What Should Rock Climbers Eat?

We all probably dream of better performance, we train forearm muscles, hang in lock-off positions hoping it will help us on the rock. But many of us forget, that one needs to eat properly to improve in climbing. Beer and crisps are of course essential, but they are more for the psychological health than for the physical one.
So first of all what you need is energy. Therefore there is no place for mushrooms (unless magic) or other kinds of food that consume more energy than can be produced in climber's menu. A climber also needs the energy to be quickly produced. Not many people know, that baked beans are sources of very fast energy. Moreover, beans have been noted in the history of climbing long time ago. All children have been told the story about a grandma and a grandpa, who used the bean plant to climb to the heavens (which, obviously is higher than any rock!). Well we have no details about the difficulty or exact date of this climb, nor the names of the climbers are known, but we believe eating beans can help you to get to the climbing heavens.
We all know about the side-effect of eating beans which is to blame why beans are not so much liked even if they are very nutritious and tasty. For climbers, this is no side-effect! Climbers use the reactive force of the exhaust gases while climbing to propel up!
So if you are planning to improve a grade or so before the end of the season, look for beans!

New name for Lithuania

Found a nice name for our beloved country: in terms of climbing, Lithuania should be called Flatlandia or Flatuania! Here I recall a line I sometimes sing in the mountains: "Lietuvoj ner kalnu, Lietuvoj ner kalnu.." (translation: there are no mountains in Lithuania) in the melody of a song from series Courage the Cowardly Dog which I found here.

Where is Kindergarden?

View Larger Map

I remember I talked to someone who did not know where the Kindergarden rock is, so I hope I can still help. The rock is in the very center of the map (placemark next time), where the path is wider.

Cosmic Frogs near Piz Boe

Recently Sharas decided to join our club and we somehow had to test him. It isn't about testing if he is strong enough, but more if his soul is pure enough to join Silelis. So we took him onto survival trip, to see if he survives. We had been thinking - if he survives, then we admit him into the club. If no, then nobody to admit - no man, no trouble so to say.
We took him to ferrata Cesare Piazzetta rated 5C out of 5C (scale 1-5, A-C). The challenges he faced were:
*He had broken his leg in winter
*It was his first ferrata
*Scary moving bridge without wood plates (he almost failed there)
*Headache from lack of oxygen at 3152m altitude
*It was very cold to sleep in 2800m altitude
*Cosmic frog was attacking the tents and disturbing the sleep
*No ketchup, only mayonnaise (I almost did not survive this myself)

So we put him in a very sticky situation as you see, and he survived! Congratulations to our new member!

Never Ever

It appears that very little people know, that milk is harmful for hedgehogs, so I decided to make a note on it. It is the worst thing you can give to a hedgehog. Although they drink it so pleasantly! They seem not to have any ferments for it and feel very terrible after drinking it. They get terrible diarrhea for several days and often can die due to dehydration and weakness. So never ever give milk to hedgehogs!

Flower Children

As if beer and other good stuff wasn't enough, Silelis declares that it also loves flowers. Of course, not the dead flowers you can buy in the market or from the Indian guys who stroll through the bars. Silelis loves only living mountain flowers (to love city flowers is the same as to agree that lazy town pigeon is a bird, which is not longer true). Today we introduce one flower we have seen in the mountains (and were totally taken aback by it's beauty and loneliness), the black vanilla orchid (Nigritella nigra).

In the site alpineflowers.com we find the following information: "Black vanilla orchid has, as the name already suggests, a very strong vanilla scent. In German vernacular, it is also called "drop of blood" because it was once believed, that the plant's strong scent was the cause of nosebleeds." Very exciting indeed, and very unfortunate we did not check out the smell of the flower! Who would guess that a mountain flower can smell of vanilla?

But we are not the only ones fascinated by this orchid, Jean-François Charles has composed a piece of music called "Nigritella nigra", which you can find here.

FC gang Climbing Latemar

The previous weekend we decided it is time to start our hiking trips to the mountains. Last year we discovered that hiking without overnight in the mountains is not proper hiking, therefore we would not waste our time and planned to come back on Sunday. We tried to call Raivis to get back the tent he borrowed from us, but it seems he had carelessly left Bolzano for a while without returning it before leaving. We chose Latemar, as we had never been there and it is not too high.
We picked s.18, which comes to bivouac Mario Rigatti. The weather was ok, not sunny and therefore not tiresome. At about 2.200 we reached first snow patches. Here we met a couple of 'loosers', who we think returned without crossing the second snow patch.


Later we were glad they returned as the path was crazy. Many places covered with snow, which we tried to avoid. You know, when it falls in to the shoes, it melts and that's not the most pleasant feeling in the world. There were parts where we had to use our climbing skills. It felt as we were going an easy ferrata, just that someone stole the cord.
We saw the bivouac in the pass and feared it will be difficult to descend, as the path went steeply down towards the pass. After some more climbing we reached it!

We were sitting in this luxurious bivuac, drank the beer and we could not understand how it was possible to descend the way we did. No path was seen, and it was so steep!

We had a very nice dinner, a bottle of wine. When the darkness fell around, we went to sleep. As the pot we filled with snow in the evening still contained some snow in the morning, we guessed it wasn't very warm inside. In the morning we had a soup and packed to leave as soon as possible as we knew the weather will deteriorate. After an hour we reached the upper valley where the ferrata Campanili di Latemar ends. It was a place where one could easily forget it was June: lots of snow was already there and it started snowing!

Dangerous dreams

If I was sincere, I would agree that the blog is dormant due to

• recent heavy rains in Bolzano and too few climbing events
• different deadlines and exams that make people to forget what Silelis spirit is;
• the reporters are as scarce as hen's teeth

But no, I think it is happening because one of our climbers has injured her hand while sleeping and can barely type now!

Dressing up for climbing

As the season of climbing outdoors is getting a faster and more active pace, climbers in Silelis are thoroughly exploring the wardrobes for clothes suitable for climbing. One has to consider both comfort and elegance, which is not easy. While browsing the (THE) internet and investigating what climbing clothes should be like, I found some very attractive item to buy:

the Prana Sugar mini skirt!
The skirt could be useful in many ways:
1) comfortable to wear even in very hot weather
2) suitable also for hiking
3) would attract more spectators in Kindergarten, so we could collect some money for the beer
4) the boys would have to fulfill their part of the bet, made last year!

Sadness without limits in Silelis

This is how sad we are that the climbing hall in Bolzano is now open only in the evenings. Badly enough, climbing hall in Merano works only on the days when some of our climbers have karate training! We are very very sad.

What we have learned today

If the wall is overhanging, and the carabiner is at the top, for the second climber there are lots of risks if he attaches himself to the same end of the rope as the leader. Instead, the second climber should attach to himself to the end, where he was belaying. See the scheme above, where the green guy is the second to climb the route. Take into consideration the fact that he has to take the rope out of quickdraws while climbing.

Sarentino opening hours

As the weather is still not too hot, the rock is cold in the shadow. We have not yet reached the level to care about the fact that the friction is stronger when the fingers are completely cold, therefore we long for the sun just like lizards and snakes do. So sun is at work there from about 11:30 to 15:00.

To call each thing by its right name

I was thinking about the climbing wall near Bolzano. We call it "the wall near Bolzano". Maybe it has a name? Or if it hasn't maybe we could scratch our heads a little and think of one? One step further would be the route names. Does anybody know them? I guess there have been some names written, but time, rain and wind has deleted them by now. Please help us to call them by their right name!

Pecularities of the sun

That b---- (Vlad you know which word it is) is very cunning. Instead of showing up on the climbing wall in Sarentino at ten, just like in October, she decides to show up at 12. How lazy! And the rock so cold! First the cold bites, then it bites your fingers away, and you can't feel them anymore. Very wicked!

What's Bugging You?

So we of course we went to check out the wall near Bolzano. The most interesting thing was to find out if we are still able to climb the routes we used to climb in autumn. And it appears we still can! However it ain't easy, especially the long wide move on the most difficult track.
But something is different there indeed. No, not those many (up to 11 so far) people who gather to watch us climbing. It is bugs! Hairy, 3-4 cm long black bees that live in the crack of the rightmost track. They live there and when we climb they look at us! When I put the fingers in the crack I feel like I am invading someone's home, as they are just an inch away from the fingers. The most scary thing is that they have made some yellow slime inside, which looks so repellent, that one has to cling to the rock not to fall away.
From now on, when I think about climbing there, I always remember the bugs!

New season

We have just started the new season with full set of climbing gear, which now includes also our own rope and quickdraws. What could be better than freedom to climb?

How do you count time?

Climbers do not count time in days or weeks, indeed. It is useless notion for them. Instead, you could sometimes hear such expressions as: "Oh, it was long time ago I went climbing, I had to cut my nails four times!". So the currency of time in climbing is the nails. You can't climb with long nails, so if you climb often, they never happen to grow long as you cut them all the time. But if you are taking a break, you will have to deal with the nail cutting as it is not comfortable to wait until you would be climbing again!
So let me explain the meaning of such expressions:
"I had to cut the nails once" - at least a week has passed (unless you were drinking a lot, as then they grow faster), almost no impact for you climbing skills.
"I had to cut nails twice" - you will not be able to do some things you did well before.
...
"I had to cut nails five times" - you will get thoughts like "what I am doing here" while climbing.

England is funny but...

Sometimes she scares me...
So, happy new year. We are finally sober and drunk again, in the right course of the year so to say.
The stuff I wanted to tell you guys about was the travel we made in South England just before the new year. You wouldn't believe, but the weather was perfectly warm and nice, no strong winds or rains. Our brains were spelled with the magnificent views of the sea. I have never seen such a landscape - beautiful cliffs just above the sea and countryside landscapes on the other side. It is a hobbit land, it is. We felt like hobbits traveling with some mission. Well, Marius had to be a megahobbit, but it did not change the feeling.
The trees looked like women with long hair, who stand in the wind and keeping the hair with their arms so that they could see where they were going and stoned in this position through the ages.