Blogging
From Abroad

A nice, big reason I came to Austria was because of the rather extensive climbing opportunities. Currently, the country is going through a bit of a ?climbing revival? and climbing in all forms is more popular than ever with the masses enrolling at the indoor gyms and getting outside.

Well, as any semester exchange student knows, time is precious and always too little. So, my excursions to climb outside have been faaar too few (-; The absence of rock in my life was really getting to me, so I succumbed and a few weekends ago, Ben (a ski-touring friend of mine from the climbing course) and myself journeyed to a location just outside of Vienna near an old castle. We had to board the train with our bikes (a first for the both of us) and then ride from the train station at Bad Voslau to Merkenstein.

We worked some tough problems that day. This one above I nearly stuck, but that last move was a shoddy side-pull crimp that you had to torque on juuust right with the thumb to prevent the outswing, brutal! (-: Ben nailed it like a champ, the photo is of just before the last move:

We tried a bunch more problems, but my fingers were already spent (I know- what a pony I am!).

The ride back towards Vienna. Hopefully there will be more chances to climb before I leave Austria!

Bye!