Since I bought my slackline I only tried 4 or 5 times. So I'm not very good but I can stay a little bit on the line without falling off. Last time I brought it at work and trained a bit with Franck. Not bad location !
But I always wanted to do that above the water. It looks so cool ! So today when I came back from work, I decided to go straight to the beach and set the line. The line was about 1.5m above the water, but for me it looked much higher. I stepped up and walked ... 2m after I fell off. To much pressure and not enough training :-)
If you like steep stuff, I would much recommend to check out Blue Bell in Sydney South. Have a look to the guide on The Australian Climbing Association website (Blue Bell online guide). There are 17 routes graded from 18 (5c+) to 26 (7b+) , with an average of grade 21 (6b+). Basically the wall is about 15m high and 10 degrees steep. The routes are well secured with lots of bolts. With Laurent we onsighted one 21 (6b+), three 23 (7a) and redpointed one 25 (7b). We had such a great time on this wall.
With Laurent, Nicolas and Franck, we organised last time a trip to the Grampians in Victoria. Who hasn't heard about this crag before? and what's about Serpentine super classic route on a nice orange wall called Taipan. We caught an early flight on Saturday morning and flew to Melbourne. From there the trip started by car for 4 days full on of sport climbing in this amazing National Park. We've checked out and sent few routes in Amnesty Wall, Cut Lunch, Flying Blind, Taipan Wall, Spurt Wall and Mt Rosea. We had a good time and we've been amazed by the beauty of this place. I made up this film with a compilation of photos and videos:
For the last months with Laurent we've been to the climbing gym to lead steep routes to be ready for outdoors's sport routes. We started to organise a proper training plan, with specific exercise. We had 2 things in mind : - Route type : STEEP - Grade : above 21 (> 6b+) Then we just had to wait for the good timing to go cranking on the rock.
We planned to go to the Blue Mountains since a couple of weeks, and finally found a week end, when we could spend some time away from Sydney. One of the classic steep crag is called "Centennial Glen". We left Sydney early in the morning with just a t-shirt on. But once we arrived at Blackheath (little town near the crag) we realised that the temperature dropped by 15 degrees. It was only approx. 5 degrees. Because we were so focused, we decided to send at least one route. This one is called Jaws (Position, Position, Position), because some holds are supposed to be very painful. During the ascent it was so cold, that we couldn't feel our fingers. Sick man!
It's only last week end, that we found out a new crag in Sydney, called "Narrabeen Steep", which was supposed to give us 3 stars routes ... steep. This day we sent 7 routes including two 22 (6c+), one 23 (7a) and one 24 (7a+).
As you probably know now, I moved to Manly. One day with Laurent, we decided to head off Manly and drive to the North ... to go to Freshwater. We knew there was a potential of bouldering on the beach but we did not expect much. We actually found awesome "Holly Boulders" !!!!
There are approx. 3 distinctive sectors:
On the beach: Group of 4 big boulders on the beach with problems graded between V1 - V6
Along the footpath: 4 boulders with awesome problems including a very nice V5
Near the ocean: infinite problems due to the number of boulders, including few roofs
This is a video of some of the problems we did on this day:
Au cours du MOUSTAB 2009 à la Tralenta, les Moustachus n'ont pu s'empêcher de faire un arrêt touristique à Bonneval-sur-Arc (ben ouais, c'est sur place). Ce village, à l'authenticité d'une maison de poupées, a été le cadre d'une photo d'une rare poésie pour le très attendu "jeu de la Moustache".
Comme d'habitude, le vote se passe à droite du site. Et la question est: "Une seule de ces personnes est présente sur la photo. Laquelle ?"
Chloé Graftiaux, 3ème du TAB2009 et qui a voulu taper la déconne avec nos Moustachus (parce que, question escalade pure, elle s'est sentie un peu seule),
Jihoun, saucisson d'Or 2009 (c'est l'équivalent du piolet d'Or chez les Moustachus),
Dave Graham, le grimpeur le plus complet de la terre. Il perfe même au jeu de la Moustache,
Julien Nadiras. Mais si, c'est l'ex-star d'Antrebloc. Fred a un poster dans sa chambre,
Gisou. Elle en avait marre de toujours prendre les photographies. Cette fois, elle est dessus !
Le MOUSTAB 2009 s'est déroulé du 1er au 4 août. C'est finalement Jihoun qui, au prix d'une ardeur au combat exemplaire, gagne l'épreuve reine et remporte à la moustache de tous le saucisson d'or 2009.
A noter les exploits de Pititou qui malgré des conditions de couchage déplorables (duvet mouillé par des concurrents peu scrupuleux) termine les épreuves bon 2ème. La grosse deception vient du très attendu TonySport qui à une 1/2h de la fin du contest, capitule sous les assauts d'une Chloé Graftiaux passant par là ....
