Ljubljana, Slovenia to Vienna, Austria to Prague, Czech Republic

PHOTOS

PHOTOS

FREE RANGE TURKEY_dispatch #8 from camp4 collective on Vimeo.

Istanbul to Zurich to Innsbruck to Melloblocco and back

After Istanbul, we flew to Zurich to rent a car. We fly back to the US from Zurich in June, so we figured it would be best to pick up and return a rental car to the same place. The next weeks have no direction, orientation, or schedule. It is daunting, but also exciting. We decided to go to Innsbruck, Austria. It is a cool mountain town with a mellow, outdoor lifestyle feel. The weather has been uncharacteristically poor in Europe of late, so we figured we could climb in the gym if nothing else. It is one of the best gyms in Europe. Sure enough, we spent a couple days there, but also made it outside to the historic limestone of Schleierwasserfall for a day. An opportunity presented itself to attend Melloblocco. It is a famous bouldering festival in a pristine valley of granite in Italy, so we capitalized. On the way there, we stopped in St. Moritz, Switzerland for a beer and some chocolate, and a touch of winter. After a couple days of avoiding rain and bouldering with friends on the abrasive granite blocs in the most splendid setting, we went back to Innsbruck…for the same reasons that we went there the first time…

PHOTOS

YUJI

FREE RANGE TURKEY_dispatch #7 from camp4 collective on Vimeo.

Present day Istanbul. So much history. It’s a fascinating place. Basically, it’s chaos in the form of people. People from global origins being hassled by people of Turkish origins to buy shit…food, trinkets, jewelry, rugs, furniture, ceramics, any thing really. Sometimes the Turks are really aggressive. Inside of the Grand Bazaar, I told one guy that we didn’t want to buy his wooden boxes, and he said (imagine a Turkish accent)…”Okee, eexcuuse me, please, I fuck you and your country, okee.” He grabbed my arm, and said “fuck off, ” and then shoved me away. It happened so quickly. He had managed to contain himself for a few minutes while he tried to hook a sale, but when he sensed that it wasn’t going to happen, his wrath emerged in an instant. Up until that point in the day, everything was grand and fascinating. I was really flustered by this unwarranted aggression. It stuck with me. I just wanted to run to the safe haven of the hotel room and spend the remaining hours we had in the city on the internet behind the closed door. We hadn’t even bought anything yet, but I didn’t care, nor did I want to. However, we continued to walk through the chaos. It is a magical place. Dark. Underground. Narrow corridors packed to capacity with vendors and their various goods. People moving around, people talking. The smells and sounds and sights are all electricity to the senses. It is an enlightening place to visit, but not to spend a lifetime. I continued to think about my friend, and his need to articulate his hatred for me and “my country” over a fucking wooden box as we roamed. I was sad, then moved to anger, and settled on pity. My friend, hear me, I understand. You are stuck in the dingy depths of this ancient city peddling shitty souvenirs to tourists, like myself. You were probably born in this city, and have never been outside its wall’s, and you will die here. Now as I write this, far from the Bazaar, and even Istanbul, I wish that I had gone back and bought a box from him. After all, it is he that I came to see, not all these other people from everywhere else.

Turkish Flag

Sunset on Istanbul

The Blue Mosque

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar

Turkish delights at The Grand Bazaar

Tea

Ingrown car

The Blue Mosque

5/1/10

The change was inevitable. We could not stay forever. We have moved on from our climbing oasis near Geyikbayiri, Turkey. All in all, we sent some of the hardest routes in the country, established 3 new routes for the area (one of which was my first route, and one was Emily’s first route), and donated to the area and local developers: 150 permanent quickdraws, 100 bolts and hangers, 2 ropes, and a bunch of other clothes/bags/etc. We spent very quality time with each other, and with the locals, living together and learning from each other. It is certain that I will not forget the people and the place, and I can only hope that the same is true in reverse. The crew slowly dwindled with nearly each day that passed. Jimmy departed, and then a few days later Eneko left, then Renan 3 days later, and Boone the very next day. Emily, Yuji, and I all left the day after Boone, and James the next day. It was sad to say goodbye and leave, but in the last days, a feeling of completion had become apparent. Alas, it is the nature of all things. Nothing is permanent, and when it was said and done, the only thing left to do was leave, and start anew. So, we did, to Istanbul.

My Turkish Ticklist:

Over the Top .14a, 3^rd ascent
Losing my Religion .14a, 4^th ascent
Olympos Games .13d
Dog Wars .13c, bolted and FA, my first route
Bloody Knuckles .13c, bolted and FA
Turkish Airways .13c
Freedom is a Battle .13c
Boncuk Power .13c
Icarus .13c
Troja .13c
Plastik Fantastik .13b
Escape to Paradise .13b
Richtfest .13b
Oklimono .13b, 2^nd ascent, Flash

4/23/10

…aka Turkish National Sovereignty and Children’s Day

Today we decided to change matters up a bit. We went deep water soloing near the town of Olympos on the Mediterranean Sea. I was going to take a rest day, no climbing, just relaxing on the water in the sun…I didn’t even bring my climbing shoes. That lasted until the boats rounded a corner of the coast and the wall came into view. It was too good to pass. I have done a fair bit of DWS, and I would have regretted taking rest on this day. The wall was at the level of the water on the left and rose gradually to the right to about 30 meters…which is big for DWS. It is beautiful, high quality orange and white limestone. The 2 boats took one close pass down the length of the wall so that we could inspect, and then dropped everyone at the rocky beach to get situated, and warm up on the short part of the wall…James (no stranger to DWS) and I stayed on our boat and pointed at the biggest part of the wall to the old fisherman/driver. James elected to warm up on an easy, established, very obvious line. I had another idea. I had spotted a line out the tallest part of the wall that started in a cave, climbed a steep section to about 10 meters, and then embarked on tufa columns for another 15 or so meters…Upon our initial inspection, the height of the wall seemed of little concern to anyone. Perhaps it was because we knew that other people that climbed on the wall before, or perhaps it was because we didn’t have any frame of reference. It seemed a good-sized wall. However, it became painfully clear to the group as they observed my progression upward. In retrospect, it might have registered in my subconscious, but I ignored it. It felt like I was on the wall for so long. I kept looking down and it kept looking the same. I kept thinking, “I’d jump from here,” or “I’ve fallen from this high before.” After a few times though, I knew that I was just tricking myself. From other DWS excursions, I know that it is difficult to tell the height looking downward. 70 ft can look like 40 ft, 100 ft can look like 60 ft…it is just a big blue carpet down there. Again, it registered in my subconscious, but I just tried to concentrate on the line and finding my way upward…and that my shoes were 2 size’s to big (borrowed from Boone), and that I didn’t take any chalk and my hands were basically wet from sweating (stupid move), and to try not to break any hand or foot holds…It was electric. I was fully engaged. I eventually finished my quest up the line of least resistance, much to the relief of the crew. It was amazing. I rested for a while, and let the energy mellow. I thought that would be good for my “rest” day, and that I would just chill on the rocks in the sun…but I made the mistake of getting in the boat again. I spotted a variation of the first route that I did that went left at about 10 meters. So again, I quested, this time with chalk. See the outcome here

A tourist boat and the bottom part of the wall. Route 1 in yellow, route 2 in green

The whole DWS crag

4/22/10

This morning I did the first ascent of the second route that I bolted here. I called it Bloody Knuckles. In the process of creating it, I cut open all the knuckles on my right hand when the wrench suddenly popped off of one of the bolts that I was tightening. Then, I opened all of the knuckles on my left hand when it slipped off of a wet, muddy hold while working the moves out. The first route, I called Dog Wars as a tribute to all the communal dogs that roam around these hills. Some are friendly…on our very first climbing day, we had one follow us to the crag and stay with us all day long. Some are not…on another climbing day we almost got attacked on two different occasions, and we have routinely heard dogs warring with each other during the night.

Upon rolling to the crag for the evening session to climb in the “God light”…the last light of the day, we arrived to find 3 fallen baby birds struggling on the ground. It quickly became an ordeal. We deduced with our big human brains that they had come from a hand hole(d) on one of the warm-up climbs. But how?…What to do?… What to do?…God damn it! We tripped over ourselves for about a half an hour before making a decision. Finally, I shoveled them into the head pocket of my pack, tied it onto my harness, and then embarked up the climb in my approach shoes. There was noise coming from the hole, so we assumed that there were more babies in there. My only hope was that mama bird wasn’t home to attack my ass when I got up there. I hung on the rope next to the hole, and peered in to see 4 other babies fending for position with mouths wide open ready to be fed. Alright, I thought, time to be done with this ordeal, and get onto climbing. I reached in the head pocket, which was dangling on my harness, and snagged one of the fallen. I put it in my left hand, and kind of stuffed it in. I held my hand over the hole for a second just to make sure it was in there. When I retracted it to look, the fucker was doing the splits, still clinging to my sleeve with one foot and had the other foot in the hole, and before I could stuff it back in, it leapt from it’s gymnastic stance to the rocky abyss below. SHIT! A couple of bounces off of the rocks later, the thing was dead on the ground. Are you fucking kidding me? I was stunned and pissed. I plucked each of the remaining two out of the head pocket and jammed them in the hole a bit more forcefully to ensure that the tragedy wouldn’t occur again. Each joined the group in the hole without any resistance. I returned to the ground, untied from the rope, and crouched over the lifeless chick. It was the stillest still. I felt weird, sad, confused, angry at my lack of understanding. I offered it a proper burial ritual by hucking it off of a cliff into the bushes, and thereby ending the crisis…or so I thought. About an hour later, while belaying in the same zone, I heard a thud on the ground behind me. I looked down, and sure enough…there was a baby bird rolling around in the dirt. FUCK. I realized that nature was playing a cruel joke on me…Some birds just try to fly before they are ready. Unfortunately for them, it results in their own demise, for they cannot fend for themselves upon failure. That is the nature of their nature. For us, however, I think that we can learn many valuable lessons by allowing our fear of meeting expectations and of failure to subside, and simply jumping into the abyss. It is the nature of our nature. A gift really.