Serbia - Presentation of TMA

Last night, story of Mountain Academy was finally presented to people of similar interesting, far away in Serbia.

With Bertrand's movie and my slideshow, publicity is finally more familiar with our interesting project! Questions after presentation, showed me that the audiance, except were good listeners, they were and very curious :).

And also, interests about next stages, are very high ... :)

Mountain Hardwear's "Trango" Time

this post is not especially about an action of our team, but you can get an inside in leisure time activity of Patricia, one of the team members.

If you think our Mountains (the Alps) are not so hard like other bigger mountains, be careful with this statement...

In the middle of february two crazy (in the eyes of our surrounding) people leave Innsbruck for a 4-day adventure: Skitouring in the south-tyrolien alps, the area is called Fanes, well-known for easy skitours and snowshoeing in a beautiful landscape.

Sounds not bad, but the deal was to build up the tent in a central position and spread out from there every day. Sounds not bad, but the temperature was forecasted to fell down to -20 degrees with strong winds, so with windchill you feel like in a big fridge.

It's not the first time camping in cold conditions, but this temperatures seemed to be a challenge. We felt like on an expedition, in the morning huge ice crystals decorate everything laying in the tent, you really don't want to move and step out of your warm sleeping bag, it's cumbersome and you have to conquer your mind to start in the day with boiling hot water for breakfast. But this is the next challenge, the gas although warmed in your bag starts after a few minutes to loose its power, so it takes hours to boil litres of water. In this case a mouthful of tea must be enough for the skitour, cooking and boiling is much more easier in the sun, so you change your normal daily timetable. Brush your teeth, hairdessing and Co., melting water, cooking,...everything is done in the afternoon when the sun burns down.

After 4 days of collecting experience in really cold conditions you appreciate every comfort at your home!

But it leaves impressions no one else is able to relate to . If your equipment is of good quality go out and try!

Some further impressions of the fantastic landscape:

Patricia in artic conditions

Ahoihoi,

did you already see the movie about the mountain academy by Bertrant Delappierre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E90jGF_qyY


yeah...

see ya

Taghia on You Tube

Hey my friends, watch this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zowjN9CUK4 It`s gonna be tough!

Aux Chiottes les Bombes

It was the 6th day when Tito and me were very lucky because we had the opportunity to climb with Neil Brodie, an Scottish/Irish mountain guide based in Chamonix with a waste experience in ice climbing.
To get an idea of the caliber that he armed his two ice axes, just an example, in the north face of Grandes Jorasses (one of the most beautiful north faces of the world) he has climbed routes like the Walker Spur, the Croz spur, the Shroud, the McIntyr-Colton, the Bonatti-Vaucher or the Desmaison route... ¡Almost nothing!

Since then and forever and ever, definitely, we call him "The Lord of the Jorasses ".


The case is his company encouraged us to drive our van to the parking of "Viollins". We had the idea to climb a variant of “Viollins”, one of the most famous ice climbing in the valley. To encourage us a bit more we were warned that the stalactite wasn’t stable, so, it wasn’t formed to the base...

“¡Perfect! "How nice! ¡jeux du cirque!, ¡alé…!”.

Fortunately, the main objective of this concentration was to improve our ice technique... ¡Come on to improve! But in the tactical aspect we managed all the logistic details very well. For example, we divided the route in three parts and in this order: Tito, Neil and me. Of course, the crux was for the father of the idea: “Lord Jorasses”. One wise man climber said me that If you want to enjoy with hard climbs left the harder pitches to your friends. We applied the lesson and was the best option because Neil is the master of the ice and it’s a pleasure to contemplate a very good climber dancing with the overhanging.

The difficult of the route is still waiting for the repetitions, but it’s too hard to stay more than 1 minutes in each movement.


Amazing climbing with very good guys, amazing week with The Mountain Academy team.

Taghia - our comming "expedition"

Marokko in april.
First it remembered me on great firn skitours in the high mountains of Marokko, firn built by the African sun, it must be fantastic surfing down the slushy snow...
But than, awake from my dreams, I realized we will go for climbing. Climbing in an amazing huge playground where only few routes have opened. A narrow gorges with steep walls on the right and left where solid limestone promise nice climbs. It sounds superb, but there is one point that makes me a bit nervous: the grade, the difficulties of the routes!
When I was searching the internet for information I only could find hard routes. In fact, most of the existing routes start up from 7a, many elite and professional climbers went there to find a playground for trying lots of first ascents and enjoying the solid browne rock under the african sun. Therefore I guess a multiplicity of hard routes.
Ok, someone could answer I have to train my strength, endurance, climbing technique and mental performance, but the time melts away! Not later than 2 month I will sit in plane towards Marrakech... my heart misgives me!!!
Since I started climbing my aim was climbing grade 7a in lead with bolts, I thought this grade would be achievable for me soon, but than I realized it's not always possible to keep this level the year round. In autumn I start with bouldering at my home gym, totally motivated and fanatic, sometimes I went 3 or 4 times in the week. You become soon very strong and you will improve your technique, but than in December when the skitouring and freeriding season start bouldering gives way to ski. The fresh fluffy snow I'm totally keen on to surf down. My endurance gets stronger, the spring comes and the long high firn tours prompt me to stand up early the morning. Sometimes you already back at midday and you go for some climbing in your home crag hanging around in the sun and reminisce about the day. In March and April when the weatherforecast announce "Nord-Föhn", we take a 2 hours drive to Arco to start with the first multipitch-routes for the season. But you exactly know from last year: take you time! Every movement on the rock is slow, searching for good holds, you don't trust your feet on the slabs, all the rope techniques and so on. But after 20 pitches the week-end you feel much more comfortable and from this point climbing comes into the center of interesst.
So now, it's february and still time for freeriding, skitouring and few iceclimbs. First rock contact is planed for March, this would mean 1 month left at the most to become prepared for Taghia in Marokko. A desaster!!!
But we will see, maybe I find Aladins' wonderlamp and I can wish for me the strongest arms and mind I never had to be prepared for our comming "expedition" outside Europe.

For those who are able to read and understand German, the DAV Freewall team was 2005 in Taghia. See their report below:
http://cms.alpenverein.de/download_file.php?getit=1&session_id=4r5s5752qaitojq05co83k8ppn0jjch1&showfile=1

TMA – Stage 4 – Ice Climbing in Argentiere la Besse

To this stage I was looking forward since the very beginning of TMA. I hadn`t had much experience with ice climbing before, so was very keen to learn how to climb on ice well, safe and efficiently. I had felt that from this week I wanted to get the most.

Before coming to Argentiere, I had spent two weeks in the Alps without having much rest, so first two days I was really affraid if I was able to keep the pace. Fortunatelly enough, the plan was to start slowly with easy routes and then progress as our technics would improve.

Step by step learning by doing worked well and the improvement steps were to seen every day. It was a lot of fun to climb every day a bit harder route, having everything very much under control. So I led my first free-standing ice column (although with a pre-placed screws), my first multi-pitch ice fall in grade 4, my first steep mixed route. And it went well, I really enjoyed every single icy day.

There were two days left and it came to thinking of some serious route. Sebastian, local guru, suggested to try Sergio, kind of free-hanging ice fall that had to be approached through some overhanging dry rock. At first it seemed to me like science-fiction that I would be able even to follow him on this, but then I realized that chances like this come only few times in life. So we went for it.

The first pitch of this climb was the approach pitch, long traverse across powder covered slabs of loose and shitty rock that was as dangerous for leader as it was for us, following him. Seb had to do his best to find out even any protection to make it kind of safe. After following this pitch, asking god for saving me for a few times, I got to the belay and didn`t feel even a bit more comfortable. The belay was the only possible at this place, made in a loose blocks, using all imaginable protection devices. And from this belay, very serious ice climbing was about to beginn. At first kind of pendulum traverse to the right, than climbing on a thin, fragile ice columns. When we finished this pitch, we knew that the difficulties of the route were over. One more easier pitch and we knew the last challenge was to repal across free-hanging stalactites that were warning from being kicked down. Finally we were back on a solid ground and I knew I had experienced one of the most challenging climbs of my life. It was over and from the bottom it looked so great and what more, it was the first ascent of this year!

The other demanding climb the next day of WI 5+, M6 called Cascades des Viollins was a pure joy, even though being far from easy. But from the previous day I knew it wouldn`t be problem for me to follow the hard pitches behind great climbing ice-monkey Manu. Although he said he was to old monkey to climb something like this, he did a great job and led our way through overhanging dry part to big free-standing candle and we had a lot of fun and great finish to our week in Argentiere.