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Rod's Euro 2009 - Trip Report ~ with updates! 6-Aug-2009 At 11:40:40 PM rod

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things have been a bit suss of late - an acquaintance died on a mt blanc route, he was buried today, and, lower down, there was the death of a young local bloke in a late in the day accident at dorenaz which is under investigation as to cause.

i re-opened an elbow tendinitis problem several days before etat de choc which i've been letting settle down but have given it a good lash in the past couple of days and it seems ok. sequence of events since last post...

got on the renovated route. probably only 7b to my estimation but a very nice punchy 15m of climbing with 3 very hard boulder sections, one sloper is killer and i could do with a very cold, dry day for a send but at the moment the weather is too bloody nice. not particularly easy to work on the shunt due to a traverse, i'll have to rig a sling into order to fully link it before getting on lead. i'll also leave the sling in for the lead because if i screw up whilst clipping the second bolt it would mean cratering from 7 or 8 metres.

took a rest day after that and watched the aussies save the edgbaston match, my back screwed up the next morning...happens regularly after i have a day on the couch...muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatories and a mild dose of alcohol did the trick.

off to bonachiesse the next day for a multi-pitch with g. we did the alpine walk in, hunted for 40 minutes before finding the start, took one look at the slabby poof of a route and decided it looked unworthy. watched a heli rescue on the other side of the valley - father and exhausted 7 year old son, bet the dad copped a lecture from the mrs. the heli looked like an Alouette but I'm not sure they're still operational in Switzerland. Descended on foot after spooking a Chamois who took a 15 metre jump off a cliff and totally took it in stride, awesome. Ended up doing 3 single pitch routes, one 6a slab called Fini de Rire was very well named, 2 cul-de-sacs on the thing about 1m from the next bolt and 4m out from the last bolt and yours truly managed to find them both...slabs, ugh. Dinner with Cyril and Sandra later.

Bramois quartzite the next day, cruisy overhangs in the 6b/6c range and lots of fissure work. Then off to a 1 August party for Andy, national day for Switzerland as well so lots of fireworks sent skyward out of the back yard...massive hangover the next day...plus 1.

Rest day.

Bouldering, still shaky from the hangover.

Climbing, 10 routes with a relative debutant at Dorenaz where I meet local legend Lucien Abbet. Had a good chat about Portalet and crack routes in general. Climbing with a debutant after the recent death here scares me into overgripping on anything harder than 6b and each lower off had me a bit nervous as well.

Yesterday I went bouldering with Sandra in Val Ferret, awesome day weather wise and I gave the elbow a good workover - feels close to full strength again.

Woke up this morning to a heli perched right outside the bedroom window, 10 metres away and the pilot was looking straight at me...glad i'm not in a war zone, I'd be dead meat. Apparently they spray the grapes with fungicide 4 times a year and it was one of those days. Awesome to watch.

Got some photos from recent weeks that are worth posting, they'll follow