First Ascents in South Africa

We've been climbing around Cape Town and around Arjan's house finding and developing some cool boulders!  The boys have their eyes set on two awesome boulders, one of which the stand went down yesterday.  

Jimmy on the send of the stand to "Son Krag" 

The other project is at another area that I don't really know how to get there, but it's a hill side littered with boulders.  Lisa, Nathan and I have found a few boulders as well and were able to put up a couple new lines! We have another project right next to "Mirror of Midnight" which looking at it we thought it might be V5 or so.  And that's when we started working it, and it took us a solid 3 or 4 hours to do every move.  Psyched to get back to it in the next fews days and complete the boulder! In the mean time here's a little video of Lisa and I climbing our first ascents!!

First Ascents from Kasia Pietras on Vimeo.

Cape Town - First few days!

I spent about 3 weeks in the United States before I departed on my next trip... 

My 3 weeks in the States went by pretty fast and I visited several places...

Kajtek - my dad's cat

Boulder, CO - 3 days

Chicago, IL - 6 days

Lexington, KY / RRG - 4 days

Knoxville, TN - 4 days 

Chattanooga, TN - 6 days

Me figuring out the moves on Swingline

In Chattanooga I was able to hang out with my former climbing team and I took them climbing for two days.  It was a lot of fun, but really hot and humid! But we made the best of it and had an amazing time! 

Lil Nate battling at the top of one of the routes we did

And then on Tuesday June 10th Jimmy, Nathan and I got on a place in Chattanooga on our way to South Africa.  We unfortunately missed our flight in Amsterdam due to a delay of our Atlanta flight.  This delay added on an extra 12 hours to our trip, but we finally made it and went climbing right when we landed! 

View from the first day of climbing

 Moon rise on the first day 

We went climbing the following day as well, but we first went and got some amazing breakfast, after which we went to the airport to pick up Lisa Chulich.  We then hiked out to yet another amazing area! 

 Creamy Scrambled Eggs

Croque Madame

Today it started to rain and it's suppose to rain some tomorrow but then the weather looks like it will be getting better! On the 16th we pick up Daniel and we will have another 10 days in Cape Town before we head to Rocklands! 

I was able to compile a small video of Jimmy climbing over the past two days, and like it mentioned it rained today, so I had a lot of free time! Hope y'all enjoy!! 

1st few days in Cape Town from Kasia Pietras on Vimeo.

Switzerland/France Spring 2014

I just got back from an amazing trip to Europe! We were able to visit 7 countries during our stay; Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, France and Italy.

The biggest thing that stood out was the difference between the climbing in Swiss versus that in Fontainebleau, France.  The climbing was completely different.  How the day went by was different as well!  

While in Swiss we had to pick our battles, climbing either in the morning or evening and each having a project that we were psyched on.  There was a lot more hiking because the boulders were spread out.  We also drove around more because there are so many areas in the Ticino area; Choronico, Cresciano, Val Bavona, Brione and a couple more. Even what we ate for lunch was different.  We would buy a Panne Rustica - this brown bread that has so many seeds all over it.  We would get a cream cheese called "tartar" to dip the bread in or Nutella.  

Fontainebleau is one of the most magical and unbelievable areas I've been to.  There are no mountains.  It's completely flat but covered with forest.  You walk into one of these forests and out of nowhere, there's these amazingly featured boulders littering the woods.  The boulders remind me of the south to areas such as Horse Pens 40 and even a little to Rocktown.  For lunch we would go to the local bakery and buy anything that we wanted that day.  I think we all gained some weight while in France!   

 

The features in Fontainbleau are just amazing and I can't wait to have the opportunity to go back, hopefully with cooler temps.  The top outs are sometimes he hardest part of the boulder and usually more tricky than hard - you just have to find the right body position and voila, it's doable!! 

My time in Europe was amazing to say the least! And I can't wait for the next adventure which will be taking us back to South Africa! It's going to be a great two months there before we head back for the Trade Show in Salt Lake City, UT.