Indian summer
Two weekends with excellent weather have made outdoor life go well again.
Last sunday I went for a walk with a good friend in the east of Belgium. As there are a lot of steep hills and woods in that part of the country, both orientation skills and physical condition had some excercise. It was also a testcase for my ice climbing boots; I found out what's wrong with them so my feet always start hurting after a while when wearing them. I will write later on this boots topic, as I get the problem solved.
Yesterday was time for another day of old fashioned rock climbing at the Rocher de Neviau, near Dave. While I have climbed there a lot many years ago, this crag has become one of my least favorites over the last years because of its often polished holds and overcrowdiness. The reason we went there yesterday nevertheless was because my climbing partner of the day, Geert Gijsbrechts, needed to prepare a lesson he has to give there next week.
So we started by walking down the crag in search for a spot for Geert's lesson, but bumped into Eddy, an older climber performing access controls. Nothing wrong with that of course, since we are both members of the Belgian Alpine Club for years.
I had never met this man before, only heard about him; he is also a regular guest on BCN. But he turned out to be very talkative, and it took us some time before we finally got into climbing.
We noticed the crag didn't get overcrowded at all, even while it was a very nice day where you should expect a lot of climbers. It even made me thinking about reconsidering returning there more often. The polishing of the rock is not worse than elsewhere on popular -and overfrequented- Belgian crags after all.
Of course there are other drawbacks that might cause people not climbing there anymore, like a noisy road right underneath, and the fact that most bolts are old and often far apart, which probably frightens today's -spoiled- sports climbers. Or maybe our friend Eddy is keeping them away with his frequent access controls.
Almost all Belgian climbing crags are bolted, since most rock is naturaly very badly suited for natural protection, either because of lack of cracks and stuff to place gear, either because of the rock wearing of too quickly when placing and removing gear over and over. So we have a long term bolting tradition, and a lot of Belgian climbers never got into trad climbing at all, being used to bolts everywhere. Where bolting in Belgium originated in traditional pitons left in place for the next climbers, to avoid rock wear, today's climbers seem to get more and more used to very well protected routes, and back out when bolts are father than a couple of meters apart.
This bolt distance (lack of) engagement thing bothers me, although I can understand climbers don't want to trust old rusty or even moving pitons, being in place for many decades. The problem with Dave is that you need an environmental permission nowadays to place anything permanent, even a bolt, and that obtaining this permission is taking a long bureaucratic way. So CABBAC and the Rebolting Team have to wait for this before doing anything about the old bolts and stuff, otherwise a total climbing prohibition may be the result.
So we engaged in some nice longer routes, which were most enjoyable in the sun. Training is to be fun, isn't it?
Last sunday I went for a walk with a good friend in the east of Belgium. As there are a lot of steep hills and woods in that part of the country, both orientation skills and physical condition had some excercise. It was also a testcase for my ice climbing boots; I found out what's wrong with them so my feet always start hurting after a while when wearing them. I will write later on this boots topic, as I get the problem solved.
Yesterday was time for another day of old fashioned rock climbing at the Rocher de Neviau, near Dave. While I have climbed there a lot many years ago, this crag has become one of my least favorites over the last years because of its often polished holds and overcrowdiness. The reason we went there yesterday nevertheless was because my climbing partner of the day, Geert Gijsbrechts, needed to prepare a lesson he has to give there next week.
So we started by walking down the crag in search for a spot for Geert's lesson, but bumped into Eddy, an older climber performing access controls. Nothing wrong with that of course, since we are both members of the Belgian Alpine Club for years.
I had never met this man before, only heard about him; he is also a regular guest on BCN. But he turned out to be very talkative, and it took us some time before we finally got into climbing.
We noticed the crag didn't get overcrowded at all, even while it was a very nice day where you should expect a lot of climbers. It even made me thinking about reconsidering returning there more often. The polishing of the rock is not worse than elsewhere on popular -and overfrequented- Belgian crags after all.
Of course there are other drawbacks that might cause people not climbing there anymore, like a noisy road right underneath, and the fact that most bolts are old and often far apart, which probably frightens today's -spoiled- sports climbers. Or maybe our friend Eddy is keeping them away with his frequent access controls.
Almost all Belgian climbing crags are bolted, since most rock is naturaly very badly suited for natural protection, either because of lack of cracks and stuff to place gear, either because of the rock wearing of too quickly when placing and removing gear over and over. So we have a long term bolting tradition, and a lot of Belgian climbers never got into trad climbing at all, being used to bolts everywhere. Where bolting in Belgium originated in traditional pitons left in place for the next climbers, to avoid rock wear, today's climbers seem to get more and more used to very well protected routes, and back out when bolts are father than a couple of meters apart.
This bolt distance (lack of) engagement thing bothers me, although I can understand climbers don't want to trust old rusty or even moving pitons, being in place for many decades. The problem with Dave is that you need an environmental permission nowadays to place anything permanent, even a bolt, and that obtaining this permission is taking a long bureaucratic way. So CABBAC and the Rebolting Team have to wait for this before doing anything about the old bolts and stuff, otherwise a total climbing prohibition may be the result.
So we engaged in some nice longer routes, which were most enjoyable in the sun. Training is to be fun, isn't it?
posted by Nonkel V at
3:18 PM
