Nina Caprez - The rainbow rider

Nina Caprez is one of the most colorful girls at the climbing scene that successfully has tried out most disciplines being #7 and #8 in her two last Boulder WC's in 2008. In Lead she has, as a senior, participated in 11 events being Top-21 in all but one. In the only Speed WC she tried she was #15. Later she has focused on rock and done several 8c's including the one in Oliana she gave a personal grade of 8b. But what has been most important lately are her multi pitch climbing and travelling around the world.

How do you sum up 2011 what did you learn?
Exactly one year ago, I took the decision to climb five pitches Délicatessen, 8b in Corsika, the six pitches Silbergeier, 8b+ in the Rätikon, to be in a good shape on the Petzl Roc Trip in China and to climb an 8c. I've had this goals clearly in my mind and to realize them, was a big big satisfaction. Beside this lines, I climbed other really cool things like Tom et je ris, 8b+ in the Verdon or a couple of routes in St. Léger and Oliana.

To Redpoint Silbergeier, has always been 'the' big dream in my climbing live. I trained specially for this kind of little holds, everything I did, was for Silbergeier. The progression, the trys and the redpoint at least, costs me all the mentally and physical energy I've had. I felt in a big climbing-emptiness; normal after such a dream...

In short, after each realisation, I was unable to climb for a little while after. Specially after Silbergeier, I was off from climbing for one month and still the next four weeks, I climbed only 7a's. This was stressful sometimes because it's hard to manage this violent highs and downs, but in another way, this kind of lifestyle gives me the permission to practise a lot of other hobbies beside climbing: I did some crazy cave expeditions, I've had the time to do some mountaineering, to ski, to work in my garden, to do some route setting and to make some presentations.


What are your plan and hopes for 2012?
For 2012, I have no special line in my head. I have some good New Year's resolutions, to getting stronger and to avoid my big ups and downs. Transformation in a machine in 5 steps:

Step 1: Minimize my red wine level from one bottle per day in one glass
Step 2: Stop to be such a good cooker
Step 3: Push my 10 pull ups limit up to 20
Step 4: Replace my bunt into a peace of wood
Step 5: Crush everything...;-)


How do you train to accomplish this?
See step 5 programme...;-) Well, what  I need to train is the simply force: So I do a lot of pull ups, a lot of exercises on a bar ( whole body) and thinks like mantels etc... In fact this is really easy to train and together with my know how about climbing and my technique, I should crush everything!;-)

What are the changing trends on the climbing scene?
Today, all is about film and videos. It's easier to be followed in sport climbing and bouldering then in multi pitch climbing. I would like to express more my climbing, my style, my technique and my motivation. I would like to find a dream line in sport climbing and to work hard on it. I never focused on sport climbing, in my eyes, this kind of climbing was just a training to getting stronger on multi pitch climbing. The ascent from Sasha on 'pure imagination' gave me a big motivation to go into this direction. So we will see how I will manage to push my limits!;-)

And what about the grade dilemma?
It's not easy to find good words to explain the huge difference between some routes with the same grade. Everything that I learned in the last years is that everyone should do a honest publication about ascents. That means, when I climb routes, where the difficulty is soft, I will not do a big communication about this ascent. In contrast when I climb an old style 8b+ or 8c, I will speak about it. With this method, I will not bless people with downgrading and I can be honest at the same time.


Also a merry x-mas to you and don't forget that I have always a good portion of humor and sarcasm in my responses!;-)

cheers Nina the rider