March Dose Frankenjura

Somewhere in the Frankenjura …

One of the first winters in Frankenjura I can remember with almost no snow and actually pretty warm. Perfect for bouldering and even climbing.

Not many pictures this time but more to come in march.

Tradclimbing in Frankenjura

Tradclimbing in Frankenjura gets more and more common. There is a small group of people trying to climb classic routes skipping all the bolts. Instead they use nuts and cams to protect. There are already a bunch of classics climbed in this style. And there are even first ascents of new routes with just one bolt on the top to rappell.

Here are some pictures I took of a route called „Schildkröte“ (Turtle) on the Streitberger Schild.

Best of USA 2013

Here is a collection of some of my favorite pictures I took this year on my roadtrip through the US. Selecting the „best of“ was hard, when you have more than 7000 pictures to choose from. In total I took more than 20.000 pictures and reduced them to 7245. My altime favorite is the picture with the rattlesnake and the nighshot of the bristlecone pine. It was such a good time. I met a lot of new people and learned so much!

So this will be the last post for this year I think. There will be more next year, maybe not every week, but hopefully every month.

Enjoy!

Sunbeams

When you come from sunny California to rainy, foggy Germany it is a hard change. No more t-shirts, shorts and hanging out in the sun.

But the Frankenjura is a very beautiful place in its own. And this time of year is foggy, misty weather time. I had about a few seconds before the fog went on and the sunbeams disappeared!

The last day …

Six month are over and it just felt like one month on the road.The plan was to go back to Bishop for some more days of bouldering. But when we saw the weather forecast for Yosemite in the ranger station we decided to drive up to the Tioga pass and down to the valley. So here it is, a photo of our last day in the wild before we headed back to LA to catch our flight back home. There is no better place to end such an amazing trip.

Monolake

Here is on of the last US trip update. It took me some time to get used to the citylife again and to get an internet connection at home.

The Monolake is a pretty small attraction, but worth a visit if you are around. The Tufaformations are amazing. And the later the day, the better it is getting. It was funny because I was waiting for sunset and suddenly a photography workshop turned up and there where cameras everywhere. Sadly there were no clouds so it was not the best sunset.

Bishop Bouldering Part 2

and the second part.

Poisonous glance

I have to admit I am very proud of this pictures. Everybody who tries to take pictures of wildlife knows how hard it can be to get close to a certain animal. You need a lot of patience and most of all luck. It can be realy frustrating but once in a while everything comes together. Like this time …. I came back to where we were camping and our neighbour told us how freaked out he was because a rattlesnake was crawling between his legs some thirty minutes ago.

He showed me the direction where it left and I was like …. what the hell … I’ll try my luck. It’s not like there is no place to hide for a snake. People would say impossible. But after thirty minutes it suddenly lay right before me, crawling away, trying to hide. Another thirty minutes later the snake was in a good spot to take pictures. And yes … I was close … too close in my opinion.

But what counts is the result. Voilà, one my most favorite pictures I have taken so far.

Bishop Bouldering Part 1

Since almost four weeks we are roaming through the endless bouders around Bishop. Honestly, this is the best bouldering area I have seen so far. Especially the Buttermilks are a must go for every boulderer. A 15 minutes drive von Bishop and you are in the middle of it.

For climbing photography this is a perfect spot. Big mountains in the back and huge Boulders with tiny climbers crawling all over it. It is funny …. when I think about my homearea Frankenjura … a lot of the boulders would have bolts.

The Happys and the Sads are not far away and a perfect change of rock and style. Not as good as the Buttermilks but nevertheless just perfect.

Here the first part of some of the areas classic and other stuff.