Leaving Saas-Fee in the past was hard since my rental car didn’t like the elevation, the cold, the grade coming down from Saas-Fee, or some combination of all since the engine ceased on the hairpin turns several times. The big surprise was that not only did the power brakes go out, but the steering wheel locked when the engine shut down. I got lucky and somehow didn’t have an epic going over the railing and taking the plunge as I followed Rob and Ramon (both from the UK) on our way to Kandersteg. Rob and Ramon had rented a flat and said I could stay with them for a nominal cost for a couple of days on my way to Innsbruck. They woke me up, as promised, and told me they were on their way out of Saas-Fee at 8:00 am. That just about killed me since I was at the athlete party until about 6:00 am.
We boarded a train with our vehicles and traveled through a tunnel and under some major mountains impassable otherwise by roads, and popped out directly in Kandersteg. This little town must have been chiseled out of pure stone by God himself. This is where I would go if I was given the choice if I had to spend eternity on Earth.
We settled into their flat after settling up with the man who grew up in the next house over and now rents his place to visitors. Rob and Ramon were serious about getting in some ice climbing from the time we got in, so we packed up our stuff and headed out. Rob drove his right-sided Land Rover to the crag. I couldn’t believe the amount of ice in proximity of the valley. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, even though they swore that there just wasn’t that much ice. My jaw agape, we arrived at our trailhead that led to a nice little crag where lots of beginners were climbing. No major mixed climbs were being done, and we took a small walk around to see what was in good condition to climb. We found something that we thought looked good and we climbed a nice line that I figured went about M8 (climbing on rock with ice tools) until a curtain of ice could be gained, mounted, and climbed.
My tools are the new Petzl Ergos and I was having a hard time getting them to get into the ice. I figured my problems stemmed from a combination of my depreciated skills of throwing into the ice and the fact that I have only been climbing rock with ice tools for so long. Maybe its one-in-the-same, but anyway I felt klutzy and slow on real ice. After getting off the climb, I bouldered around a bit without a rope and just off the ground so that I could get my “sea legs” back. It didn’t take much.
The next day I hung out and rolled around Kandersted to get an idea of how things were. There was some sort of historical event going on and people were dressed up in traditional regalia. Catching up on e-mails and rest, I did make it over to see some of the sledging. I brought back a poster to commemorate this visit as I’ve been trying to collect posters and such to decorate my garage with. I like seeing posters of events that I have been to as it reminds me of good times. I didn’t pick one up from Saas-Fee this year.
Dennis Van Hooke and Marianne Van der Setine brought Gelle (?) with them to come and climb some ice. I wound up making some plans to go to Innsbruck to stay with Christina Huber, another athlete from the World Cups that I’ve been to, and to hook up with Markus Bendler and train before Rabenstien. I wound up climbing with Gelle on an ice climb that looked difficult, but I figured was rated only to about WI4+ (usually 5+/6 apparently). Gelle is an accomplished alpinist and was on the K2 expedition in 2008 and lived to tell about it. A young man, he is working on becoming a mountain guide and wanted to learn some skills. We only did two pitched together, but I guess he picked up some quarky tricks from me since he mentioned that he climbed exactly how I did over the crux, using a knee post to gain a higher tool placement. I hope that I helped him out in some way and hope to climb with him again, but would also like to ski with him since he’s an Olympic skier as well.
I left around noon from Kandersteg and drove to Innsbruck. I figured I spent about 60% of my drive in tunnels. Absolutely amazing are the tunnel systems in Europe. Colorado should look at putting a tunnel from Denver to Vail and include a train system for that corridor. I took a couple of wrong turns but quickly corrected them and drove fast to make up for any lost time. Driving small diesel cars on narrow and winding European roads is entertaining and demands full attention. I haven’t seen one car wreck since I was in the USA over a month ago. In Albuquerque I would see at least one car wreck per day.
Finding Christina was an epic. I don’t read, write, speak, or understand any language besides English and Spanish. She speaks pretty good English, but explaining directions to me was less than useless. I was able to get an internet connection near the airport at the backside of an apartment complex and she sent me some vague directions that got me close enough. I saw her standing on the street waiting for me and I pulled over and she jumped in. After dinner, I went to a reggae party with her boyfriend until late-thirty. It was fun to check out the scene, but I was so tired from the climbing and traveling I had to go to bed.
The next day I took Christina to breakfast and dropped her off at her university since she had some exams to take. She gave me directions to the city center and so I played tourist on my day off. I got a couple of Austrian hats for Logan and Sierra and caught up on e-mails and business at where else but McDonald’s. It seems to be the only place in Europe that offers free wi-fi. I took a tour of some of the old chapels and learned a lot about some very old history, stuff that was never covered in my history classes in school. The ornateness and workmanship that went into the Tyrolean region is astounding.
Christina dropped me off at the local rock gym and I met up with Peter Albert, a mountain guide from the area. We got in a good boulder session focusing on big holds and long moves, more specific for mixed climbing. He's a not only a great mountain guide (his reputation preceeds him) but he's also a very down to earth guy. So much for my "rest day" ! We went to dinner afterward and then went back to his flat where we enjoyed some Brass Band music playing ska on horns and drank a Bavarian beer !
Skiing is a good way for me to get away from the stress of competition climbing. It's helped me get past Saas-Fee and start looking towards the next competition.
Enough can't be said about the hospitality of my "competitors" / friends from the ice climbing competitions. It's been a great way to meet a lot of really cool people and see many new places this year. I feel extremely fortunate.
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