SOUTH KOREA ICE CLIMBING WORLD CUP, 2012 - EPILOGUE

UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup, Cheongsong, South Korea

REPRESENTING THE USA AT THE COMMENCEMENT - imagine that.

This year was exceptional in South Korea with the second ever UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup in Cheongsong (Nature Song). The culture is rich, the people so friendly and the organization of the competition and event being second to none. There were more than 127 athletes representing 24 countries at this competition. Only the top 40 are ever listed in the results, I was good enough to get listed and beat my previous rating of 36th in 2009-10 and am presently ranked 34th for 2012.

MEN'S QUARTER FINAL

This as my third year of competing in the World Cup and I have been lucky to meet some of the most interesting people along with all the travels. This year, Kendra Stritch makes her debut and is from Minnesota. Although most people think she's from Canada, she's actually from Minnesota. Ian Holmes is joining up with Gordon to form the Canadian consortium. The Russians pretty much crushed the entire field of all comers, hold a couple of Korean slots. Somehow, Bendler fell off. Someone must have greased his picks because that hardly ever happens. I would buy a lottery ticket before betting Bendler would fall in the first round.

THE IMPRESSIVE CANADIAN, IAN HOLMES GIVING ONE OF THE RUSSIANS A LIFT.

I am happy with my meek performance this year since although I did not make it to the half final, I climbed well and had recognition from the athletes and judges and route setters congratulating me on making good progress with making no stupid mental mistakes, climbing strong, and with consistency. Actually, I was just afraid that the belayer wouldn’t be prepared for how heavy I would be if I fell, so I just didn’t fall – ha ha. Markus didn't think it was funny, he really did think I would get dropped - didn't happen. However, one athlete fell a long distance and got harpooned in the abdomen by one of his axes. I checked him out and he had to be sent to the hospital for a perforated bowel.

I don’t feel like much has changed with my climbing in the past couple of years, but perhaps I can’t see the grass growing. Funny though, I’ve put on 10 pounds and only have about half a dozen training days total this year. Time in the pilot seat is what’s keeping me where I am, but I know I am not as efficient as I could be.

Although some of the best climbers fell early and some surprises by underdogs were seen I’m still a long way from being where I want to be. Sometimes there are doors that are before us that we have a choice to open and walk through. Simply cracking the door open isn’t good enough. I have some personal goal choices to make. I’ve taken a hiatus this past year in training and am ready to get back at it. I’m happy with my performance here this year and am looking forward to doing even better next year. Even though it is distant, it is likely my favorite world cup venue now that Val Daone is no more.

The ice competition season isn’t over yet, far from it in fact. Next on the hit list is the first ever TEVA Winter Games. I’m fortunate to have been invited to compete at this competition in Vail, CO. It is a different climbing format. The routes will not be as difficult and there will be two climbers facing off on identical side by side routes as this format is generally much more exciting for spectators. It will be similar to the 2007 Asian X-Games in Shanghai, China when I went there with Timy Fairfield to set the competition routes. I feel more compelled to attend this event on USA soil since I want there to be a World Cup in North America and there needs to be a good showing of competitors at “home games” to assure that it happens.

There is a movement for Competition Ice climbing to go to the Olympics and there needs to be a more organized International event and venue in the USA. However, there needs to be financial support for this to happen. I’m sure that there is someone or some entity that would be willing and able to help this cause, I just don’t know how to connect with them. I have lots of ideas though and can see it happening. Perhaps there will be some glimmer of hope when I visit Vail.

SOUTH KOREA ICE CLIMBING WORLD CUP, 2012

SOUTH KOREA ICE WORLD CUP, 2012

FULL MOON SET AND GETTING READY TO CHASE THE SUN ... TO SOUTH KOREA

Sitting in my seat and looking down on northern Russia and towards the pole, the temps are -50C. Unfortunately, the temperatures in Kirov, Russia were -38C with moderate winds and snowing during my first Ice World Cup. I knew that it was going to be tough going for the next 2 months and that I had a long way to go and a lot to learn about the mixed climbing scene in Europe.

ANTICIPATION.

Over the next three years, and logging many trips across all the ponds to Korea, Romania, Italy, Switzerland, France, and Russia, etc., I found that the American scene had somehow lost its way in the evolution of mixed climbing. The standard that I thought was so high was, in fact, not. Perhaps it was the climbing media’s portrayal that mixed climbing was a “dead-end sport,” or perhaps it was those who were leading the scene got their asses handed to them, they ran out of vision, or simply “got their cups filled,” but there was a sudden ceiling effect.

Going to the French National competition, I met up with Jeff Mercier. I had helped set the competition route at Ouray on the “diving board” that he made famous with his go-for-broke dyno to the finishing hold, barely making the magic happen. Jeff and crew has never slowed down with his “no figure 4 rule” in the competition left all the World Cup competitors launching for holds so far away that it just inspired everyone to throw harder. Jeff’s style isn’t for everyone, but it is fun to climb his routes in his style.

Stephanie Mereau took us to Le Usine, France last year for a proper schooling. This monstrous cave is home to dry tooling at it’s most refined extreme touting grade of D15 (like M15 without the ice). Later, I climbed together with Markus Bendler. I’m not sure what the grade difference is between North America and Europe, but I couldn’t knock off one of Bendler’s “M9s” when I can on-sight M11 back home. You should see one of his “M12s,” a completely blind horizontal dead point to a hold about 3mm deep. Marcus has won over 40 World Cups and can nab that hold 1/20 attempts on a good day. Needless to say, I’m still in my infancy of the learning curve in this game.

KOREAN ALPINE FEDERATION'S INDOOR 5 STORY ICE CLIMBING TRAINING CENTER.

Many countries have proper teams, supported financially, and have coaches. I’ve never had a coach for ice climbing, but I have coached. Intimidating as it is, being an athlete from the USA to compete at World Competitions still inspires me. It’s a big challenge, not only to participate, but to take on droves of Russians, South Koreans, and many other countries with formal teams.

I love the sport of this type of climbing, but it can be so taxing in so many ways. It’s the time machine that kills me: planes chasing the sun over the pole and around the earth, long bus rides, train transfers, and many nights in a foreign bed, on a floor, or on a couch. It’s all worth it though. That’s part of the cost of the ticket to live this life and have it be a memorable one without regrets. Keep on following that dream !

The Icefight 2011, Rabenstein.

This past weekend was the Icefight in Rabentein, Italy (really part of Austria since everyone there speaks German, and is located on the border of Italy and Austria). It s a very small village tucked away high in the Southern Tyrol Region and is home to one of the best organized competitions I have ever been to in any capacity.

The people there are amazing. Markus was telling me that the community built the climbing structure and hosts the event purely on sponsored dollars and from volunteer work. Loads of local show up to witness the best competition ice climbers in the world compete on a self standing, well engineered tower of hard mixed climbing and man-made ice.


As a competitor, you get to spend a lot of time in the isolation zone. The more successful you are, the more time you get to spend in isolation. Another way to get to spend time in isolation is during the qualification rounds and to be the unlucky person who draws to go last out of all the competitors, that would be me this time.

Really, its best to only have a little time in isolation. It can be cold and, given enough time, one can psychologically undo oneself. It's difficult to know exactly when to warm up and when to get physically and mentally ready to go. Competition is so different than real world ice climbing in many ways since there are so many more factors and pressures that come into play. Its easy to start casting doubts and let the phantoms of failure creep into your mind. Finding a good focus is a skill. The more pressures I seem to put on myself, the worse things get. It seems like the less care about failing in a competition, the better I perform. It's hard not to care.

Learning from failures is an important part of competition climbing.

Evgeny Kryvosheytsev told me over dinner that he has been in more than 700 competitions. That's nearly a competition every day for two solid years if they were done back to back ! Markus Bendler said on the drive home that on his second World Cup Ice event his first move was to step out of bounds over a red line and be disqualified. Competitions are tough, there's just no two ways around it. Learn from mistakes or become part of the collateral damage, that's the choice. I guess that's one of the things that makes climbing so appealing, that there's always something to learn or some way to make yourself better.

Like the rest of this trip to Europe, I am fortunate enough to be able to go with friends to new climbing areas. Markus took me to some of his crags near his home in Austria. It was great to climb at yet more cool places. I'd love to spend more time climbing with Markus, but he's going to Romania and I'm going home to the States.

I've had my fill of the World Cup tour for this year and after the shenanigans in Saas-Fee, I'm not psyched about investing more time and money to go to the next UIAA World Cup competition until some issues area addressed. Maybe they will learn from watching places like Rabenstein. I like learning from the competition climbing about my abilities and my weaknesses. Rabenstien always allows me to make the mistakes so that I can become a better climber. Can't wait for next year !

UIAA European Open Ice Speed Climbing Competition in Romania

2/7/2010

Finishing up the 2010 Ice World Cup Circuit

So all of the preparation, planning, logistics, and thrill of competing in the World Cups in all the venues that we’ve been to over the last month and a half have been…extraordinary. The Euros like that the underdog Americans have made an appearance. Justin and I have been interviewed by media at every event. It’s intimidating since none of the Americans have ever made much of a presence in Europe.

I’ve learned so much in such a short period of time. New friends have been made, new connections with climbers from all over Europe and Asia have been established, and I had the opportunity to see many places and cultures that I have wanted to see since I was a kid. I have been encouraged and inspired by some of the world’s best mixed rock and ice climbers. The blood lines of experience from many of the original competitors have been passed down to the next generations of climbers that we are competing with. Markus Bendler learned to climb hard mixed lines and was trained by Harry Berger who I have also climbed with in Ouray, Colorado in past years. There’s less than 3 degrees of separation many times as this is a small community.

There is a lot of energy to get a World Competition in the United States. All of the competitors and UIAA Organizers have been very positive about the USA presence on this entire circuit. They feel that it makes for a more international competition. Furthermore, it validates their Olympic movement. There is a lot of energy being put into mixed climbing becoming a venue at the Winter Games. This may not happen in my lifetime of being a competitor, but perhaps I am contributing in some way to make this happen. Both Justin and I are interested in putting together a circuit of sorts in the USA. I have been told that I have two months to tell Urs (the Swiss coach representing the Ice Climbing Federation) if it might be possible to position a mock World Competition in the USA for next year. Although I am excited about the prospect to put an event on, I also realize the implications of taking on such a task from my experience with the Ouray Competitions in the past.

Therefore, I think it is prudent to call on anyone who thinks they have a possible venue, organizational structure in place, and the interest to consider hosting this type of event. I would be more than happy to have a lengthy discussion with those who would like to contribute. Justin and I have some great ideas, but we would need a lot of help to accomplish something of this magnitude.

An event like this in the USA means something different for every individual person. I can’t see anything bad about an event like this on a personal note and I have a laundry list of how it can be a good and positive thing not only for the general ice climbing community and those in the industry, but also for the USA.




We didn’t attend the competition for the finals. Rather, Malcolm drove Urs, Leight, Justin, and me 40km to the north on a mountainous, winding, and snow packed icy road to the north to visit the castle of Dracula. Yes, we learned all about the history and creation of Dracula on a cold, dark, blizzarding day in the Transylvanian Alps. The drab mid-century décor of the castle, along with the foreign feeling was good enough to have some Halloween-style fun. I couldn’t help but think about how many people had been killed with sharp tools in and around the Braun Castle, and now here we are to compete in an athletic event, having a different way to use our sharp tools, and nobody dies. What a concept!

I do know that when we got back and saw the finals, this is what Markus Bendler looked like as the 2010 overall Ice World Champion !!! This guy is a MACHINE I say...maybe he's a Terminator.



Back to Skiing!

Well, we’re in Romania and its puking snow. We competed in the UIAA Open European Championship – Romania. It was laden with Russians and they really wanted us to compete to “make it more interesting.” Ya, it was interesting all right. I missed my first round of climbing out of 5 chances and also got no practice or warm-up before having to climb. I pulled the picks right out of the ice with my Russian-made fifi ice axes on the first round. The second round went better since I made it to the top. I just wanted to get up the thing for a change without the ice breaking. Then, a Bulgarian put a ice tool through his thigh. He was bleeding and limping. There’s really nowhere for someone to get medical care here, but a family doctor was present at the ski are base and came over to take a look. She said to just leave it alone. I told the competitor that I would suture him up for free if he would like, and he agreed. I left the competition and took him into the Red Cross aid room where I was able to break out my medical kit, do a proper job stitching his leg back together, and returning him to the event.

Fortunately, I didn’t miss my turn, so I got a chance to climb again and this time I reached the top. Sweet! Only more than half as fast as the Russians, but I made it. It’s all I can do to get up the climbs without gacking myself in the legs or piffing myself with a crampon tip. I blame my weight pulling the ice apart, but I’m sure it’s my technique that holds me back. I just don’t have a lot of interest in speed climbing because it’s just a side show to the main circus event for me, the difficulty competition, and a way to have some fun. I don’t take it seriously enough to be a real competitor, yet I’ve scored higher in speed climbing than I have in difficulty. What’s up with that?

After today we’re hitting the slopes on our way back to Bucharest.
With all the snow that is falling over the last two days it might be possible that there could be some good skiing available. There’s some quite steep terrain around, up to 60°, or so we’ve heard. There’s not much in the way of rentals here. They have no telemark equipment anywhere, so Leigh will have to learn how to turn with her heels locked down. There’s no touring equipment available for rent either so I guess we’re not heading out to the back country.

I'm ready for some green chili chicken enchiladas!

Romania

2/4/2010
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.