NO!!! FIRES IN TICINO!!! PLEASE!!!

after a break of two months i was last week in chironico again. at "la soucoupe" i recognized that all the wood on the muddy-floor has been gone (thanx for that anyway). and that there was a "fireplace" right at the base of a big tree next to the boulder!!!

coming home and surfing through the internet i found the video to the "fireplace": a very nice vid but spoiled by the open fire...: http://vimeo.com/18909662

literally on the roots of a tree - NOOOOO!!!

its allready the second movie this season in with you can see a fire in it. people can boulder without t-shirt but need a fire to wurmup?! (http://vimeo.com/18156577)

even if there is snow - no fire PLEASE!!! may a shirt helps too...

...and as it seems from comments to the vids people do not consider that as a great deal. but it is NOT OK to make fires its a GREAT DEAL in TICINO (even if you see some strong guys in vids dooing it):


PLEASE NO FIRES IN TICINO!!! its vorbidden by LAW (and even if it seems wet, its may dangerous and one fire was not even 10cm away of a tree, it was literally on the roots!!! )its clearly stated in the guidebook and on the new SIGN on barierra-parking to NOT make FIRES. FIRES ARE VORBIDDEN (http://www.chironico.ch/download-document/78-info-boulder) if you get caught it can cost you several HUNDRED EUROS (like if you get caught on "wild camping").

thanx to respect that, martin



what you CAN NOT MISS if you use the barierra-parking, like the guys used in vid2!!!
(http://www.chironico.ch/download-document/78-info-boulder)



because STYLE matters!

its kind of "old" news, i climbed that boulder back in 2009 but i just recently got the chance to get some pics from "natural" collateral in chironico. it's the well known dave graham boulder "collateral" BUT without using the chipped-crux-hold. many thanx to angela for the pics and all the best for her recovery, she just had surgery on her knee, acl-rupture :(

so here is the story and the pics from the "fa" of "natural"- collateral:

years back in chironico: i still see dave (graham) in front of me; angry, getting all crazy and talking about somebody just "killed" (CHIPPED) "collateral" - one of his new high-end-problems and making it seriously easier (from 8B+ to 8A+ according to dave). inspecting the "collateral damage" i thought that there may woud be a way to climb that beauty without the chipped hold (today used as the "crux crimp"). but back then i was still far away from the power and the tricky beta required to do so.



after the crux, but still powerfull. pic by angela wagner


over the years i tried with some friends to find a way to skip the chipped hold. we got some "near-beta" but nothing worked out properly. one day a friend called me and he was pretty excited as they found some crazy double-heel-hook beta to skip the chipped crimp. days later he showed me the beta. i was close, but i coud not really do the move. but it was amazing to see that there was a way, even a VERY nice way to skip the chipped hold.



the little white hold in between my two hands is the "chipped crimp" which you just dont need if youre creative enough. pic by angela wagner



after climbing the "dagger" in cresciano (2009) i felt in pretty good "compression-shape" and was wondering if i finally was able to do the crux-moves in "natural"-collateral. and somehow the moves suddenly worked. but they never stopped to feel weird and it was still a hard way to go. despite feeling in good shape i went down over days on the very last hard move. with the chipped hold i woud have climbed it in a few days, but to climb it that way was just not the point. finally i was able to climb into the last moves totally fresh and doing so the "fa" of  "collateral" without chipped crux-hold. consequently adding a "natural" to the "collateral" (aka "natural beauty", because it climbs sooooo gooood without that chipped hold).

climbing "my" beta felt like climbing in the 8B/8B+ -range. but may there is even better/easier beta. and as it is so cool and "sexy" to downgrade everything these days, i will do that by myself. as i am much stronger then last year and as i want to express that and as i want to be "REALLY" brave, hummer, cool AND sexy i say: its a (soft) 2Ka+s-L ;)

on the last moves of the beautiful "natural" collateral ("FA"). chironico. pic by angela wagner.

few weeks ago "natural" collateral got its second ascent by visting, super strong and very kind dai koyamada . it was very nice and inspiring to watch him finding his own, crazy beta. because he is not amongst the tallest (1.65) he had to figure out completely diffrent beta. i think we did not climb one of the 5 crux-moves in the same way. it looked like a totally diffrent boulder. and thats great! i like it so much if it is not JUST about power, not JUST about reach. i like it when it is also about creativity. and if you are smart enough there is very often a chance to find your own way (especially if there is a chipped hold)!
"discovering style is one of the last great things in climbing..." and  "...it's very creative and it's a bit more then just a physical activity..." (fred nicole in "core" ). nothing to add from my side.

uuuups, i did it again ;)

it was just too good the last time, and there was a LOT of pow left. this time i teamed up with andreas and martin, who took the pics (click on the pics to make them bigger).

it was another PERFECT day ;)

andreas WARMING up

i LIKE to SPRAY ;)

andreas HIKING the ridge, i spotted last time

into THE void

and yep, i LIKE to go STEEP, not just in bouldering... ;)

 

the ULTIME line again; left of sunny top - 1'200m (3'900ft) straight down!

DAYS to REMEMBER

instead of freezing my ass of in the ticino i make use of the cold weather doing what cold weather really is made for: ripping POWDER-SNOW ;)

yesterday was one of the best FREERIDING days EVER for me. but see yourself:

wurm-up
(yes it is a snowboard, its a splitboard. highly recommanded for pow-touring!)

the LINE: riding left of sunny top - pretty much straight down ;)

the BIG days when you can ride CRAZY lines like the one above in deep-pow-snow in middle winter are very rare in the alps. the conditions MUST fit. and conditions-wise its even way crazier then with bouldering. especially the avalanche risk very often makes things too risky, and you can simply (and very fast) die if you push it to far in unstable snow-conditions. but if everything fits... the BIG day is on ;)

DROPPING - straight for 1200m pow ;)

you may have 2-3 REALLY good days in a year, like in climbing - a day like yesterday may just ONCE in every two/three years or less. and in this area i even can't remember one day during this time of the year when everything fitted so well together - so you MUST USE IT, there is NO WAY to miss it - you may will never get a day like that again...

steep-pow

 the vid (taken by another team, a week ago)

BIG thanx to the guys (who opened the line for this season) sharing the vid and showing the perfect condtions of the line!

wikileaks and 8a.nu - SAFE 8a.nu...

recently found documents show that 8a.nu (JENS) really is in great danger... ;)

personal grading*: don't go on with it!!! 

*the article about the DANGER of personal grading that disapeard miraculously from the website - why? ;) 
(klick to make it bigger)

---dont go on with personal grading as this kills (JENS and his) grading-system!---  that puzzled me a bit cause jens can not rest to tell everybody that grades are personal, you shoud be brave and hummer, not take the grades from the guidebook, that grades are unimportant cause climbing is about fun and so on... BUT it got even worse:

the dateabase SABOTAGE and the f***ed up system*!!!

sabotage and f***ing up HIS system (klick to make it bigger)

JENS found PROOF for SABOTAGE. the proof that i was NOT using personal grading and therefore was f***ing up his system (business): i forgot ONE boulder (from the last 12months) to put in my "personal-grading"*. so i felt caught, you cant argue against hard facts, can you?!

as a brave and hummer 8a.nu-member i imediatly made the commanded changes in my scorecard to 8a.nu-conform-grades. and in order to safe JENS, 8a.nu and the scorecards of some other point-hunters (who got all pissed when they saw i DOWNGRADED theier (soft) 8A/B boulders to 7A's) i see it as my duty to stop the climbing world from personal grading!

SO, PLEASE STOP PERSONAL GRADING AS THIS KILLS (Jens and) 8A.NU !!!

INSTEAD ASK JENS (or MIKE. mike knows too, cause he is a professional as well ) FOR THE "8A.NU-CONFORM-GRADE" ;)

jens or MIKE will SHOW you the way ;)

*the background to what did the "sabotage":  it was consequent personal grading - i took a "standart" for an 8A-boulder (great shark hunt) and messured all my other boulders i did on it: the result was quite weird. for example the riverbed in magicwood (which felt way easier then shark hunt) gets then a 7B... - perfect illustration that the (current) grading-system is about as reliable as long-term-swizzy-weather-forecast - and therefore shoud not be taken to seriously.... ;)

restday

what do you do if the ticio is looking like that:

bellinzona, close to cresciano - one day after climbing in the nice sun - dumped with snow - BAD for bouldering...

well make the BEST of it ;) one day after enjoying sun and bouldering in cresciano back home: up to 60cm of fresh snow, -16C, rock n roll ;)

how a real WINTER must be - i love it ;)

nice playground in my backyard - 40min drive and youre in a little freeride-paradise...;)

even a bit "alpine-style" - the way to go to enjoy 900m first tracks in waist deep powpow ;)

and yep, it was like THAT ;)

today it just does not stop snowing and tomorrow its gonna be sunny in the mountains - yepaaaaaa ;)

view out of our appartement, if its looking like that down here, how does it look in the mountains?! 

from snow to sun, its up to you to choose - swizzy offers it all.. ;)

monday-wednesday it snowed a lot in the northern part, but the ticino in the south was protected by the alps from the bad weather.

waiting for the bus at home. no its NOT in the mountains its just some 400m avove sea level...

so getting the pads jump into the train - travel for 4hrs to the sun (2hrs by car)

shortly before cresciano. it was sunny, but windy too so therefore pretty COLD to climb

the sheeps in cresciano are wondering that somebody is WALKING up and not driving. they gave me theier nicest smile ;)

in cresciano i just played arround on various boulders, tried to stay warm and get back in shape after a 3week breake. i met paul (robinson) again who was trying the stunning dave graham compression test-piece: "confessions". we had a nice chat about this and that, dicussed some beta, looked out for some warming sun and he showed me some NICE footage of his ascent from the "dirt-leftexit". its nice to see that despite he is climbing all that super hard stuff he is still really down to earth.

the "killer-line" of confessions. if you are into comperssions-bouldering you MUST try that!!! as i have no pic from paul i post one from me ;) back in 2008 - i love the light! wished there woud be more of these in cresiano..., pic by angela wagner

paul was trying hard on "confessions" but somehow he had his problems to make the lefthand heel staying. so he went down on the crux-move again and again. after discussing some beta his left heel finally stayed just long enough to reach the crimp left hand - that was enough - controlling the wild swing was not looking to hard for him. and so he went on to top it out. nice one!!! and this time he did not messed it up on the last (6a) moves like some days before. i was allways sure that i woud be the only one to go down on that (6a) moves after coming from the sds... - well looks like i was not...;)

inspiration

found that vid today on the bishop-bouldering-blog. not much climbing-action. BUT i liked it a LOT. its beautiful - inspiring - very NICE - makes me wanna climb and be there NOW ;)

Bishop Bouldering from Colin Delehanty on Vimeo.

funny? UPDATE

some days ago i critized carlo for how he (and team america) produced the little vid called: "the greatest flasher". (depending on the perspective a "not-so-funny-video").

to be fair i have to say that carlo postet a nice comment on that topic on his webpage. i am very glad he was able to show some empathy (others seem not to be able).


"....I see how it [the movie] could be interpreted that way, and for that I apologize..."

and: "...this video was not created to reflect badly on Chris..."


like that i am positive that next time he (they) is producing a "funny-vid" he will not have to explain himself about his intentions again!

dai's swizzy lowdown - some details

as you can see on dai's blog and on the thelowdown (and on 8a.nu) dai koyamada was in swizzy again. here some more detailed info:

despite pretty bad weather (as in spring some 50% of the days with rain) dai koyamada and his friend hiro had a pretty productive time in the ticino. they climbed pretty fast through a LOT of classic hard problems. hiro did amongst a lot others "confessions", "einfisch keinfisch" and "great sharkhunt". it was very nice to meet and climb with dai and hiro as they are two very nice and kind persons. as dai is not amongst the tallest (1.65) he has to find very often his own and mostly crazy beta - that process was very inspiring to watch.

at least it was frozen, so "tricky" was ok even without iceaxes ;) pic from dai's blog

beside the well published 2nd ascent of "big paw" and a fast ascent of "confessions", dai had some other nice ascents including the second ascent of "natural collateral" (dave grahams collateral without chipped crux-hold. more to come from that one shortly).

dai on the second ascent of "natural collateral", pic by dai's blog

and on one of that "wet" days he even went to complete two lines in chironico with two first ascents. he was able to combine the hard start of "blochx addiction" with the (recently broken) "los cursos" to create "JYA V12". and as that went down so well he completed the logical lines on that boulder by starting at "blochx addiction" and exit via "souvenir (climbed by fred in 1988!)" to climb "jyabara V13". well done!

dai on the "souvenir-part" of his fa of "jyabara", pic by dai's blog

then he made a rare repetition (3rd ascent?!) of the super fingery and hard dave graham testpiece "electric ant" from the original start. hopefully next time they also will be lucky with the weaher for once too.

dai sticking the (for his height even more) incredibly fingery and hard starting-move of "electric ant",  pic by dai's blog



funny? think twice!

i have great respect for what carlo and team america climbed in swizzy during the last few weeks (despite bad weather they really rocked!). they also made and published some nice footage (despite dont really getting the concept of sitdownstarts, but thats another story).

but now it looks like they really had to spend to much restdays inside. it started a while ago when carlo "defended" his downgrading of a new boulder (bella luna) chris webb parsons put up during one of these raining days in chironico. it was not the downgrading that puzzled me, it was "HOW" carlo explained himself. he missed to show any respect for chris's ascent and to the boulder itself.

chris on his fa of "bella luna", pic from chris

carlo says its not personal, but its at least not that clever to go that harsh after chris (and his new boulder) considering "the background" (chris is dating carlos exgirlfriend) - it just gave it a bad taste.

then it was "silent", but now carlo put out a new "funny" video. first it looks like an ironic little movie about the "flash-hype" - but if you think twice and take into account the "history" of the boulder then it gets a REAL bad taste! chris statement to the vid here.

       The Greatest Flasher from Carlo Traversi on Vimeo.

the start of the vid and the "shit"-ending have nothing to do with the "flash-king" but it shows what this vid was (also) about. i am sure (they) will pretend it was never their intention to do so - but if so, they badly failed in producing this vid, cause it (start/ending) speaks out clearly what the intention was. like a child that tries to defend his disrespectful behaviour in the past by just the same disrespectful behaviour. pretty embarrassing for carlo (and team america). but well, let them grow up, getting some life-experience and when the weather gets better, climbing will hopefully get back on focus. on the other hand its "great" to have finally a "reality-climbing-soap" going on - so we dont have to stay at desperate-housewives anymore ;)

but may carlo (and team america) will try to show a bit more respect next time they produce a vid they launch to the entire climbing-community. that was not professional at all and like that you dont bring climbing (and yourself) any further - think twice!


-----------------
UPDATE:
-----------------

carlo posted a statement on that topic on his webpage. i am very glad he was able to show some empathy (others seem not to be able)

"....I see how it  [the movie] could be interpreted that way, and for that I apologize..."

and: "...this video was not created to reflect badly on Chris..."

hopefully next time he (they) is producing a "funny-vid" he dont has to explain himself about his intentions!

WHITE OUT & SUNNY SKY

swizzyweather is crazy sometimes. in chironico WHITE OUT  - is this allready the END of the chironico season?! for the last two weeks we had lots of rain what was bad, but SNOW is really BAD - it takes WAY longer to dry up.

webcam-view over chironico, 21-11-2010 - that looks BAD!!!

BUT there is still some hope: the weather-forecast does look pretty good for next week, hopfully its good enough to kill that snow again, we will see! for sure its still possible to climb on some boulders in the snow, but i dont really like it cause normally everything gets seeping wet or frozen. i prefer to make use of snow bit diffrently:

this is how to do it ;)  pic-source

but because of the mountains the weather in swizzy is HIGHLY regional. and as swizzy is so small it does not take too long to come from a snow-storm to sunny blue sky's. so you can sometimes just travel into antoher part of swizzy and find totally diffrent conditions and weather. like today in the valais.SUNNY and totally DRY. to bad i am lying at home with a flu :(

just a 3h ride from the snowy-ticino... sunny-martigny in the valais, area of the famous "radja"

not 20 anymore...

...just one restday and bad conditions do not fit together tooo wellllllllll for me.during 2days from going down at the last move twice to not beeing able to reproduce the first move anymore. well i did the move after 3hrs of working on it (and nearly climbing the standingstart in between) with a diffrent beta, from which i thought it woud be too hard???!!! bouldering sometimes is totally iliogical ;) at least it was a beautiful sunny morning as we were warming up - that really saved the day ;)

that f**** starting-move ;) pic by ronny

and with three restdays i climbed again to the last move... but thats "nothing", the real business starts right there.... - its slowly turning into (another) epic ;)

it cant get better, well it coud if it stayed like that for two weeks... 

back on the full "fish-project"

as its cooling down in the ticino, i was psyched to try those funky moves of the full "fish-project" in chironico again. in spring i climbed the two parts isolated, but was not able to link them yet.

and it looks like this is going to be another story of how small changes in BETA can make all the diffrence - and well, climbing "ikarus/deadalus" may was a good "training" too ;)


"emi" going for the move i went down on link three times allready, pic by angela wagner

the result up today: i managed to get a new highpoint and climbed up to the last hard move of the full line twice a day. but this last move is the crux. its a cool (violent compression) but a HARD one if you come from all the way down there!!! i have to climb in that move with 90% freshness otherwise i just can not do it. at the moment i may am at 70/80%. therefore i have first to build up bit more of "resistance" for the 14 RAD, delicate and super powerfull moves in front. the climbing up to that last hard move is arround 8B/8B+ for itself and therefore it is great to be able to climb twice a day so far. nevertheless i woud have had preferred to climb it just once but then one move further up ;)

beside the resistance that i am building up there are two "discoveries" that give me REAL confidence for the full line:

FIRST: in spring i went down several times in the middle of the "keinfisch/kleinfisch"-part. finally i figured out just slightly diffrent beta, but it helped a lot and i did not went down on that moves anymore. like that i was for the first time able to climb all the way up to the last hard move of the full line.



the move which i finally "understand" :)  pic by angela wagner



SECOND: the starting-move was and is very hard for me. back in spring the move worked sometimes pretty ok and i was able to do it up to 2-3times a day. but then on the next session it happend that it took me 2hrs to stick it again. that was crazy and somehow frustrating and despite trying everything to figure out what details made the diffrence between sticking and failing i just did not get it. then suddenly last weekend i did UNDERSTAND what i have to do. nothing funky that time, just VERY pricise body positioning. that new "micro-beta" does not make the move easy, its still very hard for me. but now the move is at 70% and not at 10% anymore and like that i can save a lot of energy. energy that i need badly for that last move to get on top of that "fish".

to spice things up: after that last hard move, there is even a nasty mantle and a delicate slab waiting - you have to go for the full package - NO "candy's" will be served with that "fish" ;)

anyway its nice to see something "impossible" transforming into very "possible" once again :)

"supertussi" and "macho, macho"

...after flying high with "deadalus" - i  escaped with my girlfriend from the arriving winter to the beautiful sunny fall in the southern swizzypart (ticino). we spent some time hiking, cycling and relaxing. we met some friends we did not see for a while and visited brione for a bit of bouldering too.

discussing beta on a brione-intermediate with andrea, the owner of the 1001-gite in cresciano

after repeating a lot of the the beautiful easy and intermediates i wanted to check out a project left of "atlantis" from which i climbed a straight-topout (first ascent of "supertussi") last year."supertussi" climbs up a very obvious nicelooking littel crack-line. the beta however is not that obvious. there are good holds but you permantetly have the "wrong ones" in your fingers. as i first tried to solve one of that "wrong-hands-problems" with a "karate-curx-move", my friends were just laughing at me: "you can NEVER do such a move..." was their comment. 1h later i had done the move for the first time - it was just a matter of the accurate micro-beta :) and that was exactly what i liked about "supertussi" so much. i just am not really interested in the "boring" left-right-left. it was another "3D-puzzle" to solve, which took some time but finally got put together.

That was back in 2008, but back then i was just not able to do the first move - no lack of beta - lack of power was the problem. last year i surprised myself by just doing the move first try back on the boulder and after 3days topping out "supertussi" ~8B'ish

back then when we figured out beta for the boulder we first wanted to exit to the right cause we did not found any usefull beta for the straightout exit. but then suddenly we found a way to go out straight ("supertussi"). so there was still the right exit to climb.

FA of "supertussi" back last year. its quite tricky and powerfull but if you get the beta the climb is pretty fun - exactly how i like it ;). the exit on the lip to the right ("macho, macho") is still an OPEN project.

the ending to the right felt harder then the famous "molonk" around the corner but isolated from the sds it went down pretty well. so i thought the right exit (over "apollo") woud be way easier then the straight-up and as i felt strong i thought that i coud do it pretty fast. my only concern was if i coud get the physical startingmoves together again. i was SOOOO wrong. the starting moves went down pretty ok, but after failing for three days on the last (2) move(s) i had to give in (for the moment). so much to "i just give that some tries - it will go down fast". consequently i gave the project the name "macho, macho" ;))

and the best after bouldering, supertussi's and macho's getting PIZZA ;)) 

¨

 





"story of two worlds" - a walk in the park?!

as the lowdown / 27crags.com are reporting; paul (super strong) robinson has climbed "the dagger" in cresciano. congrats to him!!! as he posted he finally found pretty good beta and that it felt like climbing an 8A into an 8A to him. that is somewhat interesting news. i know that i used WAY to hard beta as i climbed "the dagger". may that was kind of "stupid", but i had so much fun climbing "my" crazy beta that i just did not wanted to change it. it was my own little challenge if i may coud link it that way - and (after some epic with cold fingers and going down once on the 4a exit) i did link it the crazy-way ;)

starting the crazy and hard 180-turn (with my "stupid" beta) to climb the second part of the "dagger" head first. GREAT, HARD FUN like that :) pic by angela wagner

anyway with my (to hard) beta for the first part the dagger i felt like climbing a (hard) 8B into a 7C/+. so despite knowing my beta for the first part was way too hard i am really wondering how (beta) one can bring that down to 8A???!!! BUT if there is a beta which brings the first part to the same difficulty as the second part, then i am super happy, as the second part really felt like a "walk in the park" for me (fits perfectly my compression-addiction). and as the sds shoud also be in the same grade (according to paul) THIS woud then be: 3 times a "walk in the park" for the full line - the "story of two worlds".

---> THAT means i am off to cresciano; i have to take a "walk in the park" ;)))

but there is a funny thing about "his math". according to paul: 8A + 8A = 8B. neverendingstory in avers (with the best beta/conditions) is supposed to be 8A + 7C+ = ???? what grade do we get by using that math? Hard 8A+ ?! but paul has 8B+ for neverendingstroy?! somehow that "math" does not really work - like many grading-stuff that does not work as it is supposed to... ;)

out of nowhere - the (near)send of another lifetimeproject

you know these days when you climb with your friends, its not perfect conditions but just nice to be out bouldering. then you head to one of your projects on which you just want to "work" a bit on the moves, getting used to them again, getting strong again. the moves feel still hard but ok, even the sequences work BUT you KNOW you are NOT in THE shape for it yet.

unusual quickness; 2short sessions - beautiful "salamandre", ticino, pic by angela wagner

then you give a try for the crux-move (starting-move). first you miss (like most of the time) - then SUDDENLY you stick it, you continue - it feels hard but ok and somehow you just dont get that tired at all. you climb up to the LAST HARD MOVE - ready to STICK it - then suddenly your foot slips and you go down to your pads...

one of the few that did not end in an epic, may cause its just a 7C these days ;)
" freak brothers", chironico - one of the BEST, pic by angela wagner

..so it was obviously NOT THE perfect day as i missed that last hard move. but it was still a GREAT day as i nearly climbed a supposed to be another "life-time-project" just like that. i never exprienced something like that before.(well there was some "work" i put in in spring. but that's a long time ago). but somehow that woud have not been "me" - i usually MUST do an EPIC out of (nearly) every hard boulder i try - and it just looks like i am on the best way to another EPIC... - or may not - i will know more after the weekend...

no epic here as well, just some tries for the GREAT "kirk windstein" - cresciano, pic by angela wagner

as a result of that crazy "NEAR-send", the endorpines just don't stop flowing through my body - cant sleep, want to BOULDER - PSYYYYCHEEEEEDDDDDDDD ;))))