21 June 2008 – Climbing le Salève

 

Taking after the mighty Rick Clark (who still thinks he is going to complete Marathon des Sables) I decided to don a pair of climbing shoes and get to a climbing wall as part of a series of pursuits to test my fortitude.  This was followed three days later by deciding to go the whole hog and start climbing the mountain I can see from my apartment.  If this wasn’t quite hard core enough I thought cycling there first might just satisfy my minds need to punish my body for I’m not too sure what yet.  This ride only takes around 40 minutes but it does get a bit tricky when you hit the base of the mountain and start going up those steep winding roads to get to within walking distance of one of its many cliff faces. 

 

This mountain is just over the boarder in France.  It is just 10km from my apartment and fairly tall, measuring 1400m.  There is a small wikipedia article on it which you can read by clicking here if you are interested.

 

Doing a spot of climbing is a great way to start the day if you have had a good sleep the night before.  The physical and metal workout gets the muscles contracting and neurons firing.  The mental workout for me is two fold because my instructor doesn’t speak English.  There are now words I know in French that I don’t know in English.