Krudrozaver: januar 2016

Few years ago, a friend of mine took me to a new spot around Slovenska Bistrica. There was no lines open yet so I focussed on projects in other areas more. This winter the local guys did a great job with cleaning and opening new lines. So on Monday I went there to try the existing lines and maybe to try only project which was left there. It was really cold and very hard to warm up, but I luckily managed to flash one of the best lines in Slovenia. It is slopy 7c+ line on a perfect slopers, called Žabje kraljestvo. We moved to Mothership boulder, where I also flashed Enterprise for which I think it's more 7c(+). I really don't want to downgrade those things, but because it's fresh new it won't be too bad. Later I tried the whole line. It's a crazy roof traverse with some body turns, leading into Enterprise (2 hard moves). I tried the moves in between for some minutes and than did it from the start on my second go. Klančnik, who first tried this line named it Vulcan logic and I gave it 8a+ grade. Hope we find some more projects in this part of Pohorje.

I also happy to announce that I'm getting close on my Lanicor project in Golobove pečine. Yesterday I managed to do it in 2 prats. Let's hope for good weather and some luck as well.

Here is video of me from Bistriški vintgar:

It is always a question where to go for the new year's holidays. Like usually, the first plan was to go to Spain, but I just couldn't get a proper team together. Than I was thinking about Croatia. I was always dreaming about going there for few months, but never got chance to make it happen. Probably the problem was, that I wanted to go there for such a long time. So I just decided, why not to go there just for few weeks. I knew they have tons of rocks there, but nothing really hard to climb. So I decided to make a team of few friends who would like to go with me to bolt some new routes. So there was a first problem. How to get a proper team and where to get a proper equipment. Well with the equipment wasn't that bad, because Treking sport and Boris Čujić saved me with donating 200 bolts and anchors. With the team was not so hard, the only problem was to get them all together for the same dates. So we made a deal that I'll be there for 3 weeks and others will be coming and going.

Trip started a bit differently than you would expect. I went there with my father for first 3 days and bolted first 5 routes in Vrulja including project which I named Dugi rat (long war-I spent 2 days to bolt it). We were staying at Boris parents at Mimice, where I found a good potential for some hard routes. When my friend Luka Tambača came, we went up there just above their house and I started with bolting. I bolted 4 routes and later a local guy and now a good friend of mine Ivan Kuvačić came aroud and bolted 2 extra routes. The other crew arrived just before new year and it was time for me to stop bolting and start climbing a bit. I did 2 of my projects in Mimice (Gas gas and Gusjenica samoubojica, both 8a) and started climbing in Vrulja. While I did a first ascent of Zona radova 6b+, Ostri kot 7c+ and Sipar direkt 8a+ in upper cave, Bojan Hribernik - Alpi was bolting new routes in a lower big cave. He bolted 2 really nice routes and I got the chance to make a first ascent of his 40 meters beauty. We called it Slovenski san and I suggested a grade of 8a+. When Kejžar team went home, Gašper Pintar was joining us. Together with him and Alpi, we bolted ground up a new route, which unfortunately climbed only Pinti and I. Now it has a name Dimni signal and 7c+ grade. Than weather started to bothering us. I luckily had a chance to try my big project and do all the moves. It begins with a bouldery 8a+ route to quite good rest. After that you need to follow some longer moves until you reach a small rest. I would say it's about 8b+/c to that point, but it follows into a hard boulder section. With a bad rest follows another hard 2 moves crux and few more moves to matle this cave out. When the weather was a bit better, I took this advantage and bolted a new short route, on which Pinti did first and I second ascent. Now we call it Morska plošča za 2, 7b. Also tried a blank slab under the same anchor and almost did all moves. Got to be back to bolt it- it's going to be a hard short slab.

We also got a chance to try some bouldering around Split, where I did first repetition of Croatian's hardest boulder problem Ptičja gripa 8a+ and climbed Blade runner 8a and Poker face 7c+.

You can find a topi here: https://27crags.com/crags/vrulja

Thanks again to everybody who were responsible to make this trip possible:

Treking sport, Boris Čujić, Ivan Kuvačić, Luka Tambača, Bojan Hribernik, Gašper Pintar, Kejžar family, Eva Deban, Edi Kruder, Vedran Puljiz, Minja Čulić, Frane Čulić and all the other Croatian friends!

And for those who haven't seen my movie about Massacrate: Massacrate 9a+