On the tight-rope!

One of our recent discoveries at the climbing wall (where we have been making pretty decent progress in increasing the difficulties and reducing the times in our daily ascents) has been the tight rope, or slackline. A flat chord, about 5cm wide nylon webbing which is (at our gym at least) about 8 metres long and anchored between two points so it is quite firm and tense and can easily take the weight of a couple of people at one time. You sometimes see people walking over canyons over them (this is a pretty good example…).

What slacklining really does help you with is balance and concentration – integral aspects of climbing and also pretty useful attributes to have in general as well. We haven’t got quite as far as being able to walk over canyons yet – far from it; we have just started… and it is really pretty hard!

The first time you get on, without some previous surfing or gymnastic experience, you feel your legs trembling and the cord start swaying from side to side quite quickly. Without the help of someone to the side, you will invariably fall off quite quickly without even having taken a step forward. It takes (well, it did for us at least!) quite a bit of time before we were able to stand on it without the help of others.

The old mantra of “if at first you don’t succeed” comes into play. You fall off… you get straight back on again. There are tricks to helping yourself – looking to a fixed point on the other side; holding hands out and up; using a foot off the cord to help balance yourself – you certainly feel more secure with just one foot on the cord rather than two.

We are now able to get from between a quarter to half way along – where it seems harder to control the sway of the rope as the trembling seems to get amplified in the middle. Still plenty of work to do but good fun at least, and hopefully it will help us in our climbing efforts. Maybe we will be able to do it across a canyon as part of our journey!

 

A Hidden Gem amidst the Suburban Sprawl

As Ben and Natalia traverse their way through busy Sao Paolo streets, I find myself in a wintry suburban setting in northern New Jersey. Needless to say, it’s quite a different atmosphere and lifestyle than what they are experiencing in the Southern Hemisphere. The chaos that ensues during their commute everyday is palpable in their writing and pictures.

A Snow-less Winter

For those of you who have been around the northeast of the United States this winter, you know how mild it’s been. If we’ve gotten snow, it’s stuck to the ground for a day before temperatures shoot past freezing and melt it all away. It’s a bit unfortunate as this was the winter I really wanted to practice winter backpacking, camping and snow travel skills. As a result I’ve been spending a tremendous amount of time at the climbing gym either working or training and climbing.

The Gravity Vault Bouldering Wall

Tucked away on a small highway in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, the Gravity Vault is a hidden gem among rock climbing gyms. Most people who enter for the first time end up telling me, “I’ve lived here my whole life and never knew this existed!” They are even more surprised when I tell them it’s been in business for about seven years. A couple years ago the owners opened a second location further south. I can only hope that they are looking for a third and that rock climbing is taking off in New Jersey.

For the past 4 years I’ve been in and out of my current home, a place where suburbia seems to go on forever, to various places around the world, though Peru and India in particular. Each time I arrived home I would walk into my familiar kitchen with its familiar red chairs and look out the same window to see my neighbors familiar expensive cars in their driveway. It was always then that that culture shock hit me the hardest. As if seeing all this luxury and easy living for the first time. Almost as if I didn’t want to believe suburbia existed. Yet, it does.

If I keep typing about suburbia, I will without a doubt start to sound overly negative. I’m still unsure what it is about this place that leaves me yearning to see the rest of the world. Finding my climbing gym and my new job however, eases that yearning into something manageable. The Gravity Vault has been a little oasis amidst all the culture shock. Through the Gravity Vault I’ve met people like Todd Asher Bergstein, an athlete for Endure to Cure, who is currently on the ridges of Aconcagua looking to summit the mountain in support of pediatric cancer.

Bouldering Support

I’ve also met a community of climbers so supportive it scares me. On-lookers yell beta to the climber as he or she crimps to the wall looking for the next move on that hard V5 problem. The setters at the gym are coaches as well and say “Hi!” to everyone they see. The coaches just sent a bunch of their youth climbers to national climbing championships. The assistant manager of the gym came in first in the last competition. The staff regularly takes walks around the gym to talk with clients about beta, bouldering problems and routes, outdoor climbing spots and any trips people are taking. The Gravity Vault is also the psuedo-home to the Torne Climbers Coalition, a group of young and old local climbers fighting for access at a nearby crag.

The influence and enthusiasm of this place is inspiring, and while I haven’t dropped the news on the climbing community at this gym yet, I can only hope for their support as I train more seriously for 360Extremes. In all this, for those of you who struggle with your own home life and surroundings: keep the faith. In the suburban sprawl of expensive cars, huge mansions, and designer brands, I am elated to know that I have a diamond in the rough and a community to boot. You will find yours too. Keep searching.

A Climber

A bit more about training (or torture..?!)

Well it has been a week since have been back in Sao Paulo and we have been going to the climbing wall and gym every day since then. There is something about just training at the gym that I really don’t like though I guess I am going to have to get used to it as we will be there pretty much continuously for the next couple of years or so if we want to get into good enough shape to do this project (though I am looking forward to when we get new bikes so we can go into the mountains around the city). I am pretty much fluent in Portuguese, though gym/muscle-talk … well, even in English it is pretty hard for me to remember what is what and which is which. The trainer at the gym… she kind of looks at me as if I am a bit stupid (she is probably right though!) every time she needs to explain to me what equipment I need to use and how I should use it. Also there is the monotony of it all, that’s why I prefer the climbing part.

Slowly but surely progressing with the climbing. Getting to the top of the wall isn’t really a problem anymore, so we are now getting ourselves to really follow the trails. These I guess are better for training with the technical skills such as turning your body and balance, rather than just lumbering up like spiderman! Not sure if it is the same with every climbing wall across the world, but the trails at this wall are divided into difficulties, white, yellow, green, red and blue. After a few times trying, I finally managed to do a traverse of the entire wall along the yellow trail – extremely pleased with myself!! Natalia almost made it but she was much better than me with climbing up along the yellow trail, and made it to the top twice with no mistakes.

First couple of attempts with me and I managed half-way before my hands got sweaty and my energy ran out (I think having been doing some weights beforehand didn’t help though!). The next day, back again, same route, first time and again just half way. Watched Natalia manage it, and this time decided to really go for it… So close!!!! About half a metre from the top and I just couldn’t quite do it! So close to being able to get the last foot and hand holds, though my hands were sweaty (in spite of being covered in chalk!) and the tendon in my right arm was starting to hurt a bit… swearing quite loudly, I just grabbed hold of one of the green trail holds, got myself to the top and looked a bit dejectedly at Natalia for her to lower me down. Next time, I will make it – that half way point was really the killer for me, and was happy that I managed to navigate it.

So day off last night – to give my tendon a bit of time to recover; I have a habit of overdoing things, and would really rather not this happen on this occasion!

On the climbing wall again

So after a lunch at Roperto’s in Bixiga (very good food, incidentally, though it would be nice if they could say what is and what is not included in the price… not much at all for example, but simple things like bread… hmmm ah well, maybe am being petty, but it was a little surprise!)… and back to the climbing wall.

We had been to Casa da Pedra a few times before Christmas and New Year, and my trip back to England,

Casa de Pedra climbing gym, São Paulo

so this was the first time in three weeks we had been there. Slightly out of the practice we had been in, but it was good to be back. We also went with a friend, Ericksen, and it was good to have the extra company (came for a one-off free trial).

I had bought myself new climbing shoes in England, as well as safety harnesses for us both. I wasn’t able to get Natalia any as one really does need to try these shoes on and try them out before buying – they have to fit really nice and tightly to the foot – can’t be loose at all and, for the trainee climber, doesn’t have to be ridiculously. Otherwise, they can be torture. Though it is great the gym lets us use inhouse climbing shoes, Natalia used them there and she was in quite a bit of pain by the end of the session. She definitely needs to get some ones of her own sooner rather than later.

First time up and I managed to get to the top without loosing grip, which was nice. Had to pause for quite a bit three quarters of the way there, and then just as I reached the top, I felt my blood pressure drop and I was surprised I didn’t faint – felt really rather terrible. Ericksen was belaying and was being taught by the teacher how to do it. I was mentally urging him to get a move on and it seemed like a true eternity by the time my feet touched the ground. When I did, I think both Natalia and Ericksen could see that I was extremely pale. Solution? Bit of a rest, water and salt under the tongue – right as rain within ten minutes or so, and ready to go. Natalia made it to the top afterwards very quickly – much quicker than I did; she is picking it all up very well. Ericksen did pretty well for a first time and he, as a single guy, had the added bonus of meeting a quite a nice girl who was there by herself at the wall. I wonder if they will meet again – I think Ericksen will probably start there at least for a month subscription…!)!

Tried other, harder walls later on, with greater overhangs and inclinations. Very hard though definitely doable for us. The last one we tried neither of us managed, though I got very close to the top after a loosing grip about ten times or so. My strength just alluded me and my hands were hurting from the grip – and no matter how much magnesium chalk I put on to absorb the sweat, I just kept slipping. I think I was about one grip off the top before, cursing myself in the process, I asked Natalia to lower me down. Good fun, and we will be back again tomorrow. The more practice the better, and these are early days so we were happy with the days’ work.  Next time will get some pictures of us climbing!