After climbing the qualification route at the Ice Climbing World Cup – Eisturm Rabenstein I found myself worthy to stick the highly praised “DTS” (dry tooling style) sticker on my helmet. I climbed the quali’s in a “DTS” Style without figures of four/nine. And Yesterday I climbed “The Roof” M12+ in DTS style at Iseo, Italy.
(that would make it a M13* according to the DTS Guru Jeff Mercier) So I opened a new chapter in my mixed climbing “Odyssey”. Lets see if I can keep it up.
Day 2.
Dear Diary, My second day of DTS climbing might just be a bit to much. Climbing 200m+ drytool routes. Its too much for my nerves.
Climbing a D9 is okay but when the holds are worn/broken I’m not sure if I’m too happy. Maybe I should remove my DTS sticker, and find some Ice instead but… #winterisdead.
The Mecca for real dry tool style climbing is Usine. Gaetan Raymond was my DTS assessor for today. To see if I’m worth it to have the sticker on my helmet.
Today it was going to be my Flash day.
Warmed up in DTS 2010, than I flashed L’uie a variation on the classic D11 L’usine. Marianne felt strong so tried DTS 2015, the new route. After a couple of long moves the 4th move was really big and Marianne was fighting hard. But stopped her attempt to save energy and shoulders for other routes. So my turn. Long moves and good holds like the traning wall at home. Made the long move after adjusting my feet 3 times in the first go. To find out this route is a continued string of long moves. With the support of Gaetan and Marianne I ignored the bending tools and picks in the long steinpull moves. My feet slipped off in one of the last dynamic moves but I managed to Flash the *D13. 3th ascent after Gaetan and Jeff Mercier .
Picture by: Gaetan Raymond
Let’s see if my DTS mentor grants me the DTS sticker…
Day 4.
The car breakdown is just a few days behind us.
Hotels, rental cars, stuck to places where they have hotels and where the rental car can drive (only local here in France, so border crossings allowed).
So different from the freedom and convenience we have in our campervan.
We miss the privacy, home cooked food, and simple inexpensive stays.
Rather stressful.
What we guessed was right; no pressure in the first cylinder…
Luckily Gaetan and Pierre offered us some adventure.
Climbing.
And climbing is often a good medicine to recover from all civilised hassle and stress.
Yesterday we went to Usine and got onto a few hard moves.
That was allright. I love Usine. It really good and hard training.
But then, today we were at a fresh new natural crag not far from Anncey.
There the mental breakdown got into a mental climbing game: natural rock, no tick-marks, broken holds and brand new…
It was just a D9 but it felt like a D14…! I got so pumped.
And that was supposed to be the warm-up.
I flashed it, with the help of Pierre and Gaetan.
At the last long move Gaetan. screamed “just lock off here, it’s easier if you lock off”.
With one axe in my mouth, the other on a tiny crimp, my feet slipping off the micro holds banging my knees to the wall several times, I mumbled “I’m too pumped, I can’t lock off anymore”
I swung my tool. Missed! Missed again! Lucky I was still on the tiny crimp I had to reload and after five or six tries I reached the last holds of the route. Just a few more and clipped the top.
That was intense!
Halfway up the route. Pierre hanging in the rain and wind, filming.
Dennis was too mentally broken to go on for the full flash attempt too.
But I guess he can still keep his DTS sticker.
DTS 2.0 this is called here at Annecy.
The ‘no-figure-of-four’ game on steroids: no fig4’s, no long axes, no marked holes, no drilled holes. All natural.
Such amazing training. This sure will get me strong for Alpine mixed!
Read about DTS?
Go to Jeff’s webapge and read the ‘Wolrd Wide Dry’ article.
http://jeffmercier.blogspot.fr/p/world-wide-dry.html
DTS* Dry Tool Style
Dry Tool Style
Day 1.
After climbing the qualification route at the Ice Climbing World Cup – Eisturm Rabenstein I found myself worthy to stick the highly praised “DTS” (dry tooling style) sticker on my helmet. I climbed the quali’s in a “DTS” Style without figures of four/nine. And Yesterday I climbed “The Roof” M12+ in DTS style at Iseo, Italy.
(that would make it a M13* according to the DTS Guru Jeff Mercier) So I opened a new chapter in my mixed climbing “Odyssey”. Lets see if I can keep it up.
Day 2.
Dear Diary, My second day of DTS climbing might just be a bit to much. Climbing 200m+ drytool routes. Its too much for my nerves.
Climbing a D9 is okay but when the holds are worn/broken I’m not sure if I’m too happy. Maybe I should remove my DTS sticker, and find some Ice instead but… #winterisdead.
At least I have another new experience.
Still interested? http://jonathan-joly.blogspot.fr/p/topos.html
Day 3.
The Mecca for real dry tool style climbing is Usine. Gaetan Raymond was my DTS assessor for today. To see if I’m worth it to have the sticker on my helmet.
Today it was going to be my Flash day.
Warmed up in DTS 2010, than I flashed L’uie a variation on the classic D11 L’usine.
Marianne felt strong so tried DTS 2015, the new route. After a couple of long moves the 4th move was really big and Marianne was fighting hard. But stopped her attempt to save energy and shoulders for other routes. So my turn. Long moves and good holds like the traning wall at home. Made the long move after adjusting my feet 3 times in the first go. To find out this route is a continued string of long moves. With the support of Gaetan and Marianne I ignored the bending tools and picks in the long steinpull moves. My feet slipped off in one of the last dynamic moves but I managed to Flash the *D13. 3th ascent after Gaetan and Jeff Mercier .
Picture by: Gaetan Raymond
Let’s see if my DTS mentor grants me the DTS sticker…
Day 4.
The car breakdown is just a few days behind us.
Hotels, rental cars, stuck to places where they have hotels and where the rental car can drive (only local here in France, so border crossings allowed).
So different from the freedom and convenience we have in our campervan.
We miss the privacy, home cooked food, and simple inexpensive stays.
Rather stressful.
What we guessed was right; no pressure in the first cylinder…
Luckily Gaetan and Pierre offered us some adventure.
Climbing.
And climbing is often a good medicine to recover from all civilised hassle and stress.
Recovery…
Unless you climb with Gaetan.
Yesterday we went to Usine and got onto a few hard moves.
That was allright. I love Usine. It really good and hard training.
But then, today we were at a fresh new natural crag not far from Anncey.
There the mental breakdown got into a mental climbing game: natural rock, no tick-marks, broken holds and brand new…
It was just a D9 but it felt like a D14…! I got so pumped.
And that was supposed to be the warm-up.
I flashed it, with the help of Pierre and Gaetan.
At the last long move Gaetan. screamed “just lock off here, it’s easier if you lock off”.
With one axe in my mouth, the other on a tiny crimp, my feet slipping off the micro holds banging my knees to the wall several times, I mumbled “I’m too pumped, I can’t lock off anymore”
I swung my tool. Missed! Missed again! Lucky I was still on the tiny crimp I had to reload and after five or six tries I reached the last holds of the route. Just a few more and clipped the top.
That was intense!
Halfway up the route. Pierre hanging in the rain and wind, filming.
Dennis was too mentally broken to go on for the full flash attempt too.
But I guess he can still keep his DTS sticker.
DTS 2.0 this is called here at Annecy.
The ‘no-figure-of-four’ game on steroids: no fig4’s, no long axes, no marked holes, no drilled holes. All natural.
Such amazing training. This sure will get me strong for Alpine mixed!
Read about DTS?
Go to Jeff’s webapge and read the ‘Wolrd Wide Dry’ article.
http://jeffmercier.blogspot.fr/p/world-wide-dry.html
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