Summertime

Oh yes it´s time, time to join the blog culture… After spending more time in the mountains I started to feel that it would be fun to except for logging my climbs maybe also share some experiences from and around the mountains.

Of course summer is running to an end and for me work is waiting in autumn and with that much less climbing. But in June and July I was lucky to spend 2 months in Chamonix, just climbing and no working. Here a little recall from the summer.

It all started of with a very snowy Chamonix with loads of steep lines in perfect condition for skiing, of course I had been stupid enough to leave my skis at my parents place after some skitour guiding in the Swedish mountains. So unfortunately no skiing for me this time but luckily Italy and the Arve valley are just an hour´s drive away and houses some fantastic rock climbing. For me that was great having set the goal to get the grades up to 7a onsight during the summer.

A couple of weeks into the trip I met up with a Finnish guy with the name Antti Ahola, a very strong rock climber but not so experienced on alpine terrain. Me having more of that it was a perfect match. I was taking care of the approaches and was Antti the king ones on the rock. We climbed both the grand capuchin by the route  ´´Elixir d´astaroth´´ and a route called ´´Or or´´ on point Lachernal. On ´´Or or´´ it was just amazing to see Antti  onsighting the 7A cruxpitch with a daypack on his back filled with boots, crampons and so on.

For years now it has been a bit of a tradition to do some climbing every summer with my father Tom Doude van Troostwijk. Also this year he came along for almost a month! We managed to do loads of climbing. A lot of our inspiration we found in Rebuffats book ´´100 finest routes´´ mostly high quality fun routes with a lot of challenge for my father and perfect training ground for my guiding skills. We climbed for example on the Aiguille de l´m, pyramide du Tacul, Tour Ronde and much more.  On Tom´s rest days I had the chance to climb the Kuffner Arette. Me and Rhys found the route in excellent conditions so with nice cruising along the route we made it to the summit of the Mont Maudit.

In the beginning of July my friend Daniel Joll came to Chamonix. We had some high ambitions but unfortunately the weather didn´t cooperate so well.  A lot of thundery afternoons made spending nights high up in the mountains less attractive. But still we got to do loads of multipitch rockroutes  on perfect granite some nice climbing on the Gervassuti pillar and a bit of an epic on the Droites. Hopefully we get a new chance on our planned objectives next year.

After the 2 months in the Alps it was time to pack the bags and head north to Sweden. Here guiding on the Kebnekaise was waiting. It was very nice to get back on easy ground and get a ´´everyday life´´ again. My mind was pretty wrecked after the about 45 days of climbing in 2 month’s time so it was time get some rest and new motivation. With bouldering, nice Ice-climbing in an ice-cave and a solo climb on the classic route Silhuetten on Tuolpagorni the season got a very good end.