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Lyon

humancrashpad — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

After staying with Johanna Ernst and her wonderful family, I got a ride from Sean McColl across the Switz land, and he dropped me off at a McDonald's in Lyon. I was for the first time, completely on my own.

I took pictures of everything with my fisheye lens. The photos were all bubbles of people and roads, because I did not know the lens cover was two pieces - the cylinder and cap - until months later.

I could not find a hotel the first night, so I played soccer with kids from an orphanage infront of a police station. They swore a lot, I could tell, so I talked trash and tried to asnwer their questions. When they went home, I didn't know where to go. I slept on a bench in front of a police station with my chinese dictionary for a pillow, and rocketing up whenever a car drove near in case someone would mistake me for homeless and call the police. But maybe I was. At the time, it wasn't homelessness; at first, the world was my oyster.

I tried several ATMS, growing slowly more panicked with every fail until Societe General finally accepted my card. it was a huge relief. I'd exchanged currency at the airport at he start of the trip, but the $100 was only worth 60E at the time.

Lyon probably was the best place I could have started - beautiful and historic. I passed the Bridges to the famous churches on the River probably a dozen times. Lyon also had HI (Hostel International). Also, there were not so many people that the town felt slimy from the curious fingers of tourists.

For hours my feet wandered around the streets of Lyon, looking at stores, alley ways, steep and old staircases, tiny brick houses, and odd corners, taking pictures of shadows, walls, store fronts, and people.

I had three satchels the whole trip, for three months, stacked my shoulders heavily and roughly balanced.

Visible from Space?

GoBlue — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

One of the lines they like to tell you when visiting the Great Barrier Reef is that it is the only living organism that can be seen from space. Actually, you hear this often about a lot of things. Turns out it isn’t quite true—lots of things can be seen from space (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp7/luletters/lu_letter5.html).

But anyway, the Reef was amazing in so many ways. The fish life, coral life, colors, etc. It was also a lot of fun to do an introductory dive in the Great Barrier Reef. The day was even more enjoyable because we successfully were able to dive with no accidents and neither of us became sea sick! Woo hoo! I think we would have liked to do it again, but the weather turned nasty with high winds and it would not have been nearly as enjoyable.

Instead, we spent our last few days indulging in other outside activities and enjoying the great weather. We golfed at the Cairns Country Club and climbed/bouldered on some really interesting, sharp volcanic-like rock on Trinity Beach near Cairns. We contemplated driving 250km south to Townsville for a few days of climbing, but opted out of it. In doing research for this though, it looks like there are literally thousands of climbing route options in Queensland that haven’t been fully explored or developed yet. Any climbers out there looking to put your mark on Australian climbing? Queensland may be your place . . .

So, an enjoyable, low-pace last few days in Cairns wrapped up our time not only in Australia, but also abroad. I think almost three months traveling was just what the doctor ordered to recover from school, as I am feeling ready to dig into some work! Crazy, but true.

Joc on Rip It Up, V1+

Bouldering in Trinity Beach

Outer Reef--Turtle Reef

Railay--Quite Amazing

GoBlue — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Jocelyn finally finished her self-indulgent trip to Malaysia and joined me in Railay Beach on July 21 for six days of climbing and beach relaxation. It was a great time. In fact, so great we decided to shift all of our plane tickets back two days to spend extra time in Thailand and less time in Cairns at the end of the trip.

So, our planned five days of "hard" climbing turned into six days of "hard" climbing. We actually did climb pretty hard considering neither of us have been climbing much over the last 5 years. We visited 7 walls in six days, climbing approximately 26 5.10s and 5.11s. It was a great time. I don't feel as strong as I once did, but I am inspired to start climbing more again.

Given that climbing was our focus, we also managed to do a few other activities during our off-days, including beach reading (yeah, we both devoured the newly released Harry Potter 7 while in Railay--bought it at the Bangkok airport), kayaking to an island that was probably 1 mile away from our beach (it was a beautiful day with brilliant green water and amazing clouds in the sky), soaking in amazing sunsets (by far the best of the trip) and eating (we ate almost every meal at Mom's Kitchen, a cheap place with great food and an entertaining 50-something, free-spirited Thai women to talk to).

For sure, Railay is a great place to climb/hang out and a great place worth spending 3 weeks.

Sunset in Railay Beach

View from Tyrolean Wall in Railay

Joc climbing A Man Can Tell 100 Lies (6a), Wee's Present Wall

Carl climbing The Sit Spins (6b+) , Dum's Kitchen Wall

View from top of Wee's Present Wall

Amazing sunset in Railay

¡Pantalones Pantalones!

Jason Kester — Sun, 20 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Poking the Henge!

These last few weeks have gone by fast. Flew to England, bought a new car, packed Helen's entire world into said car, booked a ferry ticket and drove to Portsmouth, visiting everybody we knew in England along the way.

Here's the plan in a nutshell: I needed some time off work, and Helen needed to get out of America. Frankly, I needed to get out of America too, since I seem to work so much better from a little terrace overlooking a square. I like my walls made of stone.

We've been looking at places to live in Europe, but haven't settled on anything for certain. So now we're just going to roadtrip around for a while until we find a place worth stopping. I guess the requirements are a cool town with a good vibe, plenty of climbing nearby, and of course, a fast internet connection so that I can work. Once we find all that, we're gonna stop for a while.

Breakfast at Apellaniz

Now we're in the little town of Onate, having done the whirlwind tour of Basque crags around Vitoria-Gastiez. This is a really cool town, and the climbing up the hill in Araotz looks pretty good. If the rest of the climbing around here is as good as what we've seen, we might not make it out of Spain!

Re: Ceuse??

Jason Kester — Thu, 25 Mar 1999 00:00:00 GMT

"G. Losier" wrote:
> I need any type of info for Ceuse. Easy to find partner? camping? How
> far from Gap? thanks

I spent a little over a month there off and on last summer. I would highly recommend the place. Partners are always easy to find, and most of the people even speak english.

The crux can be hitching from Gap. I had times where I was picked up within 30 seconds of sticking my thumb out, and at least one 8-hour ordeal to get the 25km up to Sigoyer. From downtown, walk out a ways on the D994. Scribble out a sign that says "Freisineusse(sp?)" as well as "Sigoyer". That should inspire the through traffic to at least take you partway. Anyway, at Fres..., head left on the D47 and follow the signs to Sigoyer. Hopefully by now you're in a car with a climber. Otherwise, walk the mile uphill from Sigoyer to Les Guerins campground.

Les Guerins is a turbo plush campground by US standards. It has free hot showers, refrigerators, washing machine, and a woody in the barn for rainy days. Not bad for 3 bucks a night. Gerard, the farmer that owns the place doesn't speak any english, so it's always fun trying to pay for camping. He also sells bread and chalk, as well as really cheap ravioli.

According to the french, Ceuse is the place to be is southern France when the weather is too hot at Buoux and elsewhere. I was there from June to August and there were always plenty of people to climb with and bum rides into town from.

Re: Jump from a sree finger pocket - right hand

Jason Kester — Fri, 07 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT

Yeah, it pretty much rules here. I think I'm better too. At least I've finally figured out how to work a route effectively. I got this 7b (.12b) on my 2nd redpoint attempt after an hour long session of working the thing on lead.

Oh yeah, I took BIG WHIPPER number two the other day, at the hands of the same belayer chick from BW1. This time I was 5 feet above a bolt & 15 feet right resting on a ledge (and enjoying a giant sport loop) when I pulled off a hold. Moral: Orpierre rules, just dont eat your lunch below the cliff if you dont want to get clobbered by falling rocks. Oh, and dont worry, the french will probably bolt the hold back on.

RE: news from abroad

Jason Kester — Sat, 11 Jul 1998 00:00:00 GMT

I'm finally calibrated to this schteeep limestone. I got a 1 hang onsight (I dont think that's a term, but you get the picture) on this 7a+ (.12a) that I'll have to go redpoint when I get back to ceuse. Orpierre rules as well, by the way. It's a 45 minute drive, but if you leave the campground at the same time, you're climbing at the same time as you would be at ceuse, but much more rested. It's mongosso steep, with huge holds for the most part, and z-clippable bolts. "A rezt day for zee mind", as the austrians say. I usually tag #'s 1, 3 & 5 on redpoints. I onsighted a 6c+ (.11c), and have this 7b+ (.12c) down to two hangs.

News From Abroad

Jason Kester — Sat, 27 Jun 1998 00:00:00 GMT

So yeah, I'm in Berlin now, chillin at the Garner estate. I spent a week at Ceuse, which is possibly the best rock in europe. Moderately to way overhanging with big giant holds. You lose perspective for which way is up standing next to these walls because they are so uniformly overhanging. Everything looks straight up and down, yet the rope hits the ground 20 feet out from the base. The approach is an entire hour of walking up hill, and you gain like 1800 feet of elevation. You can watch planes flying around between you and the compground.

I'll spend a few days here and then go see about climbing some more stuff. July 7 is the day to remember as far as running with the bulls is concerned. I'll keep you posted as to whether I survive.

Mo' of da trip

Jason Kester — Fri, 19 Jun 1998 00:00:00 GMT

So phase two of the trip took me to Buoux, this little town in the s. of France with big rocks and a cheap campground. It's takng a while to get calibrated to this overhanging pocketed limestone, but for the most part, climbing is going well. All the english speaking climbers bailed simultaneously a couple days ago, so I headed south to marseilles in search of a sunburn.

Found it, and now I'm off to ceuse to Hook up with a guy with a car and climb those 900 foot walls at verdon. So far, Kester's trip is going just fine...

The Australian Mobile Office

Jason Kester — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Believe it or not, if you spend enough time sipping Mai Tais on a tropical beach, you will eventually get bored of it. After 4 months in Thailand, I was ready for a change. How about a last minute, 60 day return ticket to Australia? I hear they've got surf there.

So, with the promise of another couple weeks client work (for real money), I booked a crazy plush holiday flat in Noosa Heads for myself and the lovely miss Helen. Bought some surfboards, wrote some code, surfed a bunch, lived large. Bought a cheap van off an English chick, threw a bit more money at it so that it might actually run, and headed South in search of right point breaks and wireless hotspots named Linksys and Default.

The Oz Hooptie

A few new features kept creeping into the site. Somewhere along the way, Tags were born, browsing and search were improved, and the map stopped zooming out to see the entire planet just because you started your trip halfway around the world from where you were actually writing reports. Internet access is actually hard to come across in Australia, so updates would pile up for a while before being thrown live with crossed fingers.

Once we made it to Sydney, the surfboards got stashed in the back and the climbing gear came back out. Spent a week in the Blue Mountains and another at Nowra, clipping bolts with friends met in Thailand. Finally, we limped the van down to Melbourne and passed it off to a friend, who managed to get it halfway back across town before it died a painful death in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Re: back across the equator

Jason Kester — Sun, 31 Dec 2000 00:00:00 GMT

So they got rocks here. I spent an afternoon bouldering at one of the local surf breaks and getting strange reactions from the locals. I guess nobody had ever climbed there before. I'll be renting a motorbike and doing some exploring over the next few days. There seems to be some good potential.

Re: back across the equator

Jason Kester — Mon, 25 Dec 2000 00:00:00 GMT

(clarifying the Bangkok lady-boy remarks from the previous report...)

I generally try not to actually engage them in conversation. You can usually tell from a distance, though some do a really good job of looking the part!

Bali has some truly amazing waves that I have no intention of paddling out to anytime in the near future. I spent part of today day at Ulu Watu when it wasn't even on, and it looked plenty mean. There's rock here, by the way. I'm going to do some scoping over the next week to see if we should be planning a future expedition w/ Hilti in tow. There's definately enough bouldering on the beach to keep a fella occupied for a while.

The King Cruiser

Jason Kester — Thu, 14 Dec 2000 00:00:00 GMT

So life in Paradise continues to be nothing but good. I made it out diving the other day, and it was the best I've ever seen. Ridiculous amounts of fish, anenomae and assorted critters. You'd lose sight of your dive buddy because there'd be 15,000 young barracuda in the way.

Our first dive of the day was on this passenger ferry that sank a few years back. The main deck is like 24m down and it's upright and in good condition. It's fun and a bit spooky cruising around inside the thing, as all the divers stir up the water & visibility is reduced to just a few meters. Being a boat, it has plenty of narrow doors and confined spaces to swim through. Definitely a cool experience!

And for those of you keeping score, I've put in a total of six days on the route now. Only a couple burns a day recently, since I have all the moves wired now, and I'm just trying to put together a clean ascent. I can get it with one rest along the way now. Now I'm just moving that rest spot gradually downward until I can cast off straight from the sand.

The route will have to wait a bit though, as I'm off to the islands tomorrow, followed by a dash for the malaysian border so that I can get a fresh
30 day visa.

Tidal Wave

Jason Kester — Sat, 09 Dec 2000 00:00:00 GMT

So Thailand is treating me pretty well thus far. Beautiful weather, great beach, clear water, perfect rock, couldn't ask for much more.

So check out the first photo on this page:

http://www.megagrip.co.uk/Thailand/Thai7.htm

That is the route that I'm working on at the moment. The photo doesn't do justice to how ridiculously steep this piece of rock is. There is a 20
foot section where you gain 3 feet of elevation! Completely unlike anything I've been on. It's all sorts of fun, and plenty hard as well. I've put three days into it so far, and only just this morning finally got to see the top. That doesn't mean I'm done by any means. Now I get to spend the next few days linking together moves and trying to get the whole thing in one go.

Anyway, things go well. Plenty to climb, plenty of time relaxing on the beach, even some diving in the cards. See ya!

RE: mushroom Mushroom!

Jason Kester — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Dude. I'm running out of things to report over here. Somehow, the fact that I'm still here doing the same stuff as last month does not seem all that newsworthy. I am, however, consistently onsighting .12a, so I guess that's nice.

Me and Jay rented motorbikes the other day and went tearing around the county. It was awesome, and hardly disastrous at all. Jay only made it over the handlebars once, and not even into traffic. I'll certainly be back for more.

Still on the beach

Jason Kester — Sat, 07 Feb 2004 00:00:00 GMT

So I blew through my 30 day visa without leaving the beach. I'll probably do the same with the new one too. Yessir, traveling far and wide these days.

Ok, I guess I did make it down to Malaysia for a week, but really only to take care of the visa situation and eat a whole bunch of noodles in Chinatown.

Stopped in Trang for a couple nights on the way back, and set off into the countryside on a rented motorbike. There are miles of beautiful white sand beach with basically no development at all, and no tourists except a few Thais. There's even nice rocks to be climbed, just like Railay but without the tourists. I may have to buy some land down there...

One of the beaches that I checked out is only accessable by walking through a cave. And not just one of those duck-under-these-few-rocks caves, but a full on better-have-a-second-light-source cave. With bats.

On the way back, I got rained off the road and into a random little restaurant/shack, where I got to practice my Thai for a few hours with the locals. I still have a long way to go before I can master this language.

Climbing goes well. Flashed a .12a yesterday, just missed flashing another one today, then spent the morning falling off a .13a just for fun.

Guy on the beach

Jason Kester — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

I spent the better half of last week in a pitched battle for control of my belly. I escalated to antibiotics, and came out the victor. Got back on the rock yesterday and today I was finally starting to hit stride. Got a 7a and worked out a new sequence for a tough 7b that I squeaked by on last time I was here. That's .11d and .12b for the non-french.

But none of that will matter soon, as I am about to become a huge movie star in Thailand! I was sitting in a cafe on the beach, reading a book and toying with the remains of my pad thai this afternoon, when a couple thai girls came up and asked if I'd like to be in a ice cream commercial. But of course. Why else would I be waiting here?

They took a bunch of photos and videotaped me walking up to the camera and smiling and talking about how much I enjoyed partying on the beach and eating ice cream. It was hilarious. Anyway, if I make the cut, they'll ship me and fifteen other superficial looking farang off to some beach in Trang provence for a week. There's even some baht in the deal.

So yeah, that's my story for the day. I'll keep you posted on my soon to be illustrious career as an actor!

Straight off the streets of CPT

Jason Kester — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I headed up to the rocklands for a couple days to check out some world-class bouldering, and possibly get eaten by a leopard. The place is pretty cool, loads of rock for miles in any direction, with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom living in between. I got on some fun problems, but I kept getting more and more tentative to slap blindly for holds after seeing all the spiders, snakes, and assorded angry critters living in them.

Next stop was Montagu, the western cape's premier sport climbing destination area, and home to absolutely no climbers at the moment. Nobody to climb with, hence no real reason for me to be at the western cape's premier sport climbing destination area. In fact, in the short time I've been down here, I have become convinced that I am the only travelling rock climber in all of South Africa. Looks like I'll stick to bouldering.

Anyway, I'll probably tourist up the joint in Cape Town for a couple days more before heading east. If I'm feeling lucky, next stop will be Outdoorshoorn and the awesome limestone with likely zero partners to be had. Otherwise, it's off to J-Bay to find some waves.

It remains All Good.