Thursday, June 12

Céüse, moving on.

I'm always amazed at how much my attitude can change post sending. It's a testament to how emotional the process can be. For the last 10 days it's felt like a completely refreshed trip. I completed my primary objective and now, even still, I couldn't be happier. So much relief. I walk to the crag cheerful and excited, gone is the anxiety of conditions or beta or my level of fatigue or wrecked skin. I'm just simply stoked to climb again, and enjoy great climbing at my favorite crag with good people. It's nice.

But I also know that momentum can be a powerful ally, so the next day after finishing Biographie I put my draws on an incredible route I was hoping to climb over on the Berlin Wall - it's a stunning line that homeboy Dave Graham bolted a while back, and was eventually opened by David Lama in 2010 and to the best of my knowledge has resisted any repeats since. Lülü is a low(er) angle, finger tweaking, resistant, hyper technical, airy masterpiece. It's brilliant! Some of the most run out hard climbing at Ceuse that I've done, and some of the rarest holds and generally in your face throughout, I really loved piecing it together. Quite hard for 14c no doubt, maybe it's harder? who knows. Hopefully my chalk will inspire another repeat.

Lülü

Next up for me was a super classic over on the Demi-lune that I had yet to check out. Dures Limites 14b is one of the areas most coveted hard routes - bullet stone, cool hold variety and two well separated nice punchy cruxes. It's been warming up here a lot recently, so I was really pleased to finish it in a day before it got any hotter - this route has some very small grips on it. Next I wanted to revisit Chronique de la Haine Ordinaire 14b over on the Biographie wall. I had tried it once back 2 years ago and found the opening boulder problem to feel super hard! I was hoping that in my current condition it would be much easier but I was wrong, ha! This route was super hard for me. Maybe it's my size, or maybe it was in part that I had poor beta until just before my send go, but I had to fight for this thing and I got a gnarly flapper in the process.

Chronique de la Haine Ordinaire -- http://bearcammedia.com 
Yesterday Bear Cam and I got some work done, shooting a few last random clips for an EpicTV piece that should release in about 10 days. Otherwise I was really keen to try this incredible, enormous pitch called The Black Bean 14a. Beginning with the crag classic, Les Colonnettes 8a, this 65meter route starts from the ground and climbs to essentially the very top of the massive Biographie wall. It's a journey for sure, and was such a pleasure to do as perhaps my last route in Ceuse this trip. It's logistically a bit of a bummer, but it's a unique and thrilling experience - well worth the hassle! And maybe not much harder than Berlin wall 8a+..
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The crew shares some Rosé on the Med. 

And that basically wraps up my time here in Ceuse.... I absolutely love this place - my favorite cliff on earth no doubt, but I'm also excited to move on, and explore some other new zones. I feel very fortunate and grateful for my time here, and I trust will find more incredible routes and rad people as I work my way towards Switzerland!

But first, a weekend at the Arc'ademy in Chamonix... Hope to see you guys there!