Photos by elcapske

This is me cleaning a pitch on the N.A.Wall during my first ever bigwall climb.

This is the view of Washington's Column and North Dome as seen from the bridge over the Merced.

This picture was taken when I was in Yosemite again last summer with Noelle. We didn't do any climbing (too hot) but we sure had a good time!

While Ollie and me were on the N.A.Wall, there were a couple of Americans on P.O.Wall gradually moving up alongside us. This is where we lost sight of them for a while, when we moved into the Black Dihedral and further on into the Black Cave.

I led this pitch which leads into the Black Cave. No nice shining white granite here, just black diorite and some bad rock. This pitch was also referred to as 'Rotten Island' by the Huber-brothers who did the free-climb. But nonetheless I'm keeping my spi

During the F.A. Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt, Tom Frost en Yvon Chouinard feared that there was no way out of this dark and gloomy cave-like place. But, brilliant as they were, they found an awesome traverse first under and then over the lip of the roof (or

This is the view looking down from the Black Cave. Looking up there was nothing but a great big dark roof ;-)

My first dinner on the N.A.Wall. Enjoying some hot soup on Mazatlan ledge.

At the start of day 4, Olivier is preparing to start of from Big Sur ledge. This is where it all started getting fun. The way down would be as hard as the way up from here and that caused me to finally relax ;-)

This is Olivier leading the last pitch on the N.A.Wall. Actually it was the finish of El nino, a 5.10 face climb.

As we climbed higher on the N.A.Wall, we slowly saw the snowcapped Sierras emerging behind the valley walls. This is a view of Middle Cathedral where me and Ollie climbed the Bircheff-Williams a few days earlier.

We had this beautiful view of Half Dome and the Sierras as we hit the summit slabs of El Capitan after 7 days of climbing.

How about that for a sunset??? This picture was taken from the roadside at Camp 4. I'm definitely not the only one with a picture like this because at the time it seemed like the whole of camp 4 was on the road snapping away ;-)

Franky and myself after climbing 'Jack Daniels' on the east face of Jebel el Mayeen.

The town of Wadi Rum is surrounded by 1500ft sandstone buttresses with an enormous potential for trad climbing.

This shot was taken from Burdah bridge where one has a beautiful view over the desert. The clouds add a very special effect to the picture. It was the only clouds we saw in 14 days. It even started to drizzle for a few seconds...

This is a picture taken from our base camp, in the backyard of Salvador's 'hacienda', with a sunset view over the 'hand of fatma'; from l to r - Kaga Pamari, Kaga Tondo, Wangel Debridu and Wanderdu.

An overall view of the 5 peaks of the 'aiguilles de garmi'. Kaga Pamari, Kaga Tondo, Wangel Debridu, Wanderdu and Suri Tondo

We set up base camp in the backyard of Salvador's hacienda. Salvador Campillo is a spanish climber who married a local woman and earns his living by guiding in the pyrenees alps in summer. In winter he joins his wife in Dhaari and climbs Mali sandstone.

Hermien and Chris on the first belay stance on the 'voie de raison' on Wanderdu. We lost our way in this ED- route and had to rappel back down.

The morning of our arrival some local kids came to wake us up and laughed at those crazy white climbers;-)

This is a view at the very spectacular roof on the razor sharp south pillar of Kaga Tondo (vuelva vd. manana, 5.10d - A2)

Paul trying a new line on Wanderdu. We were very enthousiastic when we arrived...but managed to do only one pitch on this route:-))

The setting sun casts the shadow of the hand of fatma on the village of Dhaari and our base camp. This picture was taken from somewhere high on Kaga Tondo's north pillar. In the background you can see part of the Barkoussou and Hombori region.

from l to r; Ouallam, Ouarni, the fallus-like Aguja de Kissim, Barkoussou, Kissim.