26.07 Competition Climbing L'Argentière La Bessée, France

Having not had much personal experience in the climbing competition world, I have been keenly interested to get some of the inside scoop on the World Cups from Lisa and Wills as they tackle the entire circuit this year. Lisa, representin' as the one woman traveling "Team USA", and Wills, filling in as the team coach, manager, physical therapist, et al, invited us along to the L'Argentière La Bessée competition to gain some personal perspective and do some bouldering at Ailfroide. The entertainment of the actual competition was superceded only by the incredible shrinking women phenomena. Each girl filtering out of iso seemed to be more stick like than the last. At the local swimming lake we observed one of the thinnest competitors barely make a ripple as she jumped into the water, the Grim Reaper doing a belly flop right in after her. The fact that this girl starved herself for climbing created all sorts of distrubing thoughts going round my head, not the least of which was that this poor girl had no idea of the joys of gelati. So it made it that much more inspiring to see Lisa, who can hold her own with a chocolate crepe, thoroughly trounce the competition in the super finals, making an incredibly impressive double dyno to a horrid sloper that no one else came close to holding. Well done Lisa!   Lisa Rands launching for a final jug at L'Argentière La Bessée (click on photo to enlarge)

18.07 Close Encounters of the Goat Kind Altdorf, Switzerland

Hiking in the swiss Alps could be a peaceful, calm, relaxing adventure...if it weren't for all the mad farm animals running amuck up there. From down in the valley you can see a stunning ridgeline topping off a sheer granite cliff. Randy and I had been hankering on taking a view from the top of that wall; but, like I said, there were some unpleasant goats that had already staked their claim on that particular real estate. After schlepping a good hour up the approach hill, and in the process dealing with one large and quite angry looking heifer, we thought that the remainder of the hike would follow an easy stroll through flowered meadows. Our friends Steve and Lisa had joined us for the hike and we all sat down to eat our swiss style lunch -- cheese, yogurt, bread, and more cheese. After lunch we headed through our flower filled meadow, subconsciously humming hits from The Sound of Music, as if someone had just hit play on the culturally conditioned soundtrack of life CD. Suprised at not finding a well trodden path blazing straight up to our choice destination, as seems to be the norm for Swiss hiking, we settled on a small meandering path which looked to be the quickest way to the best views. Not so much as 30 meters up our chosen path, we discovered a herd of goats munching away at their own herbal swiss lunch. I didn't think these goats would mind if we just walked right on by them, but they were having none of it. Sporting two foot long horns, and the standard alp bell, the charge was led by a scraggly white goat that on first impression looked the most harmless of all of 'em. The little guy had some sure footing though and was gaining on us the whole way as we bolted down the way we had just come up. Once safely back on the other side of the fence, the goat mafia rallied up to get a better look at us, and us at them. The bigger the goat, the longer the curled horns. The longer the curled horns, the bigger the Alpen bell. Not so surprisingly, size had nothing to do with sheer machismo. The little scruffy white goat insisted on pursuing the chase, trying to find a way around the fence. Realizing that he needn't look far, as the end of the fence was a mere 10 meters away, we swallowed our pride and bolted out of there. Just as we turned the corner to safety, we looked back to see the biggest goat of all, complete with enormous curling horns, calling off the herd from atop the exact summit we had just been so eager to make. Now, if anyone would have told me that a bunch of goats had chased them off a hillside, I would have assumed they had been drinking a bit too much of the JagerTee and were having a hard time grasping reality. Yet, having been clean of the stuff myself for a good 25 days (one step at a time), I can truthfully attest to the terror of a dozen odd goats chasing you down with their bells a'chiming like some insane death toll. I'm thinking Discovery Channel needs to get the Crocodile Hunter out here post haste.   "You talkin' to ME?" (click on photos to enlarge)   Steve munching away at lunch, surrounded by the alps