Mixed Momentum: February 2014

Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Olympic Ice Climbing Demonstration

I was one of three Canadians invited to participate in the Ice Climbing Demonstration that was held in Olympic Park over the last two weeks. The idea behind the demonstration is to make competitive ice climbing a winter Olympic event. Overall the event went very well and competitive ice climbing was introduced to thousands of people. Many of them were also able to try ice climbing for themselves. I was invited for the second week of the Olympics ad spent 10 days climbing and helping intorduce visitors to the sport.


Sochi airport.

The climate is very mild, but we were still able to have a wall with real ice.


Walking thru the park on our way to the climbing site.

The ice tower is on the right, and a difficulty wall was built on the left.

Olympic spectators trying out ice climbing for themselves.

Climbing on the difficulty wall.

After the initial panels the wall consisted of wooden boxes hung from the canopy.

I claimed this box for Canada.

In the evening we could climb under the lights and the ice tower had a video light show projected on it.

Besides climbing, one of the things I was able to do while I was there was attend the Women's Gold Medal Hockey Game. I was extremely fortunate to have someone give me tickets because I was Canadian. I never watch hockey, but it was still really amazing ti be there and to cheer for Canada.

Click here for a news story about the event that ran across Canada last week.

Wednesday, 12 February 2014

Slovakia-

Thanks to the helpful people at the bar we found WiFi at I was able borrow a phone and call the airline to change my flight to Russia to depart form Prague instead of Munich. This gave me an extra day and a half because I wouldn't need to take a bus back to Munich and stay overnight before catching my flight.

On Saturday afternoon after climbing in Poland we drove to the Slovakian side of the Tatras. We were planning to hike up into the mountains that evening and then stay over in the hotel that is just down the valley from where we would be climbing on Sunday. Unfortunately there weren't any rooms available so we hiked up Sunday morning for the day. The hike took just over two hours on the way up.

The trail starts in town.

Getting near the tree line.

There is a small cliff with a number of dry tooling routes. Unfortunately it had been very warm and all of the ice had fallen of the top of the cliff, but we could still climb the lower drytooling portions of the routes. The rock was granite, and the style of climbing was a bit scrappy with some loose rock and hard to find and use holds.

Almost to the cliff. The hotel we were hoping to stay at is in the upper right.

The climbing was kinda slow because of the scrappy nature and coupled with the fact that we got a late start we only had time to climb two routes. The second route turned out to be a lot of fun.

Photo: Libor Hroza

On Monday we had planned to go back up to the same area and climb a big ice flow just for fun. But over night we got a decent amount of wet snow which would have been an even greater amount higher up leading to concerns of avalanche hazard so we decided to start driving back to Prague and check out a different ice area along the way.


One of the old castles along the drive back to Prague.

The cliff is about 35m tall. Water lines have been run to the top of the cliff to make the ice. Its a popular after work place and they have lights set up so people can climb after dark. Its all easy climbing but it was nice to stretch out and fun to climb some ice.

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Poland

Friday morning was when we were supposed to be leaving for Rabenstein, Italy. The week preceding the comp the area received around 2meters of fresh snow driving avalanche danger off the chart. It was disappointing to have the comp cancelled, but it was a great opportunity to go visit some new countries and check out some of the worlds most difficult drytooing routes. In the end the avalanche forecast was correct and while the actual venue wasn't hit, the areas directly around it were, and would have likely put all the athletes in great danger.

The drive to the Tatra Mountains is about 7 hours from Prague. Because the first place we were going to visit was inside an actual cave it didn't matter if there wasn't much day light left when we arrived. My friend Lucie Hrozová had been there last year and had tried a route that had just been completed and was hoping to finish it off. Bafomet is rated M14 which would make it one of the most difficult in the world.

The hike in from the parking lot was fairly easy and took less than 15 minutes. Earlier in the winter the area was hit with a storm that loaded the trees with snow and then toppled them with heavy wind, leaving a terrible mess of the forest.

Photo: Libor Hroza


Photo: Lucie Hrozova

The opening of the cave is quite small, but once inside the floor drops down and the cave is actually quite large. Near the back of the cave is where the route starts. After the first three bolts there were two ways that it looked like you could climb and after a lot of discussion we climbed the line going to the right. Lucie went first and figured out where all the holds were and hung the quickdraws on the bolts that didn't have any. We each tried it twice with Lucie climbing it no problem on her second try. I was able to climb to the end and do all the moves, but only after resting on many of the bolts.


The flash makes it seem very bright inside the cave. It was actually pretty dark. Photo: Libor Hroza

Photo: Libor Hroza

After we finished up climbing for the evening we went into town in search of WiFi so I could see about changing flights and so Lucie could check and see if we were climbing the correct route. After looking at photos and video from last year, Lucie and I were convinced that we should have gone left while her father was still pretty sure we went the correct way.

Photo: Libor Hroza

The next day we went back and fortunately there were some Polish guys there who knew the routes and pointed out the correct line. We had started and finished in the correct place, but where we went right we should have went left. The correct way had slightly bigger moves, but climbs rock that was not as steep. I climbed first that day and stripped the quickdraws off the bolts from the wrong section of climbing and moved them over to the correct route and also searched out and found all the holds at the same time. Because the route was all prepped and she knew where to look for all the holds, Lucie was able to fire off the route on her first try that day. Super impressive!!! This was the first female ascent of the route. I gave it a red point attempt, but came nowhere close to finishing it before needing to rest on the rope. We both feel that the line we climbed the day before was as hard or maybe a little harder than the correct line that Bafomet takes. The moves on Bafomet are a little further, but really not any harder because the rock isn't very steep making it possible to get some rest between moves.