Crazy climbing
Together with the funniest climbing club ‘st Cere Grimpe’ I’ve been in the Calanques nearby Marseille in south France, 200 meter vertical rocks direct out of the sea. Amazing rock forms, colours, crystals, light blue water and sunshine. It is crazy what nature offers us.
Check out the pictures, respect the nature.
Maybe you wonder what keeps me busy in summer when I can’t freeride. Well, I live as a gipsy so I can go climbing, wild water kayaking, dancing, surfing etc. where ever it is beautiful in this world.
To pay all this I have many different works. I teach wild water kayaking, biking and inline skating to students, I worked at a farm, I constructed walking roads in a national park in the Alps and since 10 years I rebuild houses in France. Always with naturel materials, stone and wood.
Now I am at work at my parents place, they sold everything in Holland and bought a piece of land with ruins in south France.
I help them repairing everything in the old style with stones we find and we cut our own threes to construct with in the old fashion without nails or screws. The water comes from a well behind the house, we eat out the garden and heat with wood from our forest. To go somewhere you first have to drive a car track two KM through the forest to find an asphalt road. The next houses you can see are far away on the other site of the valley. A beautiful place hided in France. My parents rent a guest house (the ‘porcherie’) www.cabreperdu.com
Check the pictures to see what we have done since 2000.
This would not be possible without my sponsors, thanks a lot to:
Wim Jaquet Sports (Wim Jaquet)
Wepowder (Maurice Mommen)
Nitro snowboards (Andreas Auhrhammer)
Raiden (Andreas Aurhammer)
Poc (Henrik Hellman and Olaf Sueters)
Volcom (Jeroen Bazuin)
Mons Royal (Marjon Dam)
Also thanks to Filmer and Fotographers:
Elmar Strotmann
Michiel Rotmans
Edo Jungerius
Yann Mayer
Thanks friends for having a good time riding
And thanks you for reading my blogs.
Thursday was a qualification day. When the boarders and skiers where at the start a little avalanche came down and took a skier with him for about 50 meters. After watching the qualification Miki and I went for sightseeing and we climbed a big waterfall. It is worth to go to Norway, it is very different than the Alps. Very steep, lots of lakes and the mountains don’t have tops.
Friday there were three possible faces to ride, but all three were too dangerous because of avalanches. There had been lots of wind what makes it so dangerous.
With a group of friends we made a tour, two of them start to climb the ‘dangerous’ face. Icy and not more than 30 degree. An avalanche came down and took one of them about 250 meters down. Beside of a little bruising nothing happened.
Saturday was a beautiful competition day. Snowboard and skier women were riding extremely good lines. Skier’s men were taking lots of risks and one of them got injured. Because of that many skiers could not compete, and because less than 75% of the skiers didn’t ride the competition there were no podium places for them.
NL
Yiiiieeeees I’m in the World Freeride tour. Het level in de wedstrijd gister, hier in Roldal (Noorwegen) was hoog. Ik reed een redelijk makkelijke lijn met medium cliffs en haalde daarmee de 8e plaats. Samen met mijn andere twee resultaten (1e en 2e in 4 star FWQ ) heb ik genoeg punten om als eerste Nederlander de FWT mee te rijden. 6 weken hard revalideren van mijn knieoperatie heeft zich geloond.
Donderdag was de kwalificatie. Toen de boarders en skiërs aan de start stonden kwam een kleine lawine naar beneden en een skiër werd 50 meter meegenomen. Na de kwalificatie zijn Miki en ik een grote waterval gaan beklimmen. Noorwegen is echt de moeite waard, zo anders als de Alpen. Zeer stijl, veel meren en de bergen hebben geen toppen.
Vrijdag waren er drie mogelijke wedstrijd fases maar die werden alle drie afgezegd vanwege lawine gevaar. Het had hard gewaaid en aan de lee kant lag ingewaaide sneeuw.
Met een groep vrienden zijn we gaan toeren, twee van ons klommen het ‘gevaarlijke’ face wat ijzig was en niet meer dan 30 graden. Een lawine brak los en een van hen werd 250 meter met de lawine meegenomen. Behalve een kleine kneuzing in de heup is niets gebeurd.
Zaterdag was een perfecte wedstrijddag. De snowboarders en skiërs damen reden extreem goede lijnen. Skiërs mannen namen veel risico en een van hen raakte gewond waardoor een deel niet kon rijden. Minder als 75% van de skiërs reden de wedstrijd waardoor er geen podium plaatsen voor hen was.
Sunday we drove from Dalaas (AT) till Esbjerg (south Denmark), Monday we drove over the west coast to the ferry, during the night we drove to Roldal in Norway.
After a siesta we made a tour into the ski area and some sightseeing to a fjord.
Today was bed weather and after some grab carve turns on ice pist we went back to the hotel. My knee is swollen, tomorrow is the qualification.
Zondag redden we van Dalaas naar Esbjerg (zuid Denmark), maandag reden we verder over de west kust tot de ferry naar Noorwegen, over nacht reden we naar Roldal.
Na een siesta hebben we een tour gemaakt in het ski gebied en een fjord bezocht.
Vandaag was het slecht weer en na een paar karve turns op ijzige piste zijn we terug gegaan naar het hotel. Mijn knie is gezwollen, morgen is de kwalificatie.
Last days where very good, making sluf and wet snow avalanches and trying to ride them. My knee is ok long as I don’t jump. Tomorrow morning I leave by car to Norwegian for the competition. After that I will fly to Paris to visit friends
Ik heb er weer aan het snowboarden. Afgelopen dagen waren te gek, sluf en natsneeuwlawines maken en dan proberen deze te boarden. Ik kan boarden maar nog geen klifs springen.
Mijn knie is licht ontstoken van de overbelasting maar morgen vertrek ik naar Noorwegen met de auto dus mijn knie heeft drie dagen rust. 19e is de eerste wedstrijddag. 23e vlieg ik dan naar Parijs vrienden bezoeken. Waarschijnlijk dat ik dan ook mijn ouders in zuid Frankrijk bezoek om daar de badkamer af te maken in een huisje wat ik daar samen met mijn vader heb gebouwd.
Hopelijk vind ik nog betaald werk voor ik naar zuid Amerika vlieg.
Last weekend my Steinbock colleges take part in the Filmfestival ‘Powder to the people’.
This year there were really good teams taking part in the competition. The Steinbocks got the price for best riding, the film cutting was also very good but the story was not clear enough.
Check it out by yourself
I am in Mallnitz (South Austria) and still trying to get fit soon. I have pain because of the scows in my knee, but anyway I did my first ski tour today in Gastein. Hiking up, down by lift.
I never thought that training for revalidation can be so hard. But this time I take it serious. I have a goal and always go 100 % for my goals. I broke my knee 22 February, just before an important competition. I have two results and they are good, 1st and 2nd place but they count the best three results.
Advice, about revalidation after a knee operation to a competition in less than two months, by doctors and physiotherapists are different. One tells me to go for it; the other tells me that I will not be fit. Lucky that I found a doctor and a physiotherapist who are helping me. But in the end I will always listen to my body. I try to take the maximum out of the trainings.
In the past three weeks I have been training five days a week at the fitness studio: Monday 3 hours power and power endurance training. Tuesday one hour condition, 1hour physiotherapy and fifty minutes electro therapy. Wednesday 3 hours power and power endurance training. Thursday one hour condition, 1hour physiotherapy and fifty minutes electro therapy. Friday 3 hours power and power endurance training. Saturday swimming, light condition training. Sunday relax 50 minutes electro therapy. Beside of that massage, cooling down, walking with sticks etc.
It is not always easy to stay positive if I think about what I could have done in this time; lots of beautiful freeriding. Because of the accident I cancelled work, photo and film shootings and four competitions. But the sun is shining, I have a lot of friends here and very imported, I have a goal. 14th April I’ll make a road trip to Norway with my friend Mikaela from Finland. There we will go snowboarding, touring and on 19th of April we´ll ride the last 4 star freeride world qualification. The result I´m going to make in this competition will decide if I can ride the freeride world tour next year or not. This competition will also decide for Mikaela if she gets invided to the FWT.
At the picture you see the difference between my left and ride leg. With my right leg I do leg presses with 165 KG, 3×30. With my left leg I train with 39 KG.
Here some nature pictures I made this winter.
Our main focus on this trip is defenitely Mountaineering/Snowboarding.
Snowboarding in Peru is a very serious undertaking. The snow level starts at around 5300 meters so there is a lot of hiking required to reach the snow. Snowboarding is all happening on glaciers so there is a lot of dangers concerning crevasses not to forget the high altitude which makes the whole thing not easier. For climbing/riding peaks in the Cordillera Blanca there is a lot of experience required.
For the acclimatisation days we will do a lot of different sports like Hiking, Trekking, Climbing and Mountain Biking . . .
After the project in the mountains we will moove down to the ocean on the way down you can do sports like Whitewhater Rafting/Kayaking, Longboarding, Sandboarding.
Finally we will arrive at the ocean where its time to go Surfing the longest wave in the world.
A full on action sports adventure trip with the main Focus on Snowboarding..
Beside our sport activities we will also work on a charity project by giving away Slacklines to Schools and Local Communities.
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