Blog for ZREA

Tiffany and Nicolas ready for the first summit.

I have been on an extraordinary trip with Nicolas Simon last Sunday. I had too much work to do for write about it before now.
Well, first of all, I thought this trip will be only 4 hours hiking. HOW WRONG I WAS?!!
When I saw all the climbing equipment was prepared by the car before we started, I was little worried. Then we start walking slowly, after one hour we took the climbing equipments on, right after the landscape transform to steep stony wall. Right before we connected two and two person between a climbing rope, one experience climber and non-climber. I ask nicely where we go, and Nicolas pointed out an incredible steep summit. “I like excitement” he says, “and this will be a piece of cake for you”.
Well, I like paragliding, skydiving and diving and it gives me a lot of excitement. But this? I have no clue how to climb and all this rocks and stones? Well I have done climbing in industrial masts in my previous job in Norway, so I know I can trust the equipment.
Well we started to climb and I thought this summit was the only one, and we will return to the car after. Ha ha, on this summit I saw many other summits we should ascend. I was thinking, 4 hours trip??? Hooo. After I had no idea about the time. Everything was floated in my head. I was so concentrated about climbing, I even didn’t care about a spider crossed my legs. I knew we had incredible view to all mountains around, even Mont Blanc! I almost didn’t notice. We had incredible view down. Gisp! I didn’t dare to look this direction, only forward.
We did some rappelling first 6m, 30m and 60m. This was great fun. I can’t imagine climbing down these walls.
After many up and downs, we finally ascends to the last summit. This was horrible. I was tired and it was more difficult climbing than before. Only few meters climbing I was stuck. I couldn’t find anything to hold on. I was sweating like a shower, and I lost my last motivation. I was thinking: “Somebody please help me, I don’t want to get stuck here”. It wasn’t really nice place to stay. But than my fabulous climbing partner, Luca, encourage me to relax, stop and take it slowly. His positive and patience attitude made me to the top of the summit. All credit to Luca!!! I couldn’t have done it without you.
Well the last downhill was great feeling = to be finish. We were sliding on the snow = great fun; I was tumbling because of my tired legs = Who cares?
This route was incredible and I was very emotional when I saw from the valley floor all the summits we have climbed. “It was me up there!!!”
Thanks Nicolas for give me this opportunity, I am overwhelmed and grateful. I have never done this kind of “hiking” before, but it was absolutely great. No regrets. And also thanks to Luca, Fabrice, Tiffany and Raphael for great company.
Here is the blog to Nicolas: http://crazyclimber.skyblog.com/ He has published some pictures from the trip. I will also put some pictures soon.

By the way: The whole trip took about 10 hours.

So how can climbing to Matterhorn beat this? This was enormous to me.

Luca, Tiffany and Fabrice. Mont Blanc in the horizon in middle of the picture.

My friend from Tromsø and Norway, Bjørn Ingebrigtsen, will visit me here in Noville in the beginning of July.
We have planning to climb Matterhorn 4478 m above see level. The first day (July 6th) we will walk up to “base camp”, which is more like a hotel. Here we will sleep until 4 o’clock in the morning and start walking/climbing to the peak of Matterhorn. This will take approximately 6 hours and 5 hours to return to base camp. The height difference is about 1600 m.

Today I had a meeting with our guide, Nicolas, and he explained roughly about the trip and what we need of skills and conditions. Hopefully I am good enough for this trip. I keep my fingers crossed. Bjørn is already in good shape, so no worries for him. I have been running the last weeks and this Sunday I will walk with Nicolas for do the training in mountain. It is a mountain in the same area of Matterhorn and with same height difference, but of course less hard. This trip will take only about 4 hours (up and down).

Wooooow, I look forward the next weeks. I am so excited!!!!

here is a link to Wiki about Matterhorn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn
and some norwegian words: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn

I found some amazing pictures on this link: http://www.skyandsummit.com/cervin2006/index_en.html

ZREA in the air.
I got my favorite passanger today, Alain. First flight was just top to bottom, it was sidewind and stabel air. I landed 70 m away from target. Helvete! The gras was almost higher than me.
We eat something before next flight. Now we had to start at north face, ooooh. Spooky. I have never done that with tandem and I was really nervous, but Alain said it was perfect. And it was. The north face is really steep and narrow, big trees in both sides. The take off was perfect, and I had to do som real work before I found the thermal. Wooppsy up it goes. The thermal drifted and with us along it. Yeeeeehaaa. So wonderful, I cannot describe the feeling when you finally got the lifting air and can stay in it. We flew until Jaman, got some thermal there and finally up to Roche de Naye. My dream flight!!! I have dreamt often about this flight and now it's reality! From Sonchaux (take-off) to Roche de Naye. It is not far but it can be very technical to fly to. Alain didn't bring the jacket, so he started to freeze in 2000 m. We decided to go for landing. Bugger! We crossed the valley and flew close to a ridge. Here was also thermal, and like me I always have to try the thermal before I give up. THe thermal was warm, so it was ok for Alain. I started to get really tired, my arms and legs was hurting. Alain had to take over the thermalling and he is so good pilot, smask! We flew over the landing and had 1000 m to do manoeuvres. I was trainig to the A-exame, so I had 360's and 8's to do. I was exhausted when I landed, and in the target this time. What a flight!!!
Thanks Alain you are the best, I love you! I flew with Garuda from MCC Aviation, wow nice glider. I love it.

When we arrived to the top, the wind was very south, little sidewind but ok for take off. As we prepared the glider and waited for our turn to take off, the wind suddenly changed to norht. Fuck! We had to change the take off and new preparation. Then we were ready for start again.
Me and "Vivi" had low start, but we could do some soaring and tharmaling in the north side of Sonchaux. After 40 minutes is was nothing left and we had to go for landing. After this changing of wind it was too early to get anything more. I had to explain and try deep spiral to learn her what it was. It was not deep spiral, but more than normal one :-) Thanks Vivi for nice company.

It's snowing in Villeneuve for almost the first time this "winter". It's a sad day, because we are waiting for the summer :-)