my first bulgarian climb

Hey guys,

So finally after months of searching, questioning the locals, climbing my apartment walls and occasionally crying myself to sleep, I got a chance to climb on real rock. I couldn't believe it! Furthermore, this opportunity came when I least expected it and turned out to be a most peculiar story. For all of you non-climbers, some of this might not makes sense, but please bear with me.

It all started this beautiful Thursday afternoon, when I was in my office diligently translating my parks web page from Bulgarian to English. Out of nowhere a guy I occasionally work with on bat related projects rushes into my office and said, "Justin, what are you doing right now?"

"Um, working," is my tentative response.

"Forget about that now, go grab you climbing gear and meet me at the Tourist Information Center in 5 minutes. I found a climbing site," he fires back. I decided two things right then; one, I really wanted to go out climbing; two, that this translating wasn't really that important after all. Five minutes later I was geared up and we were on our way out to the crag.

Now, I have lived out here for over seven months and I have never seen a spot that was climbable, so I was understandably curious as to where we were going to climb. Before too long we pulled out on to an old deserted road, parked the car and hiked about 10 minutes to the base of our climb which was located in the middle of an old abandoned marble quarry.

I have climbed my fare share of different types of rock; granite, limestone, sandstone, even the occasional brick building, but I have to admit that this is the first time I have ever climbed on marble. It makes for some interesting climbing, mostly due to the fact that the sections that weren't polished smooth as a counter top were as chossy as it gets, like big, pull huge hand holds off the route every two moves type of chossy.

Anyway, we came to a section that looked do-able and fun, and had enough variation that we could climb it a few times without setting up our rope more than once. We tossed our gear down and hiked around to the top of the climb so that we could set up a top rope. Now, I knew he didn't have all the gear we would need to lead up the route, which was a moot point given the sheer chossy-ness of the route, but when I dumped his gear bag out on the ground to see what I had to build an anchor with, my mouth dropped a fraction of an inch.

It made me realize just how spoiled I had been when I used to build anchors out double sets of hexes, double sets of nuts, and double - triple sets of cams. However, this time I found myself with the following: 2 old dirty 10.4mm caving ropes used for sketchy underground repels, 1 locking carabineer, 4 petzl quick draws, 7 pieces of assorted webbing and one ratty bungee cord used to secure things to a car carrier. That was it. There was nothing else.

I'm not going to go into much detail about how I finally got the anchor working for fear of bringing back painful memories, but needless to say it wasn't equalized, didn't have 3 main points and didn't have backups. I can say that, being totally honest, I have probably made better looking anchors. Good news thought was that neither of us ever fell on the anchor, and I held every time we were lowered. So I did my job well.

As for the routes themselves, I think my overwhelming excitement to finally be on real rock again made what was otherwise boring routes in to sweet projects. Plus, it was like a guessing game since approximately half of the available holds wouldn't support my weight. I like to keep it interesting. Due to such unfavorable climbing conditions though, I think I may have well been the first person to ever attempt the routes that we went up, which means I finally got the coveted 'first ascent.' Good work, Justin!

It was a good time though and none of the routes were too difficult, which to be honest is probably a good thing since I have been on hiatus for so long, most averaging around a 5.ghetto or so.

So, my first Bulgarian climbing trip turned out to be a rather unorthodox one, but now I can add marble to my list of rock types climbed and quarry to my list of locales. All in all it was a good trip.

forest festival

so for the last few weeks my office has been in a frenzy getting ready for their big annual forest festival. every year for about the last six years they host this event over the course of two days, and for the last week it has been crunch time to make sure that everything is ready to go. i have been real busy working out in the forest gettting the individual sites ready and helping my colleagues with the last minute details. on friday i had my buddy tye come in from burgas and we hung out that night in malko turnovo so that we would be ready to help set up the festival early the next morning.
monday started way to early, and by 7:30 we were all on our way out to the main festival site at this place called petrova niva. its an old monunment symolizing bulgarian resistance to turkish occupation, and it sits on a very spectacular vista over the forested mountains. the place was all ready to go by 10 and then busses of people from around the region began showing up. there was traditional singing and dancing, and they had booths for all sorts of stuff, like traditional tea tasting, rakia tasting, food tasting, local activities, shopping vendors and donkey cart rides. the whole thing was pretty relaxing, and i spend a fair amount of time at they 'high adventure' booth, where they set up a small zip-line and a slack line. i was soo excited to finally have a slack line, and i probibly spent more time on it than anyone else (i was also pretty much the only one that could do it though).
after lunch we set off on a nice/jeep safari. the hike took us down the mountain and to a refreshing river crossing, then back up the other side to where there was a whole bunch of jeeps and soviet transports waiting to take us to the campsite for the night. i was lucky enough to get a spot in the old soviet van, which i can most accuratly describe as a cross between and old VW bus, and an armored troop transport. this thing was a beast.
there ended up being around 40-50 people that stayed the night for the campfire and festivites, and it was a blast. there was a huge campfire roaring all night, and they had a giant all-you-can-eat banquet set up for us as well. soon after that (or before, depending on who you ask) the moonshine rakia and beer started flowing and everyone started singing and dancing the horo (traditional bulgarian dance) around the fire. it was a pretty cool experience, sitting out there under the start listening to the band play and watching all the people dancing and having a good time. this ended up going on until well after midnight, when everyone began heading off to bed to rest for the next day.
sunday was less eventful, and i was pretty exhaused after the last two nights. we drove to another site in the park for a guided hike, and eventually made our way out to the coast, where they had a big lunch banquet set up. by that time i was pretty much ready to go home, show and do nothing that required energy, but turns out that one of my coworkers wanted me to go out with him that night and help set up some bat catching nets to that we could try to catch a specific bat. we eneded up staying out until just after 11, but we had no luck catching anything. thats how it goes sometimes i guess. now its back to work, although this week should be much more laid back. i will try to get some pictures of the festival, but i had forgotten my camera so i will have to get them from somewhere else, so no promises. anyway, catch you all later

pics and stuff

i finally got a chance to post up some pics from my spring break trip. i had to get it done tonight (friday night) because i just found out today that i have to go in to work tomorrow. apparently there is a group of school kids coming to the park tomorrow and i have to help run the zip-line for them. hopefully the weather is nice, because today was rainy.
also, i have to say that currently me and my computer are not on good terms. this thing is like my only link to the world outside of malko turnovo, and by virtue bulgaria, and it has been running just painfully slow. i have no idea what the heck is wrong with this thing, but it is interesting because it shows just how dependent on technology i have become in the last year. one year ago i didnt have cable, tv, internet or a computer capable of running internet and i was just fine. now if i lose my internet, i dont know what i will do. ugh, i hope that day never comes.
anyway, enough about the trials of living in the remote corners of europe, i hope you all enjoy the pics. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXgw

Spring break

Things are still going really well. work has been very busy lately because my counterpart had a big project he was working on. some german researchers came in to malko turnovo a few weeks ago to do a bat monitoring project and i got to help out. we went out every night around 7 pm and set up mist nets outside of a different cave entrance every night and captured bats. we then identified them, measured and weighed them, and a few of them we tagged before releasing them. i really enjoyed it and i learned a ton. the first two night we caught over 70 bats each!
they were long days though, and i usually didnt get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. now i have to help write a presentation for my counterpart to present at a bat symposium in romania in august. however, it hasnt just been hard work for me.
I just returned to malko turnovo and started work again yesterday after a short 'spring break' and easter holiday. orthodox easter was on april 27th this year and we had the monday following off (same as in the states). i was fortunate enough to spent a traditional easter with a bulgarian family this year, which was pretty cool. i was in razlog, a beautiful mountain town on the far side of bulgaria visiting my girlfriend Kristen for the weekend and we were invited out to celebrate in traditional festivities.
on saturday night at midnight (technically sunday morning) the entire town went out to the orthodox church and lit small candles from a large candle that the head priest was holding (the head priest in bulgarian orthodox churches is called the 'pope', very confusing at first. my host brother once told me 'look, theres the pope', and i got excited only to find thats not what he meant). however, lighting these candles is harder than it seems. since there is only one church in the whole town, everyone and there mom shows up for this lighting ceremony and all try to rush in through the main doors of the church to get these bad-boys lit. it was by far the most aggressive group of people i have ever seen try to enter a church to celebrate jesus. i was getting elbowed and passed by old hunchback grandmas 2 feet shorter than i was! plus half the people had fire. fortunately it didnt spiral down to chaos and there was no bon-fire that night.
once you get the candle lit and the midnight bells ring, then we had to try and get our candles all the way home without letting them go out. this is a rather difficult task when we had to walk across town with a breeze. i didnt do so hot at that one.
the next day we went over for the big easter feast and spent the day just talking and eating way too much good food. there were painted easter eggs and the egg contest, where everyone takes a hard boiled egg and taps them on each other to see whos egg is the strongest. its supposed to bring good luck for the whole year to the winner. our host even made an american desert for us, strawberry cheese cake. awesome. it was a fun time and interesting to see how similar some of our traditions are.
after easter it was a two day work week before the national spring break. technically its only tow holidays, one on thrusday and one on the preceding tuesday, but they just take off all the days in between and call it good. i sure didnt mind. i did a bit of traveling and visited plovdiv, and ended up in burgas, my usual hangout spot. i met up with friends and went out every night for pints and pool, not a bad way to spent vacation. i even got a day trip up to this town called nessebar, which is out on the coast (the old part of town which i visited is actually on an island 200 meters from shore) and used to be an old byzantine fortress. its a beautiful small island with old fortified walls, quaint little roads between two story original architecture houses and more 5th through 17th century churches than i have ever seen. one out of every like 10 buildings was an old Church. it was a good time though and im glad i got out there early in the season because i heard during summer the place is just a tourist death trap.
anyway, now its back to work and getting ready for summer. hope you all are doing well and i will write you later