Monthly Archives for July 2011
On the move: Podlesice, Poland
I was keeping “radio silence” for a while. The reason for that was my visit in Podlesice, a small village in the central Poland which is believed to be the “Polish Mecca” of rock climbing. For more details about the region, please follow this link.
During my short but very exciting stay, I was studying the principles of aid/big wall climbing techniques under the watchful eye of my friend and climbing master, Jarek Caban. Abstracting from very busy schedule I managed to capture quite a few “keepers” that will probably end up in the Aurora outdoor repository.
In the free time I was walking around and taking some “foggy” shots of climbing adepts, scaling local limestone rocks.
One more thing, my Canon 5D Mk II sucks big time! It simply stopped working after a dense cloud passed one of the rocks from which I was taking my photos! After quick visit in the Canon Poland service I was informed the battery control system failed! I did have a Canon 5D Mk I 3 years ago, and it had the same failure! Conclusion: Goodbye Canon… Welcome Nikon :)… Read the rest
Veni Vidi Vici: The Gym Master Ascent
On last Saturday, we had a delightful dinner discussion about prospective urban bouldering in Groningen. We rather quickly concluded there were still some decent and spectacular projects to crack. Among them… “The Gym Master”, a weird 5-6 meter high (15-18 ft.) fountain/concrete art installation located in the Paddepoel district of Groningen, next to Kelderwerken Bewegingscentrum.
Yesterday, around afternoon, we left my place with boxes full of photo and climbing gear, hoping for the good weather. After relatively short and refreshing cycling we arrived at the location of “The Gym Master” and begun the inspection of the safest and the most elegant line of ascent.
It did not take us long to figure out it would be one of the most challenging urban boulders, so far. The biggest difficulty was the approach and the first move, clearly the crux of the route.
After some tinkering, walking here and there, lively discussion about the first move and of course some moments of despair, we decided to use a 9 mm fix rope as an additional safety measure.
In order to make the things work, we tied the rope to two trees on the right-hand-side of the boulder. Moreover, just above the … Read the rest