Updates

I’m back in Switzerland after a short trip to the Red River Gorges. I can truly say that this trip was not really successfully for me…before I left I felt small pain in my right heel and this pain was getting stronger and stronger during the first days of my trip.

The Red River Gorge is an amazing place to be, especially for climbing, but for me it was not so cool. All my friends were there and the routes are so amazing but I was just unable to climb….I cut my shoes and I tryed to climb with tape, but my inflammation was getting bigger and bigger.

After one week I finally accepted my injury and I took the decision to fly back home. Instead of only waiting for our flight, I changed my role and for the 5 days left, I was filming all the time and honestly, I was super psyched for that!

 

Back in Switzerland, Cédric was editing a little clip about his great performances there.

Enjoy the film and I hope that you like my images!;-)

 

Life is how it is and I have the chance to travel so much. Next time will be better, for shure!

Pictures: Francois Lebeau and Axel Balley

The colours of ‘la piedra parada’

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I’m back from an incredible trip in Argentinia. It was this kind of trip I’m loving so much! Why? Because I was sharing a big adventure with lovely people in a fantastic place. The main goal of our trip was to bolt routes for the next Petzl Roc Trip, but beside that, our program was full of climbing, fishing, horse riding, eating a lot of barbecues…. I will share my impressions of this trip and I hope to meet you there end of november!;-)

Photos: M. Fuselier and G. Vallot/Petzl

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Ma grande soif de grimpe!

Since the last Petzl Roc Trip in october in China, I didn’t touche a lot of climbing holds. During the winter, I love skiing and training indoors and I like the sensation when the world around me is waering a white snow mantle.

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In the beginning of february, my desire for a pure rock trip was bigger then ever. Spontaneously, me and Cédric, we were packing our home made camping car and we were driving direction south and sun!

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Our first stop was in Margalef, but it was still to cold there and so we were driving to Oliana for a couple of days. I love the climbing there and it was so nice to feel the sun on my skin while I was climbing hard. Perfect conditions! Cédric was trying hard ‘Chaxi’ and me I was alternating between ‘Papy Mullat’ and ‘Mind Control’.

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I was falling of a couple of times on a big move in Papy Mullat and I so I gave up this project for a while and I was working only on Mind Control. After only 4 trys I was able to clip the chain and it was an incredible feeling!

For Cédric, he also had to keep away his project for a while because he had serious skin problems…( At the moment right now, he’s driving back to Oliana for this route…venga!)

After a super diner with a good bottle of Rioja, we joined our friends from Grenoble and Fontainbleau in Margalef. The atmosphere was incredible and we’ve had so much fun together. Everyone found his project in his level max and it was so cool to beeing surrounded by the cheers of ‘ALLEZ, ALLEZ  and to feel how hard everyone was trying to redpoint theyr routes. Like I told you before, I’ve had like a big manquo of rock climbing. I think that I was like a crazy little girl, climbing the most possible from early in the morning till soon into the night…It was such a big satisfaction for me to feel again the power of rock and nature…

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Unfortunaly, my high motivation was making me a little bit fable I guess. After ten days ‘a muerte’ I felt sick for five days. But anyways, I was surrounded by our music box Quintin and by my personal top-chief cooker Cédric and so this lazy time passed really quickly.

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Margalef has never been one of my favourite climbing palce because the style is really physical and also kind of painful with all these pockets. But in the end, Margalef is not only ‘Laboratory’, Margalef has huge 40 meter walls, colonettes, crimps….it’s one of these crazy canyon system and every wall is unique and I think that I felt in love with the charm of the village and the facility of live there.

After two weeks, Cédric had to drive home with the Grenoble group Rackam and Quintin and I picked up my good friend Babsi in Barcelona.

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We both found really cool projects in the sector ‘Finestra’ and it was so nice to be with her for once more. She’s always super psyched and she never gives up! Babsi climbed a cool 8b and I did ‘Aiztol’ a really physical 8b+/8c.

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One of my favourite sector was ‘la cathedrale’ and ‘Erabella’ and the huge flat colonettes on the left of Erabella. Fantastic walls, un-typical climb and perfect conditions in the shadow. I flashed one 8a+ route on this flat colonettes and I did the biggest full-body fight since a long time. I also on-sightet an 8a+ on ‘la Cathedrale’ and I was also soooo close to onsight my first 8b, also on this wall.

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In the really end we were moving to Siurana for two days but the weather was just to cold and it wasn’t so much fun. Well, I think that I was also really exhausted. I was trying hard the route ‘Patinoso’, an 8c+ in Siurana that fits me really well. But I was to lazy to try it seriously and so we were ending up on the beach with big cocktails, a tons of icecreams and shopping in Barcelona!;-)

Now it’s time so start a new adventure. Tomorrow I will leave to Argentinia with the Petzl Crew. We will bolting routes for the next Roc Trip, I’m super super psyched!!!!!!

Thank’s a lot to Nicolas Renard, alias ‘grand chef’, Vojtech Vrzba and Jarno Zwiebel for the nice photos and for shure Pierre Délas, So Toutepetite, Babsi Zangerl, Coquillette, Rackam and Quintin, Enzo Oddo and my lovely boyfriend Cédric for this wonderful time we spent together in Spain.

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My adventures in Vietnam

Once a year, I like to go on a journey without my climbing shoes, to see the planet without all his crimps and flat holds…;-)
At the end of November, I jumped on a plane from Paris to Vietnam, together with Cédric and three cave-friends, Manu, Clémentine and Bernard.
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Our goal was to find new caves in a vierge zone in the north of Vietnam. From the capital Hanoi, it took us one week to getting all the permissions to travel to the north and to stay in the homes of the local’s. One week in Hanoi and Bay of Along was enough time to be real tourists!

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After two days on a pirate boat in the Bay of Along, we finally found our Vietnamese geologist in Hanoi.  Every paper was signed and we were ready to move into the wild jungle.

The countryside in this region was really impressive and completely untouched from the tourism.

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For about four hours we drove the 200km north by car, but at one point there was no more street and we had to walk the last 15km to our small village.

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The people who live up there, the Ethnies, really live like in the middle age. All of them are self-supported, they eat rice and vegetables and sometimes they butcher a chicken.

During our explorations, we’ve had the chance to sleep in the house of the chief of the village. It was a big privilege to see how they manage their life, impressive…

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Every day, we were looking for new caves and with the help of the locals, we found a lot of little caves from 200 to 500 meters long. But the potential wasn’t really big or impressive. The research in the middle of the jungle was a scary thing. Sometimes we found snakes near the entrances! 😉

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The caving was really unique. Nothing extreme, but when you do an expedition in a new zone, it’s like playing Lotto. You can find a 10km cave, or you can find nothing. All in all, we’ve had a lot of fun and life with the Ethnies in their village was adventure enough!

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Concerning the food, it was a little adventure as well. Beside the pure rice, we never had an idea what was in our plates. And fortunately we took some good Uncle Ben’s and some snickers with us to change the tastes a little bit.

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Holidays have to be holidays, and so we moved with Cédric to the Island Phu Quoc, in the very south of Vietnam. Diving, exotic fruit, seafood, cocktails at the beach… the real recovery! 😉

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I would say ‘vive’ the holidays to bring good forces and energy for a new season, with a lot of ascents! 😉

Thank’s to Beal and Uncle Ben’s for the great support!

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Petzl Roc Trip in China

Well well, it’s high time to write about one of the best trip I’ve ever done in my live, the Petzl Roc Trip in Getu Valley.

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In my eyes, it was a journey in an inconnu world. A world with another rhythm of live, time and people. Erwann Lelann transformed this lost place in China in a kind of a climbing paradise with a minimum of structure. Structure in China will never be the same as in Europe or America and for us foreigners, everything was just crazy and incredible.

The climbing live there was really easy and uncomplicaded. Rice, cliffs all around in the whole valley and accessible by foot, rice, all different kind of rock and routes, rice, a lot of motivaded climbers, rice, good partys and…rice?

The only thing I was missing was the blue sky and a glass of good redwine. But also without these two important factors, I was always super psyched and the climbing was like a game for me. I just wanted to climb as much as possible. First of all all the multipitch routes in the big arch, then the short and physical sportclimbing routes also in the arch, the crimper lines in Banyana’s cave and the boulderstyle routes in Buddha’s cave.

10 day’s in Getu, a lot of climbing, performances and allez-allez, but also a meeting during day and night with my friends from all around the world. Sharing with them all these crazy situations, crazy ambiances and crazy…..ah, everything was so simple.

More photos are coming soon from Sam Bié and Beau Kahler…

A special thank’s once more to all the Petzl Crew. The creation of an event like this is just incredible…