To our families

We are leaving Ceuse and are off to Bamberg, Germany to climb in the Frankenjura area...nine or ten hours of driving to start now...
love, ben and krissy

We might be in this....

we might be in this - we can't watch it for some reason...
http://www.rtr.ch/rtr/tschertga/Bouldering_en_Val_Ferrera.html?siteSect=10011&sid=10903790&cKey=1246465785000

The Tour de France

July 25

So we just finished watching the Mont Ventoux stage of the 2009 Tour de France. No, Lance did not win, and yes there were a ton of people here.

We arrived on July 23 and the mountain was already packed with people. We heard an estimate on July 24 of about 700 000 people. On race day I am sure even more showed up. To watch the race we ended up walking about 6 km up the mountain. We watched from about 2 km from the finish. The racing looked very fast with Lance trying to protect his third overall as well as helping Contador keep first. From what we could see the overall stayed about the same.

Now the traffic has started to clear hours after the race and we are off to St. Leger to climb or back to Ceuse - we are undecided at the moment…

Random Stuff:
We got a total of three free jerseys - Krissy grabbed one right out of the air
There was a forest fire that started while we were waiting for the tour
It is not called Mont “Vent”oux for nothing - it was SOOO windy
People take cycling very seriously here
Using a “washroom” was very difficult with this many people around - especially above the tree line…..Krissy….

Ellen and Craig - check this video out!

Back in France

Tuesday July 21st, 2009

Our last few days have been spent traveling from Sustenpass to Chamonix to Ceuse.





Today is our 5th day in Ceuze, France. The transition from bouldering to rope has been difficult. So far Ben has accomplished his first project (yesterday) called Bourenator, an 8a. I have completed my 6c route but have yet to accomplish my goal of falling on lead. I am having a hard time leading some harder routes due to my fear of falling. It’s really holding me back, so that is why my goal right now is to take a few falls while on lead. Ceuze is the most intimidating sport crag we’ve ever been on.




While here we’ve seen quite a few familiar faces. The Finland crew that we met back in Magic Wood, Sean McColl, Dave Graham, JB Tribout (he showed Ben the rest on Bouranator), and a lot of strong world cuppers. There are a few really strong kids here too…a 12 year old just climbed an 8a the other day. And I even saw a little girl that couldn’t have been more than 8, leading!


The campground is sweet. The owners are so friendly and thoughtful…they have fresh baguettes every morning, refrigerators, free showers, clean washrooms, very cheap laundry, ping pong, and even an indoor climbing wall.

The weather here is mixed. Hot at the campsite, but cold up the mountain. We bring our down jackets up everyday. So far we’ve only been really rained on once.


The one hour hike was brutal our first day. It was hot, no breeze or shade the whole way up. We were also carrying everything…rope, draws, clothes, shoes, food, etc. Since then, we’ve been stashing our gear at the cliff and the hike is much easier. We both actually really enjoy it now!

We’re getting prety excited for Mont Ventoux, the second-last stage of the Tour de France. It’s a gonna be a crazy! We think we’re going to leave on the 23rd and then stay until the 25th (if we can get out!). Then we are either going to return to Ceuze for a few days, go right to Germany or somewhere else.

Chironico

We have arrived and left Chironico already. It has been way too hot here to do much other than just relaxing around camp. When we arrived in Chironico on Friday we had a very hard time finding any bouldering until we ran into Peter and Rolf (www.crashpaddummies.com) from Germany. They seemed to be the only two other climbers crazy enough to try and climb in these hot temperatures. We got a little tour of the boulders from them and some info about where to camp.

Camping was interesting here - we awoke to the ringing of goats bells near our tent. The goats were crazy - see video. They tried to eat everything in sight ( crashpads, shorts, bread, cars...)

We ended up climbing a little at night for the last two days. Now we are off to see Sustenpass and hopefully find some good conditions.

Update from Brione, Switzerland

In point form today:
-Went from packed campground to no campground, with zero other climbers...
-Went from decent temps to HOT temps, and lots of thundershowers
-Saw some increadible little villages
-Found Castello di Mesocco
-Found another bouldering paradise - there are sooo many boulders here and not enough time, skin, or decent temps
-This place is like the tropics and alps all mixed together (Palm trees in the Alps....?)
-We have one day of climbing in here - got rained out today - so we ate icecream instead...and cookies...
-We sipped coffee this morning on a boulder by the river

Rest days can be the best days!

July 3

In the last few days a bunch of fun stuff has happened. The biggest news is that Krissy completed her Magic wood project (see the video) and I was also able to finish off Never Ending Story 1. Krissy was working Traversatta on Friday and was very close to sending it, but muscles and skin seemed too worn out so she decided to wait until Saturday to finish it off - that was until she talked to some English guy that told her it was going to rain for the next week…So, she rested an hour or so while I had a few goes on my project for the day. I sent my project on my last go and then we walked to Traversatta (7A+) and Krissy promptly cruised it. Nice. It is now two days later and it still has not rained…



We have spent a couple of rest days at various lakes and rivers around Magic wood. The best being the Roffla falls/lake. We played boule, tanned, and used an inflatable boat that the Germans used to rescue beer out of the river.




Now we are off the Brione and Sustenpass for the next week or so and then we are going to meet our German friends in Ishgl, Austria . We left the Magic wood campsite this morning. The camping is packed now - way too many people. A good reason to leave I guess. I think we will probably be back here sometime in August to finish off some more projects - there are sooo many here.

Random Stuff :
Canada (Krissy and Ben) beat Germany (Manual and Chris) 10-4 in boule
Swimming in water colder than the Atlantic ocean is painful (dove in 3 times)…
It is hot (30C) in the mountains now

New Video

Here is a new video as promissed. Not one of our best...a few mistakes and bad angles. I needed a spot on lots of stuff.