The young Swiss woman Katherine Choong sends an 8c + route with the „La Ligne Claire“ in the French climbing area of ​​Saint-Léger du Ventoux. Katherine Choong is a member of the Swiss national team and has already climbed two 9a routes with „Jungfrau Marathon“ and „Cabane au Canada„. Exhausted after the European Championships in December last year, Katherine just wanted to go back to natural rock. As motivated as Katherine is, we can look forward to it.

Katherine Choong: „At the end of December 2020, after the European Championships, I felt completely exhausted both physically and mentally. So I was just looking for a route to have fun and get back in shape. But something hard of course ;-). I always loved St-Léger and because of the Covid-19 and the restrictions, France was the only possible destination. After seeing Nolwenn Berthier’s (a very strong french climber) very inspiring video, I was psyched to try La Ligne Claire. Without any expectation I started this project thinking that I had no chance and that difficult routes were not for not doable for me before a long time. But my shape and especially the motivation came back slowly with the progress in the route. It took me quite a while to send the route but I really loved the whole process, feeling my body adapting to the moves that felt impossible at the beginning, regaining confidence and to be back in the fight mode again (even when I fell 3x just a few move before the top 😉 ) Especially thanks to the great people with whom I shared good times there. For the future projects: I’m very motivated to try other difficult routes, maybe in St-Léger or Mollans and also to try some multipitch routes in the Gorges du Verdon and at home in Switzerland :-)“

Photo: (c) Photo de Hugo Vincent

E-mail hugo.vincent@ips.unibe.ch

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