okay, now trying to get serious about this blogging thing ;)
the last weeks or months kind of opened my eyes. despite having the time to travel around, we somehow got stuck in one of our "home" areas; magic wood. well, these days the words from one of the magic wood pioneers, bernd zangerl, seem to be more than true, as he called the area "action wood" in an interview published not long ago. but that's another story...
it was really nice to have the time to dive deep into these woods. it gave us the opportunity to see things differently. to my surprise, there where lots of not-yet-done problems presenting themselves to me. an unexpected thing to happen in an area with that much traffic!
okay, the obvious big lines are mostly done (a thousand times already?)... but there are still some jewels lying around, some undone sit down projects or undone combo lines!
maybe some of the newer stuff isn't all too interesting for everyone, but some of it is really big stuff! not just in terms of the grades...
i recently put some effort into an old project, just to the right of "the gift". the lower part of it was already cleaned and tried before, and i remember myself touching the holds and envisioning a crazy sequence to it multiple times a year since i started bouldering in these woods. and every time i had a look up at the upper part of this huge block and was sure there had to be some nice holds under the moss, making it possible to really go to the top of the block...
maybe i was inspired by witnessing nalle cleaning, working and doing the first ascent of "the understanding" (and the slightly easier versions that came with it)... so one day i carried a rope with me (actually because i wanted to check out the upper part of "the understanding", but because nalle took out the plates from the bolts, it was nearly impossible to check it out! sucked!).
it isn't easy at all to get the rope fixed and lined properly. i couldn't finish cleaning the upper part the first day, but i had already made up some beta for some of the lower moves.
the second day i got there, i fixed my rope, went to the front side of the block used the latter to get some hight and as i put my weight on the rope the sheath cracked... so again, i couldn't finish the cleaning work. sucked. but as the first part of the problem was clean enough to try the moves i decided to do so. it was just at the end of the session when i found the sequence i could do and somehow managed to climb up to a point where i defined the first part to end. its a logical point to stop, as it is a good hold where you still can jump down safely. if you go on from this point, business starts to get serious and you have to know what you are doing, as the landing is not so nice and the moves get somewhat delicate.
next time i went there, i finished cleaning the upper part. didn't find the nice holds i once envisioned lying under the moss...
staying at the left arete turned out to be not the solution for me, so i figured i should go to the right where i found some shitty footholds and crimps. its crazy up there! its a nohandrest, save, easy to chill out, but you are at a point where you don't want to jump down anymore and have to keep it together to go on. to make things funnier as they already are up there, the jug i defined as the end of part 1 and you are standing on at the no hand rest... broke.
still good to hold onto or stand on, i decided. after the work on the rope was done, i tried to build a ramp to improve the landing. not too bad as it is right now i think.
after this session, we went out to silvretta to check out some new things. but in my mind there was this big line in the woods, now ready to be climbed, waiting for me. i decided to go back there for one day, with the main goal of doing this line. i was mentally prepared and really wanted to do it.
me and my girlfriend carried as much of our pads as possible to the project and i once more got onto the rope for a final cleaning. i surprisingly struggled to redo the delicate moves of the upper part, despite having the security of the rope. i almost gave up on it. but then along came giani, a local friend currently cranking hard in the woods, and had some more pads with him. we had a little chat and after an hour or something i decided to give it a go.
the first part went down surprisingly easy, but as it was much colder this day than we were used to from the past weeks, i had completely frozen fingers, and nearly messed up a crucial footsequence right after the point of no return. but suddenly i was standing there in this nohandrest position in the middle of this slab. my fingers got better, my focus was laser style and i knew what to do. what a feeling. climbing up this big stone, right to the top of it, sitting down and breathing with absolute consciousness of what you are and where you are. these moments are for sure the clearest and most intense experiences in life one can have... and the cause of why we seek these moments over and over again...
i was happy about it. i am happy about it. i dont care how hard it really is, because this one is big, for me at least, and it was my mind that made this one become real, not my body.
and for everyone bouncing around in the woods, going for fast ascents of hard problems... i hope you can enjoy the same big emotional flow, these woods actually have to offer!
Arkanum - Magic Wood from Dave von Allmen on Vimeo.
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