Serbia

Let’s put it straight: Serbia has never been a place in our mind to visit, neither for sight seeing nor climbing. But this changed mid 2016, when Josh has been contacted by Outdoor Collective, an NGO based in Belgrade, to attend the Reel Rock 11 Tour premieres in Serbia and do some clinics for the local climbers. Financed through the American Embassy, he spent about 10 days in November (actually while Charlotte was in Greece with the Alpine Club), traveling from town to town and discovering the gyms and the cliffs that the small country offers. When he came back from his stay, it took him about a week (Charlotte speaking here) to come back to “real life”… his head was still with the kind people he met and in the beautiful gorges he climbed at. So after talking a bit more about it, it was decided: Serbia would be our second destination of the trip.

​We first reached out to Djuk at Outdoor Collective, to offer our help for anything like clinics, talks, slideshow, clinics. In the little community, it was a great opportunity for the climbers to learn and discover a bit more through our eyes and experiences. Thanks to the American Embassy in Belgrade, willing to help and promote the development of climbing in Serbia, we got some budget to come over and tour in the Country. The planning was to spend the first week in Belgrade, our weekends in gyms for some events, and move to a town called Nis, in the south, where there is plenty of climbing and developing to be done.

A WEEK IN BELGRADE

When we arrived, we were welcomed by Simone, who offered to host us for our stay in Serbia with his wonderful wife Aleksandra and daughter Milena. Our (their) place was right downtown, with a stellar view on the Saint Sava Temple, which was quite enjoyable to look at from the living room window. The family of three was absolutely adorable and we felt just like home, spending some great times with them.

The day after we arrived was Josh’s birthday, and we met up with Outdoor Collective and a bunch of friends and head to have a late pizza lunch on a boat restaurant. The local prepared a surprise for Josh’s birthday, with a big cake and gifts (Rakia!!!), which was really awesome and a nice opportunity for Cha to meet everybody.

In the next days, we visited different gyms (clubs and personal walls) in Belgrade, trained, coached a bit and did a talk downtown to introduce us and the trip, and do a slideshow about Social Media and sponsoring. It was quite interesting to brainstorm together about it and propose a didactic presentation. A week later, we went to Krucevac to do a clinic, and later on, the Serbian Federation asked us to set the bouldering nationals, which we did and it was a lot of fun ! 

We also went to the outdoor sectors around Belgrade :

• Valjevo

This is a cool small cliff band 2h30 away from Belgrade, on small roads. We went there in a very sunny day, and felt pretty hot so we couldn’t climb much until the evening. We still gave few go in a route in the middle. Our first comment was how painful the little pockets were, with some obvious sharp and spiky edges that could have been easily softened a bit. This place is pretty popular in Serbia, especially for the Belgrade climbing community. 

• Vrsac

Only an 1h30 North of Begrade, we spent a wonderful day in this bouldering sector. Almost all our group of friends from the city came for the occasion and it was a nice day touring around. We put up to new boulders, one link up in the cave, and one in the main trail. This last boulder has actually been a project for a while, but nobody really dare trying it. Josh put his hands on it, and after few tries to figure out the sequence, he made the First Ascent, which he named “White Castle” (for the little drawing just next to it) and graded it V9.

NÌS ADVENTURES

We spent most of our time in Serbia next to a main town called Nis. A bit to the east of it, in Niska Banja, we had a small apartment, a bit old, smelly and not really at the norms. The best (worst) part was the bathroom, which had no shower but a hose coming out of the sink, with a power outlet a few centimeters away, and naked wires on the top of the wall. We will for sure remember it !

Climbing in Sicevo and Jelasnica

For discovering the place and getting some video content, we climbed a few days in the Jelasnica Gorge, which is probably the oldest and biggest climbing area in Serbia. It’s a narrow pretty gorge surrounded with short cliff bands and cliff towers, made of mostly a nice compact grey limestone. There, Charlotte sent “Future Land” 8b which is, as for today, the hardest route in the gorge. 

However there are few projects sprinkled along the gorge, and judging by their difficulty when we tried a few of them, Future Land will not remain the hardest route for a long time.
We played in two other sectors: in the obvious little H2O cave, where Josh re-sent “H2O”; and in a beautiful slabby pillar where Cha climbed “Zilet”. 

​To the North of Jelasnica is the Sicevo gorge, which is also known for climbing in the area, but it’s much bigger than Jelasnica and has much more potential and diversity. We spent a nice day climbing here with Jonathan, Djuk, Velko and Alex, and Josh went up to film a beautiful 8a+ we sent last year : Eagle’s Milk.  

Developping a new area

Actually on the first day we drove down in Nis area, Djuk and Veljko gave us a tour of the Sicevo gorge, so we can put an eye on some potential to develop. Our eyes were caught by so many untouched cliffs and pillars of all forms, but our heart was instantly trapped on a massive cave that we could see for only a tiny part of the day. It was decided : that would be our mission for the rest of the trip.

​First steps  
The first difficulty to start developing the cave was simply to reach it. The road is across the river from it, and the river is not just a “jump across” type of river.  Our first try was to drive on a tiny old road to reach the top of the hill. We arrived on a very old village where we asked for some kind of directions towards the cave, but they actually had no idea about it. So we parked and meandered our way through. When we got close enough to the top of it, we realized it would be too steep and too long to go down, especially to go back up. 

​So we turned around and decided to go back on the main road, and try to cross the river anyway. Josh sacrificed and we were then able to set up a tyrolean with a fixed rope. We then made our way through the bushes and up the steep hill, crossed a rail track (pretty cool) and kept walking up the steep hill side, up to the cave. Our first word was WOW ! It was much bigger than we thought from the ground, and you could already here us saying the many obvious lines we were thinking to bolt!

In the next few days, which Daniel (a local climber/bolter) we created the trail, which required some serious switchbacks, we put up few fixed ropes to help going up, and we installed a real cable tyrolean to replace our rope. It was a fun challenge as neither Josh nor I had ever done that before. Good thing we could find all the gear and tools necessary at a hardware store down in Nis.  

Bolting

• 1st route :

Finally, we attacked the first bolting! We started with a route in the middle of the cave, which was very obvious and convenient to bolt/clean, so in barely two days in was ready to be climbed.

• ​2nd and 3rd route:

Then we went all the way to the right of the cave, where we bloted a route all the way to end of the roof. It was so physical and hard to bolt in a pure roof. Once again, it was a first for both Josh and I, so we had to figure out the good positions and everything. Cleaning took us a very long time, because of the steepness and because we unfortunately crossed a 2 meter span of chossy  rock. 

• ​4th  route : our eyes were attracted by a nice thin single tuffa on the left of the cave, which was followed higher by a dihedral in the roof. It was a fun one to bolt, but once again the roof part was pretty exhausting and wrecking. 

• ​5th route : towards the end of the trip, we wanted to make another addition, which was a series of single tuffas to the left of the 1st route. It was not too steep so the bolting was done quick, same as the cleaning. This latter was a bit disappointing because we broke one of the tuffa, which made the route much much harder.

• Extras:

6th and 7th route : in the last days some Serbian friends joined us; Jonathan and Daniel added to easy routes to the sector, below the starting ledge of our 2nd route.
​8th route : it is not done yet, but it’s gonna be a nice team work between us and Daniel, as we put the first few bolts, and he promises to finish the bolting when he comes back.

​Climbing
We’d have to say, the cave is hard ! We only sent 1 route out of the 5 we bolted.

• “1st rule of fight club”, 7a+, is the 1st route we bolted and the only one we sent. It got some nice back-to-back first ascent from us and Jelena. It’s pretty homogeneous with one big move in the middle, ideal for warm-up.

• "Beavis and Butt-Head", project, is in the far right of the cave and is in two parts. The first one, we think around 8b+,  but it was pretty wet when we tried it. It has a pretty intense beginning up to a far move, a good rest, and then another hard section to reach the big holes in the roof. Cool double kneebar rest before the 2st anchor. After this, the route continues to the lip of the route, with some hard (kinda reachy) moves until a neat roof crack feature before the lip. To the second anchor, the route should  be 9a-ish.

• To the left of the warm up is another project. This one starts very easy until a no hand rest and then gets harder and harder with some uncomfortable holds, very fingery and powerful. The end eases up again after a last crux at the lip.

• "Blind contorsion", project, is probably our favorite route and the one we spent the most time on. It starts on a cool mono tuffa, pretty intense until a very good rest in a undercling jug, then there is the crux of the roof with a powerful section on sidepulls to a big move to reach a good undercling hole. Another good rest leads to the roof part, which is kinda tricky and weird but very fun once figured out!

Our stay in Nis and in Serbia in general was totally highlighted by the people we got to spend time with: Climbing with the Belgrade crew, working at the cave with Daniel, hanging out with the Casettas, barbecues at Nesa’s and Gaga’s, diners  at Burka and most importantly , spending a lot of time with  Djuk and Velko… Thank you all for these times!

Tick list 
First rule of fight club, 7a+, C and J
Zilet, 7b+, C
H2O, 8a, J
Future land, 8b, C

Favorite food
Cevapi
Ajvar
Cheese bread (don't know the name)