Italy to Romania
Levaing Rabenstein was difficult. The logistics were easy enough to go, but after having a great experience being able to climb on the structure and having made friends with a few of the Russians and gleaning some technique tips from them, the long trip to Romania ahead was the “down” part of the emotional roller coaster on this ice climbing competition tour.It’s true, there’s a lot of highs and lows throughout the competition. The experience is overwhelming at times and I’m sure that it will take some time for it all to sink in.
We made it out of Italy and flew into Romania where we met Pavel Shabalin, one of the UIAA Competition Judges. Myself, Pavel, Justin, and Leigh all took the train(s) to Busteni together. We had some great complex discussion about the competition and its organization, the athletes and their backgrounds, and shared a few war stories of ice climbing. Pavel drew some pictures of the Russian words I was trying to learn and wrote them out in both Russian and English. “Cat”, “spoon”, “potatoes”, and “cup” sound very similar. The language is complex to be sure, but not nearly as bizarre as Chinese is to both of us ! We were invited to come and train in Moscow and Kirov in the future. Pavel is one of the main coaches of the Russian Federation team. That’s a pretty nice honor.
The train ride into Busteni reminded us all of the train ride to Kirov, but it was definitely not the same. It was only two hours to get there. The exchange rate is about 3.5 Lei = 1 USD. Some things are cheap, and some things cost the same. Busteni is a bustling ski town that is cheap to stay in for the most part. There’s a lot of youth mixed in with the older generation. There’s lots of 1950’s architecture, but more style than what we saw in Russia. Maybe the Romanians were not in as much a hurry to get things built after World War II. Anyway, Busteni is a great little town, nestled up against the Transylvanian Alps. It’s a ski town too with the Kalinderu Ski Area gaining nearly 1300m of elevation right out of town. They claim 40% advanced ski terrain. I’ll have to partake in the assessment after the competition.
I took breakfast at a small restaurant the first morning here and was able to order an omelet! We tried to order scrambled eggs in Milan and they wanted to charge us 42Є (that’s about $75 USD). I think we could have bought a few chickens and scrambled our own, in addition to whatever else. Anyway, I took a walk in the first proper snow storm I have been in since arriving in Europe, and made my way to the ski area where the new climbing structure is located for our competition.
This structure is quite impressive. It looks like the U2 concert stage from this year. It has three arched legs supporting a horizontal keystone ring at the top that a modular climbing wall can be created and dismantled quickly in order to make any combination or series of climbing. It’s the 4th dimension!
Competition head. After having climbed in Rabenstein, I finally feel like I have a clue as to how the climbing behaves, some of the intricacies of the style and technique, as well as gaining some confidence. On-sighting an M12 finals route is difficult to say the least but I’m feeling like I can piece it together now. Time is the major influecial factor. It drives the decisions made while climbing. Going fast is prudent, but going too fast is careless. The Korens lost the last competition in Saas-Fee this year because of a careless mistake.
Markus Bendler has swept the continent clean of all the major ice climbing competitions. He would not have to even show up or compete in Romania since he has so many points, and is already the undisputed World Champion…again. Nobody has ever heard of him in the USA. I guarantee that once he makes his way across the pond, he will be on the front cover of any given magazine. He’s also a very nice guy. He signs autographs and poses for photos with kids who look up to him. He is a European hero. It makes me wonder why Americans idolize professional athletes from baseball, football, and basketball. Most of them are a bunch of creeps who hardly give a kid the time of day.
There’s just a few days left. Inscription of the athletes starts today and the competition is going to be shown on Romanian National tv as well as streamed live via internet:
http://www.evenimentelive.ro/iwcbusteni.html
Check it out if you’re bored at 2 am in the Rocky Mountains. This event is represented by 32 countries and is on the Olympic scale. I’m daunted by that fact, but I’m also willing to give it my best shot. There was a point where Justin and I had discussed bailing out and going to Chamonix to ski, but we pulled our shit together, got our chin up, and are ready to give it all we got. I’ll pull my bicep from my humeral head before I come off that wall tomorrow.
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