Samstag, 16. Februar 2013

Munich

Hey guys :-D
Last weekend I was in Munich with the Styrian Climbing team. It was great fun :-).After I arrived on the Ostbahnhof on Friday in the late afternoon I moved off to the Boulderwelt gym.


Ostbahnhof Munich

Actually it's a really short walk of 10 minutes from the train station to the gym which was the first positive surprise for me. My teammates were already there since midday. I had to catch up due to a test at school. My first impression of the gym was "WOW it's huge!". The facility is pretty unique I guess, actually it is built into a former storehouse and there are ALL kind of different walls. One of them especially caught my attention because it looked like a globe :-D.

Climbing all around the globe ;-)

After the warm up I jumped straight onto some of the problems on the "competition wall". Right in front of the wall there was kind of a flip chart with a plan of all the problems with its difficulties. For my first try I picked a 6a+ on a vertical wall, it looked great (like all the boulders there) and started on a big football-like volume, followed by a small hemisphere, leading to a cucumber-like mega volume, to a small hemisphere finishing on another football-volume. It was easy but so cool to climb on these gigantic holds. Next I tried a slopy problem on neon green slopers which I didn't touch ever before graded 6c+. It turned out to be not as easy as I thought xD and it actually took me two tries to do it. Then I tried a 7a problem on yellow mega pinches. It also took me 2 tries After that I tried a problem on the same wall consisting some small crimps, it was also graded 7a. I tried several times but I couldn't stick the last hold. A little bit disappointed by my poor performance I joined Thomas a good friend of mine, who showed me all the boulders which he already attempted.

neon green 6c+, black-yellow 7a, blue (first section) 6a+

I tried some of the boulders which he showed me and I was overwhelmed by the diversity of the different problems. One of my favourite boulders I attempted this evening, was a 7a+ boulder on blue hemisphere volumes which leaded all the way up. I couldn't do it but I was psyched to try it the following day.


blue 7a+

In the evening we went all together to an Italian restaurant where we enjoyed Pizza and Pasta. After that we went to our hostel. Although I was quite tired I stayed up until 1am joking and laughing with all the nice people :-).

The next day in the morning Thomas cooked some pasta with mincemeat and vegetables for us (he intended to take it to the gym and eat it there as lunch) in the communal kitchen of the hostel. Apart from a "transport" problem ^^ which we solved masterfully it turned to be a pleasant-tasting idea ;-) Thanks :-)


Thanks, it was delicious :-)

After the breakfast we headed to the gym. It took us approximately 20 minutes by foot which was a nice walk. Although it was freezing cold. In the gym I was PSYCHED :-) that day we climbed and climbed and climbed ... Our coach had to force us to have some breaks xD. I managed to climb the blue 7a+ hemisphere-volume boulder which was definitely a highlight for me :-) We talked with some people who was really nice and we took some pics. At this place I would like to mention that all the folks in the gym were very friendly, they even heated up the pasta (which we transported in a pot that we borrowed from the kitchen xD) for us :-D
In the evening we went to the same Italian restaurant and then we stayed up again quite long :-)

Next morning we were pretty motivated to finish all the problems we couldn't do the day before. This time Thomas didn't prepare lunch for us, because our coach restrained him from turning on the stove (don't really know why ^^). In the gym we all tried hard because we knew that our train back to Graz would depart at 2pm. I managed to accomplish another 7b problem which I tried on Saturday. I was really happy about that one, simply because I did it by an eyelash and it felt great. The boulder was not that hard but quite long (15 moves) and steep and I already felt tired due to the intensive climbing during the two preceding sessions. After lunch we headed towards the train station and after a long and funny train journey we arrived in Graz.
My ticklist (I know it's just plastic, and I don't take it too serious, especially because the bouldering on graded problems proved for me once again that all grades are highly subjective :-)) Nevertheless these are the boulders I did during three sessions, two short ones and a long one: 1x7b+, 2x7b, 5x7a+, 4x7a, 4x6c+, 6x6c, 2x6b, 6x6a+, 1+6a  

I really enjoyed the trip and I'm looking forward to returning to this unique gym :-)

some more pics :-)




Thomas campusing on some slopers



Me attempting a "British" 7c+ :-D


Having fun :-)


Juuumping :-)






Thomas attempting the British masterpiece


Me :-D


stwk-trainingcamp Munich 2013

Hey folks :-)

I've edited a little video about the training camp of the stwk (Steirischer Wetkletterverband). We had a great time in Germany and I'll definitely come back to climb in the phenomenal "Boulderwelt" gym. I'll write a post with some nice pics about our experiences, in the following days, so stay tuned :-) meanwhile have a look at the video and feel free to comment if you have any questions :-) The link for the video: http://vimeo.com/59789449

peace :-)


Dienstag, 5. Februar 2013


Hey guys :-)

After my first post, which was a really long one ^^ that's the second one. Unfortunately school keeps me quite busy right now, so I cannot put all my plans into action but I can hardly wait to finalize my paper about queuing theory for school. After that I'll have more time to concentrate on climbing and other interesting stuff. Well that sounds like I don't climb at the moment which is of course not true :-) I still manage to train 4 times a week, except for the last week (due to my prom, which was a great success by the way :-D). In fact I try to prepare myself for the next competitions in March. However, this weekend I'm heading towards Munich for a training camp with the Styrian climbing team. I'm really looking forward to climbing with all these motivated people. Moreover I'm curious about the Boulderwelt gym http://www.boulderwelt-muenchen.de/  where we will spend our training sessions.The pictures I saw so far, looked exceptionally :-) consequently my expectations are HIGH ;-) Furthermore there is a specific project waiting out there, which I tried two days long, during the Christmas holidays. It was actually the first time I did some outdoor bouldering and it felt awesome. I'll write more about that, when the project is done ;-) That's it for now.

Keep climbing and stay tuned :-)

Jakob