been fully explored or developed yet. Any climbers out there looking to put your mark on Australian climbing? Queensland may be your place . . .

So, an enjoyable, low-pace last few days in Cairns wrapped up our time not only in Australia, but also abroad. I think almost three months traveling was just what the doctor ordered to recover from school, as I am feeling ready to dig into some work! Crazy, but true.


Joc on Rip It Up, V1+

Bouldering in Trinity Beach


Outer Reef--Turtle Reef

permalink written by  GoBlue on August 9, 2007 from Cairns, Australia
from the travel blog: Carl's Circuit
tagged Climbing, Diving, Cairns and GreatBarrierReef
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