A true climbing festival in a country with barely any rock!

 

There is barely any rock in Denmark but there are still plenty of climbers and the scene is as vibrant as in any country. When I was invited to a 'rock' climbing festival in Denmark I was sceptical. However, flying over the 40 km wide Danish island of Bornholm I was surprised to see perfect sandy beaches and rocky coves. The terrain was a mirror of Cornwall in Britain. Some of the cliffs are pretty good with traditionally protected crack lines and technical corners, as well as sea side bouldering spots.

 

 

A quarry was to hold the DWS competition. Between 10 and 25 metres of water was ample depth but unfortunately the cliffs rising from the pool were only around six, no problem for a country used to having no rock, build an artificial wall above the water! This was a fun event, anyone could enter, and many did, just for a laugh. No hint of elitism. The qualifier grades were set to get plenty of the participants far up the route, enough distance to make them feel like it had been worth coming and to let them experience some fear of the fall. This was good route setting, sometimes the setters make the start hard, just to 'get shot of the weaker climbers' but falling off the first move is no fun when you've spent days travelling and hours psyching yourself up; you won't be tempted to enter again!

 

The men's final was about F7c+ and after some technical stuff a huge dyno to a blob. I spent an age getting psyched to jump, and only just got it. Man, how I hate dynos! Then one super hard move to the top. Competitions: stressful! Robin Vickery from Denmark also made it, but the super-final was a different game, at least for me. With a worst case scenario of second place I could relax, and after cruising to the top, encourage Robin upwards, and really mean it too; not emptily shouting but really hoping he'd fall. This is the weird thing about comps, the point is you want to win, and therefore you want your friends to loose, you want them to fail! This goes against everything I look for in climbing. Joint first would be awesome. He struggled on one move, but made it, and finished off with an incredible back flip from the final hold that probably was well worth the top spot. The route setters had been beaten, the climbers won!

 

For an incredible set of images from Martin Paldan check out

http://luksusonline.dk/photogallery.asp?type=1&id=132