YBC Arlon 2012

Saterday 28 April 2012 Manolo and Ignace went to the third Youth boulder circuit competition in Arlon. Manolo won this competition in category B male  by bouldering 36 of the 40 boulders. Liam Thys was already overall winner Male B as he won 2 of the 3 competitions. Manolo took second place. Ignace was third in Juniors Male .Thomas Salakenos won in Arlon for Juniors Male category.He topped all boulders !  Cédric Binst climbed hard and was second in Male A category but was already overall winner in Cat A male. Chloé Caulier won in Female A .
Complete results on  http://ybc.belclimb.net/
6 climbers of each category  are now qualified for  the Belgian Youth Boulder Championship in boulder gym Bleau on Sunday 13 May 2012.

Video La Baleine Targasonne Ignace

Big brother also topped La Baleine 7A boulder in Targasonne with method for long people

Video Manolo La Baleine 7A Targasonne

Video of Manolo bouldering  classic 7A boulder La Baleine Targasonne France

Graviton Boulder gym Sittard NL

Yesterday evening we went to the opening of the new boulder gym Graviton in Sittard. Our Dutch friend Tim Vander Sleen made his dream come true : opening a boulder gym . He did it together with Michel Haerens ,his family and a lot of other people.
Today 21 April and sunday  22 April 2012 you can climb  for free. So hurry up to check out this new boulder gym : http://www.gravitonbouldergym.nl/
We really liked this large  new boulder gym with new rough holds , a very large bar , comfortable relax area, excellent coffee, Kids climbing area, two iPads on the table in the relax area  for surfing on the web , ...

Climbing trip Claret - Saint Bauzille - Aubais

After our boulder climbing trip in Targasonne we planned to meet and climb with our friends Dirk,Katja,Iris ,Long Tom,Alec,Tom,Meggy,acid Tom, Chrisje and Stella  in the area between Cevennes and Camargue . On the way the weather was sunny that we decided to stop at the beach near Cap Agde.

Tom rented a beautiful villa  http://villa-bellevie.fr/   in Corconne. We were with 15 people in this villa that can house 20 people. We had everything we needed : a swimming pool,3 bathrooms, spacy bedrooms, a dishwasher, a wash and dry machine, an oven, a lot of cooking gear, WIFI connection, a pool table, a ping pong table, a soccer table ,TV, barbecue, a garden, a well equipped kitchen, a large terrace, 2 bicycles,….  For an incredible price of 840 €/week  !

First climbing day we went to Saint Bauzille. Ignace climbed a 6c Pollo and 7b Le sacre du printemps onsight and redpointed the 8a Petite grenouille adhesive  . Manolo climbed an 7a en 7b .All enjoyed this climbing as rock and weather  was excellent  .

Second day we went to Claret. Ignace onsighted Hoegaarden 6c and redpointed 7b le bal du sueur .He also tried Macao 8a and 8b Biotop but needed more time and Beta. We also met our friend Gert and his family in Claret. In the evening they joined us for swimming in the pool and dinner. We had a nice evening .

The weather forecast for our third day was rain in the afternoon. Carl, Karen , Manolo and Alec decided to check out a small boulder area in Aubais. Here we found  a small cave were you can boulder in overhangs . We found an online topo (http://jptrouillas.free.fr/Pages%20Guilhem/esca_aubais.html) in French  that explained the moves of the  boulders but we still had a hard time figuring out which holds were the right one.  You could  also find a Via Ferrata and easy climbing routes for beginners. The others went for a walk or relaxed at the villa.

Fourth day we went back to Saint Bauzille. It was a sunny day and all climbed very well. Dirk climbed his 50^th 7b Nicaragua Vencera. Alec flashed  7a En toute innocence.Karen,Katja and Chris climbed 6b Surviwal and 6b+ Mangeur de Lune top rope. Manolo climbed his first 7c Caravanserail. He almost flashed it but needed a second go to finish the job.Ignace flashed 7c Caravanserai and worked a lot in 8a+ Du ciment plein les bottes .In the evening we celebrated the good results with champaign and pizza.

Day five we went back to Claret. The weather was cloudy .Ideal for climbing hard routes but rather cold to belay. Ignace was only 3 meters from flashing  7c+ Makossa . In the second attempt he had to fight hard to top this route. He found it an amazing route. The most beautiful route he had climbed now in Claret. Manolo flashed 7b Travail de Glandes .

Last day we went back to Saint Bauzille. Carl onsighted Abras Cadabras 7a  and redpointed Starting bloc 7a+ in a second go. Ignace and Manolo flashed Starting bloc 7a+. Tom,Manolo and Ignace worked in La Véritable histoire de Victor H. 7a+ a route with very small holds and very technical and also worked in Du ciment pleine les bottes 8a+ . They were tired from their third climbing day in a row and  need to come back another time to finish the job. The others had fun climbing routes in sectors ecole,Leda atomic and Cryptogame.

We drove back on saterday very early in the morning 6.15 pm and had no traffic jams and  arrived 10 hours later at our  home in Schelle (Antwerp).

We need to thank Katja for giving us every morning at 7.30 Hr Yoga lessons.

 We enjoyed the climbing trip with our friends and made new friends.

Information :

*Nearest climbing shop  is Le Yéti http://www.le-yeti.net/ in Jacou, 13 Rue Louis Breguet or Decathlon in Nimes.

* Biological food shop ; Satoriz http://www.satoriz.fr/content.php?page=magasins&mgxml=NIM#map   115, avenue des Français Libres 30900 Nîmes 

Bouldering Targasonne France

Sunday  1 April 2012 we left our home at 4.30 am for our 12 hours , 1200 km trip from Schelle (Antwerp,Belgium)  to the French Pyreneen . No traffic jams !  

Some people really love this place and other climbers  came here didn’t like it and drove the same day back to Fontainebleau.

We  rented a bungalow on camping “La Griole “ http://www.camping-la-griole.com/  in Targasonne (405 € /week for 4 persons). A nice  camping site with a comfortable bungalow with shower, kitchen, toilet and refrigerator, the owners aren’t anymore the Dutch people that were  mentioned in the guide book but they are now very nice French people . No bar , restaurant or bread  on the camping but you can still buy the  guidebook “Le chaos de Targasonne “ by Fred Bertin  and rent a crash pad for 5€/day. Another guidebook for Targasonne and other cliffs in the neighberhoud is “Pyrenees Rock “ by Andreas & Katrin Motzet. A bakery is only 2 min driving from the camping towards Egat at the Supermarket “Super U”. No WIFI on the camping but you can find WIFI the bar in this supermarket “Super U”. We liked the camping site because  the boulders   are just  a few meters away .In the evening we already searched for the boulders in sector Chapeau but did not climb.

Monday 2 April 2012 we first went  for food and then went bouldering to Sector Dieux païens, Taz and Carrière. We climbed as long as we could because they predicted rain on Tuesday.

Ignace and Manolo :

7A traverse Rieh la moerte 45-47 (Sector Taz )

6C Ticket tacc (Secteur Carriere)

Ignace

 7B  traverse 45-48 Rieh la moerte. Same start as 7A but goes 5 meters further.

6C Accarian troubadour 6C (Secteur Carriere).Ignace and Manolo climbed Ticket tacc 6C

Tuesday 3 April 2012 we woke up  the sun was shining so hurried up to go bouldering at sector Baleine . Ignace and Manolo tried the classic 7A boulder La Baleine. Ignace topped it and Manolo was very close because he could do the hard moves without the traverse. Some people told  it is the 7A but in the guide book is mentioned DA (Départ Assis = Sit start) so the start is more to the right of the boulder. We found it  really hard to find  the line you have to climb. You can’t know from the guidebook but we saw it on You tube video so we know for sure how it goes. Ignace also climbed “Pute éffraction 7A+” a boulder with moves in a crack. When it started raining we climbed in a cave .Manolo worked out the moves in boulder “J’veut une yenne 7B” and Ignace and Carl climbed “La Taupe 6B+”  a hard move from the sit start deep in the cave at the red arrow . At 15.00 we stopped because of heavy rainfall and went for a visit of the village Font Romeu. A touristic village with shops ,bars and restaurants. It is also famous   for his excellent sports facility’s at high altitude and you can see a enormous Solar panel power  plant.

Wednesday 4 april 2012

It rained all night and in the morning it was still raining. So we went for a tourist trip. We went to the village Mont Louis .Walked around in the city but did not visit the castle or Solar oven. In stead we went for a natural sulfur bath in village Lllo (www.lesbainsdello.com). Nice in and ouside baths at 37°C and sauna for relaxing. We enjoyed it. We paid 38 € for 4 persons.

 Thursday 5 April 2012

Sunshine in the morning so we woke up early and climbed as much as our skin could bear.In the afternoon no more sunshine and cold temperatures. Manolo climbed his first 7B boulder J’ veut une yenne.He worked on it on Tuesday but would give this boulder a  7B a soft rating. Ignace also climbed this boulder . They both also climbed 7A+ Love cold and 7A+ Pleasure dome. Manolo also climbed the classic 7A La Baleine . An excellent bouldering day .In the evening Carl and Karen drunk champaign and we all ate Biological  Ice cream.

Friday 6 April 2012

Again sunshine so although we were tired we were again motivated to boulder a last day. We went to sector Dolmen . Manolo climbed his first 7C Katalan Psycho. Ignace also climbed this 7C that they both found very soft .  In the afternoon it  started to rain again  and even to  snow with temperatures around zero degrees.

 We do need to mention that although it rained  a lot the boulders dried  up very fast so we had no problems to boulder when it didn't rain. We only had 1 day out of 5 that we could not climb because it rained whole day. You can find hard boulders and easy boulder next to each other so tis place is  ideally to climb with the whole  family.We really liked this bouldering spot and would recommend it.