Bringing back the Mono!

Bringing back the Mono!

 

This winter season I’m bringing back the mono-ski. I have been on two planks for more that 30 years. Now it’s time to to try something different: A Mono-ski!

My setup is an Alpine Rocket 178 from Snowgunz in Chamonix! I’m Bringing Back The Mono in Scandinavia! Video to come soon, where I will ski the sickest lines on Mono!

I will also be racing in April at the Derby de la Meije, at La Grave, France. It’s a 2000 vertical-meter ungroomed downhill race through death chunks, crevasses, frozen debris and rock hard moguls. There are only two gates, one at the start, one at the finish and I’ll do it on the Mono! It will be my first ski racing since I as a kid in the late 80s had a brief spell with the Danish National Youth Team.

In my quest for monoski world dominance, I had that first slope session tonight. It went quite well! The mono is really a magnet of female attention. I wonder if I can handle the fame.


Mono session on Vallåsen. Camera by C. Hylleberg


Back from Cham

Just back from spending 10 fine days in Chamonix climbing with friends and Team Mammut who sponsored me with a brand new classy alpine outfit. A *BIG* thanks to Mammut and all who made this possible. See the gallery below for a few impressions. My climbing partner Morten Johansen has also made a nice gallery here


Testing Cheap Glass. Nikon 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G on D7000

It’s always fun to test diffrent lens/camera combos.

Today I went to Tivoli, Copenhagen with my family. It was a fine summer day, but I was not really in the mood for photography, but in order to try something different i took an old Nikon 28-80G that normally sits on my rarely used 35mm Film SLR and put it on my D7000

Nikkor AF 28-80mm G

 

It felt like a really lightweight combo, and although the lens felt like a fragile plastic toy I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. The pictures seem sharp enough with decent contrast, and I will definitely shoot this lens again if I need a light weight mid-range zoom.

It does not compare to the 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX or the Sigma 17-70 mm f/2.8-4.0 OS HSM that I regularly use, but once stopped down I found the 28-80G to be a solid performer on a DX. For the sub 50$ price point, it’s almost ridiculously good.

Well, the pictures are here, so judge for yourself. They are un-cropped jpgs as they came out of the camera.


Pictures in ‘Klatring’

I got a few pictures from Bornholm and Bohuslän in the latest issue of ‘Klatring’. The magazine can be read on-line here, but it’s really stunning to see in print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Klatring 1/2012 – Can be downloaded here!

It’s really good that we have a magazine like ‘Klatring’ here in Denmark! Big thanks to the editors – it’s a privilege to contribute to such a quality production!


Local Ice Update

The frost has been here for a while and on Wednesday we decided to head across the water on a day trip to Sweden. We wanted to have a look at the ice conditions in Skåne. We went out to Hovs Hallar not far from Båstad. It’s only 1½ hours drive from Copenhagen, so it is probably the closest quality ice climbing we can find around here.

The message is that Hovs Haller is in condition and Hovsfossen can be climbed on lead at WI5. The Quarry in Båstad still looks at bit thin, but the left fall should be climbable at least on top rope.

Morten climbing at Hovs Hallar
Morten climbing Hovsfossen in WI5 conditions on 8/2/12


Pizza and Cogne Ice

The original plan was to go to Chamonix for some skiing and perhaps some alpine climbing. I had arranged to hook up with French photographer Alexandre Buisse who used to live here in Copenhagen, from where have had  several good trips for ice and rock climbing in Sweden. Alex had recently moved to Chamonix to start his photo business. It would be great to share some adventures with him again, but Alex had been having an epic with an unplanned bivouac on Les Courtes. This had given him some frostbitten toes (luckily not to serious) so he was out of the game.

I had almost given up on any trips when I got an offer from my old climbing friends to join them for a long weekend ice climbing in Cogne, Italy.

After a long drive Wednesday night we arrived in the picturesque town of Cogne on Thursday. Ice conditions where brilliant and the following three days we did all kind of routes. One of the highlights of the tour was the Lillaz Gully, that I did with Anders HP. The Liliaz Gully is a fun 200 meter long gully that can best be described as an Italian version of the classic Scotch ‘Point Five Gully’ with fun ice and mixed climbing.

I am getting to old for this shit
Me battling the spindrift in Lillaz Gully (TD-,WI4,M4+, 200m) – Photo by Anders HP

Cogne is a fantastic place to climb ice in extremely pleasant surroundings with the mountain of Grand Paradiso close by. As the gallery shows I had a marvelous three days with good friends, good climbing and good Italian food!

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Impressions from DM i Bouldering 2011

These are my random impressions from DM i Bouldering 2011. The event was held at DTU in Lyngby and I decided to drop by with a camera. Just shooting what I saw.

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Searching For Magic – Episode One

As a part of my recent trip to Fontainebleau I wanted to see if it is true that the forest is really a magical place. We all know that in order to discover magic you need to open your senses and take a slow considered approach. I thus decided to shoot analogue Black & White for two weeks. I came home with 5 rolls of exposed B/W Kodak TriX 400 and a two medium format colour rolls.

I am very relived to announce that there is a positive indication that magic is in fact to be found in the forest!

Please enjoy the first episode of ‘Searching for Magic’

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Cima Grande, Via Comici (ED-,VII+, 6b+, 550m)

I had the pleasure of climbing in Italy during the first weekend of September. I had made arrangements with Paolo who I had met during the trad climb meeting in Valle Orco last year. Our original plan was to do the Cassin on Piz Badile, but the weather did not seem to agree with this plan so we switched our objective to the Dolomites.

Cima Grande North Face
The North Face of Cima Grande

The Comici route is one of the six classic north faces in the Alps and almost the symbol for climbing in the Dolomites. It was climbed first in 1933 by the extremely talented Italian climber Emilio Comici.

We found ourselves at the Rifugio Aurenzo on friday, but Some heavy downpour with thunder during the night quickly changed our plans since the Comici is north facing and it is well known that the chimneys are often wet for several days after rain. We quickly changed our objective to the ‘Spigolo Giallo’ or the ‘Yellow Edge’ – this is also a Comici route, but it is south facing and should dry quickly. We wanted have some sun on the wall, so we decided not to start to early. We left the rifugio at 7:45 and soon found ourselves at the start together with half the population of northern Italy. We did not really fancy queueing up for several hours, so we went back to our original plan and went to have a look at the north face where we started climbing at 9:20

The route is overhanging for the first part and is really sustained for the first 7 pitches. After this it eases off to vertical, but it is still quite demanding even if the technical grade is not so high.

Cima Grande, Via Comici
Paolo leading the first grade VII crux.

We found the climbing very enjoyable and the rock is actually really good when you compare it to some of the choss that is often found the Dolomites. The protection is a mix of self placed gear and old pitons. It generally protects well. We managed to free climb most of the sustained first part, but we had to climb A0 and pull on the pegs in the soaked-up chimneys higher up. This was rather a dirty wet job that probably delayed us for 1-2 hours.

Cima Grande, Via Comici
A look from the Comici into the neighbouring Hasse/Brandler which theese days are a free climbing test piece. You can try to spot the climbers in the photo!

Cima Grande, Via Comici
A serious dose of exposure. This is actually one of the better belays on the face.

Cima Grande, Via Comici
A look down the face we just climbed with only two easy pitches to go. We arrived at the spot after a very airy traverse, where we had to exit a wet cave. About nine hours after starting out we found ourselves at the ring band terrace, just below the summit. We wanted to go down immediately before dark, but we failed to find the descent and soon we where wandering around in the dark. The descent took longer than expected, but after a series of scary abseils we where back on terra firma.

Cima Grande, Via Comici
Back on the ground at night after getting a good scare. A perfect day on a classic alpine north face.

The Gallery on flickr:
https://flickr.com/photos/astrange/albums/72157627481203973


New Discoveries

I have been climbing on Kullen in Sweden for more than 15 years. In other words it’s my local climbing crag, so I would like to think that I know the area pretty well. I went out to Kullen on Saturday with my friend Anders Vedersøe to do some trad climbing. It was the first time for me in a while climbing with a rope since I have been busy with my newborn daughter. I have only had time for bouldering and a bit of training at the climbing wall. It was very cool to be back on Kullen to discover the area of Vattenhjulet.

It’s incredible that after so many years of visiting Kullen, it’s still possible to discover new quality stuff. It was my first visit to this sector. It’s not a hugely popular area since it has a rather awkward abseil access, but I got very pleasantly surprised with the atmosphere, but also with the quality of the routes.

Abseil into Vattenhjulet
Abseil into Vattenhjulet

Oligmal, 6-
Climbing Oligmal, 6-

What a nice day!


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