The Autobahn

So the German autobahn is not the ideal road to find yourself stranded on with the cars and lorries hurtling past at unknown speeds.  However, Ivan threw a paddy when we left Stuttgart and decided we should visit the hard shoulder for most of the evening. Having left Stuttgart on a complete high and totally relaxed, we popped in to pick up some shopping, and to buy copious amounts of recommended beers. So fed and stocked up we began a 3 ½ hour journey to Frankenjura. We predicted we would make it at half 6 at the latest, with a rest stop half way for a snack and a widdle. About an hour into the journey we were pottering along the autobahn at our usual 60 mile an hour pace (slow and steady wins the race) whilst chatting to Paul I was concentrating on taking a cool pic of the setting sun through the wing mirror…

Our First Thanksgiving..

Up until this weekend we have been sat in the Chironico car park in Switzerland, skipping between Brione, Cresciano and Chironico climbing areas, making the most of the perfect climbing conditions (freezing) hence this…..

I didn’t even know oil could freeze!

Paul has written two posts covering our last stretch of Swiss climbing for this road trip and they make for great reading, so i wont repeat him. You can find the posts at the following links:

From Switzerland to Germany and back again

Round 3…let the battle commence

We had a number of friends crop up whilst we stopped in Chironico, we caught up with Ixi (the brilliant photographer \climbing guide extraordinaire) who did not disappoint, climbing with him as our personal guide in Brione meant we got to find some of the more obscure boulders, and of course he took some fantastic photographs. At the same time we randomly bumped into Alex, a super strong tea drinking climber, we met (what seems like and age ago) in the first month of our travels. Nicole and Gogi made their second appearance this road trip and sacrificed a whole week of their holiday time to come play with us in Chironico and show us how this climbing malarky is done. We also met John and Ella, two like-minded climber Brits, who had a real thing for Stollen 🙂 it was a brilliant crowd to climb with and a great end to our time in Switzerland.

Autumn Colours

When Switzerland skipped Autumn and went straight to Winter, we didn’t expect to find the vivid colours of Autumn just across the border in Germany. We only explored a small part of Southern Germany, rich with forests, quaint little villages and rolling meadows. Our first stop was the Black Forest, we hopped between villages and enjoyed a few walks, some cake, and a browse round a picturesque town, here are some of the highlights..

Triberg and its crazy cuckoo clocks, every clock was hand carved with fantastic detail, but i think we nearly choked when we read a price tag that said 11,000 euros!  Triberg also had Germany’s largest waterfall, and for an extra euro you can purchase monkey nuts to feed the squirrels. Only we couldn’t find any squirrels to feed (probably the rains fault), but for most of our walk you could see and hear these very noisy black birds. Turning to Paul i was asking “do you think this bird will want the nut?” Paul only got the words “I doubt” out before the bird swooped down and nearly took my fingers with it! Turns out these birds are nutcracker birds, and it didn’t take long until they had demolished my little bag of nuts.

Cuckoo Clock Crazy

Cuckoo Clock Crazy

Largest German Waterfall, Triberg

Largest German Waterfall, Triberg

Largest German Waterfall, Triberg

Feeding the Nutcracker Birds… by accident!

Oi thats for the squirrels

Black Forest in colour

 

Seriously Switzerland!

This is our second attempt to climb in Chironico and Cresciano this trip. First time = +30 degrees with insect infestations (rookie error, arriving in summer), second time = -4 degrees with wet slushy snow!

But the weather has been impromptu, and we are slightly frustrated with our lack of climbing, the last couple of weeks has been littered with thunder storms, extensive rain during the night, and when you wake in the morning the rain has turned to snow and we are sat in a beautifully cold and wet winter wonderland… beautiful but not ideal for climbing.

Our Brief Stay in Austria

Paul recently wrote a blog post regarding Austria, it can be found on his blog Paultheclimber titled “And So we Venture to Austria” and is a very good read, if you havn’t already read it 🙂 it detailed his climbing success in Silver Park (Silvretta) and the dismal weather in Zillertal hence our very brief stay in Austria.

I therefore don’t want to repeat him too badly so prepare yourselves for lots of photographs….

Austria

The Cloud Line in Silvretta

Recent Road Trip Highlights…

Just some stuff thats really made us smile recently ….

Van Pie – We were having pie withdrawls

Mad Austrian Internet Mushrooms

Aufwiedersehen Switzerland

Climbing in the Snow Gottardo

We have spent over a month now in Magic wood, and we quickly slipped into a lazy routine. Up at mid-day, a bit a sunbathing, wash/swim in the river then climb till dark. Perfect and I think this is the cleanest I have been for the whole trip so far. We have had some brilliant laughs, our friends Mauritz and Matthew kept us entertained for hours with their minstrel sized guitar and hilarious on the spot motivation songs about climbs. There is nothing as funny as climbing a problem with Mauritz providing a live backing track and singing about your effort. However, our musical inspiration has left for home now and we have spent the last week trying to wrap up all our outstanding projects (with little success) it’s too difficult to avoid getting distracted by other climbs. In the last week we also had a lovely treat in the form of a couple of mates popping out to see us; they arrived bearing most of ASDA as a care package, courtesy of the mother ship.

Switzerland and Sun

Ok so it’s been a while since I last wrote, to be honest I have struggled to pull myself away from sunbathing at the riverside 😛 It’s a hard life! so as mentioned before we were escaping the sweltering heat of Val Masino and heading for slightly higher ground in Val Daone.

Val Di Fumo / Val Daone

The valley has climbing at all altitudes, the highest being 1500m, and the conditions were notably cooler. Down jacket came straight out of storage! We spent a week in this valley having a look at a couple of different areas, but our motivation was running low and we spent most days dodging unexpected mountain rain showers, eating copious amounts of food and searching for dry wood to have evening campfires/BBQ’s. The weekend brought lots of boulderers and the campfire was a little busier with a couple of friendly Austrian climbers joining in with the hunt for dry wood.

Val Masino Round Two

Veiw from the Van

After chilling out in Ceriola (mainly in the rain) we sadly ended our two week road trip with the Sinclairs and they returned to ‘sunny’ England. The day they left we also left Ceriola and returned to Val Masino for round two of granite climbing in the beautiful valley…. or as it turns out the wet valley.

The first 8 or 9 days in the valley we became hermits hiding from the torrential rain in Ivan and constantly checking forecasts for a dryer hotter place to be, but the weather seemed dull everywhere so we stuck it out. Eventually the weather started to ease and we jumped on the first chance to climb for half an hour before the rain started again.

Gap in the Rain.

Donkey Spotter

Carcasonne

The medieval walled city was spectacular, situated high up on a hill side it looked over a small and very plain town when compared to the city inside the walls. 

We wandered around the walls of the city investigating every spiral staircase  the rain held off, but the wind was picking up and by the time we had walked a lap of the walls we were getting blown through the little door ways and arches . Even had to hold onto my hat for a photo. We left the city via a draw bridge as the night lights were warming up the outer walls, it looked fantastic.