Robert Piontek Photography

Hamburg Harbor Tour

Finally back to posting now that we have moved to Hamburg. Franziska and I took a tour on the harbor called the “Punch Tour”, which with our entrance fee got us all you can drink punch. Or is it punsch? Anyway it was basically free alcohol because we would have paid the same without the drinks. Hamburg is the 8th largest port in the world, and it was cool to see it in action from up close. I brought my camera of course and there are a few more pictures in the gallery.

Portaledge

I’m happy to say I finally spent a night in a portaledge. It was pretty cool. Somehow Christian and I came up with the idea to spend the night on the Potsdam climbing tower. I think originally we actually meant to sleep on the tower itself. There is a big ‘natural ledge’ which has plenty of room, but it is sloping quite a bit so it would not be too comfy. In the end Christian ended up buying a Black Diamond double wide portaledge so we would hopefully pull off the FOA (First Overnight Ascent) of the tower in style.

With rumors flying around the climbing community of our impending ascent, we were worried someone might already be on our route as we approached the base of the climb. It was already dark, 10:30pm, as we had critical stops to make for beer and cheeseburgers. In any case we thought we were ready. Unfortunately we were not really ready. We had no quickdraws. I led the route with single carabiners on the bolts. Truly amazing how much rope drag there is even on a route which is basically straight up if you don’t use draws. Anyway the route was not hard. I have never climbed at night before, but it was really no problem using just a headleamp. Almost before the top of the route, I traversed over to the middle of the wall where we would anchor for the night.

I hauled up one of the bags, and then the ledge. It is a major undertaking to set the ledge up on the wall, which I discovered a few days before with a practice run on a retaining wall at work. So, we decided to set the ledge up on the ground, so then we just had to haul it up and clip it in. We hauled another bag, and then Christian followed the route. At first the ledge seemed a bit unstable, but after a few adjustments things seemed pretty ok. We each had a beer. Sounds easy but it wasn’t really. Lots of ropes and systems that I haven’t practiced much before, so everything went slowly. By now it was 1:30am, so we were ready for bed.

The ledge is pretty comfortable. More comfortable than sleeping on the ground. It didn’t bother me that we were hanging in space. We are still tied into the ropes with our harnesses on while we sleep, so even if the ledge completely failed we would be ok. And there is no feeling that you will just fall off, because of all of the straps supporting the ledge this is basically impossible.

In the morning I rappelled down to set up the camera and get a couple of pictures. Then Christian belayed me while I finished the 2nd pitch and bagged the summit! Yeah! The FOA was finished. It was a great time and maybe we’ll make another FOA of another tower this summer.

There are more pictures in the gallery.

A view from the Swiss alps

Here’s one of my favorites from my alps trip this past summer. Taken on a plastic Holga film camera, scanned with my digital camera, and edited in Lightroom. I really love how it turned out. This was near the end of our four day tour around the Dent du Midi range. From here it was basically all downhill, but it was probably the toughest part of the trip. My knees had had enough, and my feet as well. The weather was good up top, but by the time we made it down it was raining, and we were happy to have finished the tour.

Franziska at home in the kitchen

Here’s Franziska at her parents in the kitchen. I have another one of her mom in the kitchen as well, and the two go really nice together.