Garmisch weekend trip

My climbing guide and me
doing laundry in the background

Despite the weather reports saying that weather was going to be crappy we piled into the van and headed to Garmisch early Saturday morning booking Haus Lily while still on the road. Upon booking a room we found out that Frau Lechner (old lady that runs the place) is still alive and kicking after falling down the stairs last January and remembers us from my families many stays there. She had been gone for 6 months so my family was very excited to see her and her mental state intact. I guess last winter she couldn't remember if we had stayed at Haus Lily before which was surprising because during the winter months she could have run the place just off of our family staying there.

After checking in Olivia and I went out to do my laundry and do some bouldering in between at a place close to town. To make the time pass I let Olivia do a few laps in the camp ground between washing and drying. After putting the clothes in the drier we went to a small outcropping for me to traverse and just get on some rock. While I was climbing Olivia got busy with my point and shoot and camera and took some nice pictures of me climbing. Here are a few of them...

Nice shot looking up

 After some climbing we made out way back to Haus Lily and from there went to an Italian Restaurant with Stella.

Small kletterstieg

The next day we woke, checked out of Haus Lily and made out way to the Alpspitze bahn were it became apparent that being a member of this family requires a 365 day pass which I do not have yet! I will get one soon enough though. We boarded the tram and got to the top of the Osterfelder above the clouds. We took a short hike to the beginning of the Kletter Steig so that I could check out the different routes along the base of the wall. After checking out the wall and eating some snacks we made our way back to the bahn to check out the steel walkway that goes over a cliff. It was actually kind of scary walking over this thing and looking down 3000ft to the base. Right as we got there snow started to fall making it that much better. The walkway was so high snow was going up because of the air currents. Fun stuff! After checking out the walkway and thinking about if I could ever basejump off something that high we made our way to the restaurant where I had bratwurst mit pommes and sat in the warm building as snow started to dump outside. Fun trip but I wish I would have been able to climb with Stella in some better weather, maybe next time.

Trying to smile standing on 3000 ft of air!

Way down there

The girls

Sitting in the Restaurant with snow outside

Weiden Fest!

During climbing with Mike on Friday afternoon he mentioned that he needed to leave early because his wife and kids were headed to a fest in Weiden. I didn't have a clue there was going to be a fest in Weiden and I live 30 steps off the haupstrasse but sure enough when I arrived home the city was full of people walking, eating brats, and listening to music so naturally the family postponed leaving for Garmisch for the next morning and started walking through downtown enjoying the festivities. Here are few shots from the fest.

Log burning on the inside

Lots of people and one gray haired guy

I shot right as someone else's flash went of, kind of cool effect

Gaisheimer Wand with Mom!

After doing searching for a place to return bottles and a laundry mat ( each trip taking over an hour of searching we finally got in the car and headed in the direction of Gaisheim for some climbing on a crag I had never been to. The directions in my guide book were excellent so we made the trip in close to 30 minutes. After arriving and parking the car we walked on a path for three minutes and were dumbfounded to find the crag facing the road about 50 meters from where we had parked but covered in trees making it really hard to see. It was a midsize crag with some very fun looking routes but nothing that I would want to pull my mom up if I were to fall so we go to work on some of the easier routes on the far right side. A fun 4+ plus followed by a 5- that I was very excited to see her get up and gave her a high five when she got back to ground level.
I've come to the realization that I'm loving going climbing with my mom just as much as some of the climbing partners I've had over the years. Sure, the climbs are a little easy but it's just fun to see someone I love getting as psyched as I am about a sport I love. Every time she does a climb and gets lowered I see that she is having as good of a time as I am when I climb a 5.11 straight through and that is fun to watch. Here are some pictures from a half day of climbing.
-Owen

Mom tying in!

Climbing a 5.7+

Nice place!

View as we were walking out

Climbing Frankenjura!

How Goes? Me, I'm doing good as long as I'm climbing so right now I'm doing pretty good! This past Thursday I linked up with the Outdoor Rec to go climb at a new area and that is what happened. We ended up going to Hartenstein, a nice crag with a few good routes. There where three of us that lead all the routes for the others in the group to top rope and that turned out to be pretty fun time. It's always good to see new people enjoying climbing on real rock. After putting up a route I got to try out a the bouldery start to an easy 5+ climb that was pretty challenging. Weird body positions proved to be too much for me or anyone else there to do it but it could be a project for a later day.  It was a fun night of climbing but the best part of it was meeting people who also climb and getting some numbers and making plans for a future climb on Saturday. Got home at 11 which was a little later than I expected but well worth it!

Saturday I got up early thinking I would need to take the train in to Vilseck to meet up with a guy that I had met at the Thursday climbing trip. Instead my mom and dad drive me in and I got to relax for another 40 min before hopping in the car. I got dropped off at the Outdoor Rec Ctr just as another group was leaving to go on a kletterstieg. After waiting and reading a book for 30 minutes Will drive up and we were on our way to Steinberg which turned out to be a great crag with lots of routes. It was cool to approach this one through a thick forest with rock poking up on both sides of you until the wall appears on your left side. We walked along for a while with the wall on our left side before joining a bigger group that had already put up a top rope on one route. We warmed up on the route "Neuer Schafsuchersteig" before moving on to harder climbs and to get the blood flowing. Very fun climb with two easy roof to work your way over. After that climb I tried to lead a massive overhang (L'Allpinist 7-) but ended up pumping out at the first bolt that was at the end of the route. I lunged for different holds for 10 minutes before admitting defeat and lowering and letting another guy that was with us finish the route. It was tough watching him hit a deep pocket that I hadn't seen and walk to the top but thats how it goes sometimes. After that I did a few more easy routes along with a lead that I ended up taking a nice size fall on and ended up going around the crux using a crack on the right side. Great day ending with my first train ride to Weiden and walk to the house from the bahnhof. Its only a 20 minute walk so it wasn't too bad.

Will all blurry

Some harder stuff

Nice Top Rope

Lead fall on the middle one with the crack halfway up

Update: Life in Weiden!

During the first week of being in Weiden most of my family’s focus has been on getting me an ID card but now that that I have jumped through the numerous hoops of that process and come out victorious we have been traveling and checking out the local areas surrounding Weiden, Vilseck, and Grafenwoer.  


During the 4^th of July the family got out of the house to check out a crag called Weissenstein at my new climbing area, Frankenjura. I didn’t have a guidebook for the area at the time so it took a little longer than expected trying to translate a print off of the directions and by the time we got there Olivia had to be at Grafenwoer for helping out at the July 4^th celebration. Dad and I decided to stay at the crag to get a bit more climbing in and let my mom drop Olivia off at her work and swing by later to pick us up. We were both surprised that after an hour and a half she had not returned but I could not have picked a better place to get stuck on a sunny afternoon so I just kept on climbing until she arrived two and a half hours after she left. It turns out that she had left the post going in the opposite direction and only figured that out when Weiden started showing up on street signs. She had ended up just getting on the autobahn from Nurenberg to find our location, which was the biggest surprise for us when she showed up driving from the opposite direction we had arrived from. All and all it was a pretty fun time to climb and great to have some near boiling Gatorade that was ice cold 2 hours earlier! After we all piled in the car and made our way to the main post on Grafenwoehr, we ate hamburgers and sat in the grass as Olivia worked, hurriedly stocking cases of beer for the large numbers of soldiers that  arrived for the celebration. The event was on a grassy field the size of a football field with a stage on one side, three food stands on the sidelines, face painting for kids, and a drink tent dead center for the larger kids. It was a good time sitting in the grass after a day of climbing and listening to my parents tell stories about scary events in their lives. Good time!


After the 4^th of July I got on the job hunt at the NAF office by dropping off four job applications and having the lady working there sign me up for another four. I feel like I will get a job pretty soon but you can never tell. I really am going to put in the effort to get a job at the Outdoor Rec place because that would be the best possible job to have in this area. Leading rock climbing and canoe trips would be a good way to make money!The day after dropping off all of my job applications I was feeling the need to rock climb so I took my mom out and had a great time climbing at the same place we had earlier in the week. She was a little scared to be belaying me but soon was use to it. I was very surprised to see her get up some of the more difficult beginner routes not showing ay fear of the heights or foot positions. She actually looked like she was enjoying it even climbing past a beehive that was only three feet from the route! It was a great time and now she has project route that she is sure she can do with a little more energy.This weekend I got a facebook message from my friend Chris Welhelm that he wanted to come down to Weiden to check out the town. On Friday afternoon he arrived while I was still at Vilseck getting my belay certification so I can go on the Outdoor Rec trips to better get to know the surrounding climbing area. By the time I got back my dad and him had already had two beers and were starting on their third. We decided to head out to dinner and ate at an Italian restaurant and enjoyed a great meal. After that we headed down town where we more or less walked looking for a good place to go until we settled on the shisha bar literally 30 steps from the house. The rest of the night was filled with searching for bars with more than ten people in it and this was a Friday night, crazy! Weiden does not have the nightlife that Hedelberg has but maybe that’s a good thing! The next day Chris and I got out to Weissenstein again to do some climbing and had a great time. The highlights were Chris kicking the beehive tat my mom had passed just days earlier into a swarm of pissed off bees. I was asking Chris to step over the rope as I belayed him right as the bees got angry to I just decided to quickly lower him as quickly as possible and get my anchor by climbing another route and traversing over a little at the top. The other route ended up being a challenge but I’m happy to say I did not weight the rope until I hit the anchor! Great time climbing with Chris and hopefully he will come back for more.

On Saturday we decided to go to a Jazz festival in Regensburg, about an hour from Weiden. We had a great time walking around the city and checking out the different venues that were set up. There was so much music it was hard to see it all. At every corner there was a different band and all of it was good. It was interesting to see that no one was actually dancing to the music but were instead sitting in chairs not even tapping their feet or bobbing their heads to the beat. I can imagine it was a little different that a Jazz club in Havana! On the walk through Regensburg I got a guide to Frankenjura climbing that is in both English and German! I’, very excited to have this book because it outlines so many crags and climbing areas that it seems that it would be impossible to go to all of them in a year. It says in the book that there are over 10,000 routes in Frankenjura, absolutely insane!! I can’t wait to climb at more areas here.All and all it has been a good move and we are starting to get to know the areas surrounding us. The scenery is a lot different than Heidelberg due to the tons of forest surrounding us on all side. The climate is a lot cooler as well. I don’t find myself sweating out just sitting in a car anymore, which is very nice! I think it is going to be a good time living here and hopefully I will get a job pretty soon!

Mom getting stoked on Climbing!

Weissenstein

4th of July at Grafonwoehr

The Jazz fest