Author Archives: Marianne

Yesterday was a sad day for us. It was the last ode to Martijn Seuren; his funeral. A select group of good Alpinists was present and stories were told. Stories that ended too early, about a life that lasted too short. It was special to see how strong most were connected to the mountains. The …

– want to follow a refresher course in climbing techniques and safety? But you don’t speak Dutch? Sent me a mail on marianne@verticallife.nl Okay. So, you’re Dutch. You like climbing. You follow everything about climbing. Magazines, Facebook, movies… But, getting into the outdoors (or indoors) has been a while… It makes you insecure and you …

Impressive and a big achievement 150 years ago. Edward Whymper and his team reached the Summit of the Matterhorn on July 14. 1865. Three days later Jean Antoine Carrel and his team reached the Summit over the Italian route. Back home in the Netherlands we have our own Matterhorn, or Monte Cervino (as Matterhorn is …

Bram and Arie have been (alpine) climbing together for over 20 years. Arie climbs weekly at our local gym and we are part of a small and very close group called the ‘MCPG’: Monte Cervino ‘cheers’ Society. Monte Cervino because our gym is shaped and named after the famous mountain. Both Arie and Bram had …

High tides, fierce wind, pouring rain, hard decisions and death. Those are the word that describe this week in North Wales to us. Words you don’t want to see together. Words that have far too much content for a week of climbing. Once the words can be formed into one sentence you can’t go back. …

In the mountains it sometimes happens you loose people. Alltogether the risk of dying in the Netherlands in a car accident is still higher than dying in the mountains. Painful fact. I also have friends and family who’ve died in car accidents. Young people, people I loved and wish they still were here. In the …

Pretty much every climber has heard of that place far away at the other side of the world.  Probably even most indoor-boulderers have heard of Nepal. Just over a week ago we were driving to Swiss for a 3-day course as part of our Expedition program. Menno Boermans was about to teach us everything we …

“Oh, well, why not.” Thats what I thought about a week before the first (out of four) Dutch national leadclimbing competition. It would be a good opportunity to work on my ‘forever nervouseness’ and get more competition routine. Not having held ‘plastic holds’ for a while, not having focused on sportclimbing at all since September …

Getu is a climbing area in China. An area we went to as Petzl athletes for the Petzl Roc trip a couple years ago when we still were sponsored by Petzl (read about why we quit our sponsorship over a year ago on my blog here.) Getu was a real adventure for us. The train …