Wow, quite a lot going on this weekend:
National tree climbing competitions in Sweden, Germany and Italy. Swedish Masters’ was today, this was won by Anneli Skoglund and Johan Pihl, congratulations to both of them. In Celle the prelims of the German TCC took place yesterday, these were won by James Kilpatrick (NZ), who was competing as a guest climber, also qualified for Masters’ on Sunday are Moritz Theuerkauf, Ronny Epple, Gregor and Michi Hansch. Should be an interesting run, lots of climbers in there with plenty of Masters’ experience! Anette Neumann won the women’s prelims and will be joined in Masters’ by Nathalie Pronk (NL) and Frauke Lenz. Again, congratulations to all competitors.

Also today were the finals of the Petzl Rope Trip, that were held in Uppsala in Sweden. One of the Swiss teams was The Aborists, which – don’t hold your breath – consists of arborists who also do industrial rope access and they did really well, placing 17th in the qualification round and sharing first place in the Tubucket discipline with one of the Russian teams. So congratulations to Fredo and the boys @ The Arborists! The Russians seem to be incredibly strong in these events, the semi finals in Uppsala consisted of four Russian teams. Must be something in the water…
Soooo, we’re into the busy season, with many of the National and regional comps taking place in the next couple of weeks, ITCC in Milwaukee two months off and ETCC in Sweirklaniec in Poland a month after that. If you fancy crossing over from attending theses events as “merely” a spectator and would like to support them as a volunteer, you will certainly find it an entirely different perspective and experience, also as a former climber. To me the climbing, despite all the camaraderie had a competitive element to it – as a person helping to run such an event, you are truly contributing towards a team effort, which I find very enjoyable.