A few hours drive south of Tbilisi, along the Azerbaijani border are a series of incredible 6th Century caves. The monastery of David Gareji was expanded over many years and is filled with 12th century frescoes and Soviet period graffiti. An incredible place, overlooking the semi-desert on the border between these two countries.
A great day out with Steve, Ali and Sophie climbing at Goblin before the rain came. Since Steve has ticked every route below E1 approximately 500 times, I just chose what I wanted to climb and got on with it.
Steinernes Meer - a sea of stones. I'd spotted this large, high plateau on the map some time ago and wanted to explore what was here. The area lies at around 2000m and sits on the Austrian/German border between the much more popular areas of the Watzmann to the north, and Hochkönig to the south.
Erinna and I started from Hinterthal, and slept the night on the approach in heavy rain, before hiking up to emerge from the clouds and traverse the ridgeline to a high point at Brandhorn. The entire landscape is devoid of greenery and consists entirely of limestone boulders and water-worn slabs, plus a (fortunately) well marked trail. We descended to Totes Weib and a beautiful campspot just outside the National Park, waking to an amazing view of the Watzmann and his children. Our final descent took us down to the boat back across the Königssee and the finish to a beautiful three days backpacking.
The only mountains I saw this weekend were on a projection in the Union Chapel. It was interesting to note that almost all of the non-climbing/expedition films were quite lacking in story and shown primarily for the quality of the cinematography. The Reel Rock story of Honnold was particularly funny, if only for the awkward discussion on his love life.
Team ascent of Bare Blåbær, pronounced in English as "bleur bleurbleur". "Only Bilberries" is a Norwegian expression meaning an easy task, and the hardest part of the day for Clay and Ross was finding the route itself..
