I can feel my heart pounding, partly with the physical exertion of 45 minutes of steep up-hill walking and partly with excitement, in a few moments I will be arriving at the base of one of the best crags in the world. After completing the necessities of dropping my heavy sack, stripping down to my boxers and sitting in the shade while my body dries off, attention soon turns to the beautiful panorama of lush alpine foothills and then up at the multi-coloured streaked limestone, curving gently and stretching as far as I can see in both directions. The rock is generally slightly overhanging and is often well adorned with generous pockets. Climbing at Ceuse, really does feel a bit like being a child in a 2Km long 100m high sweet shop!

Home sweet home
Nearly there! Chris nearing the end of the walk-in

First view of Ceuse's impressive Biographie sector 
Chris and I have just returned from a weeks climbing in Ceuse, it was the first time either of us had visited this world class venue. A world class venue obviously attracts many of the world's best climbers; we were often left feeling like beginners!  Some guy called Chris Sharma was there trying a tricky looking route called Jungle Boogie which Adam Ondra recently got the first ascent of a few weeks ago. Chris came across as being a nice guy, always taking the time to say hi to everyone at the crag. Saying hello to people was a bit of a gamble, involving a quick guess of their nationality; Italian, German, Czech, Spanish, French, Irish and British all featured in roughly equal numbers.

Left hand side of Demi Lune sector
Panorama looking out from the Les Maitres du Monde sector

With so many world class routes to choose from it was hard to know where to start. At the end of each day, even though we'd done quite a few routes compared to an average cragging day, we always felt wiped out long before the enthusiasm dwindled. Being up at the crag for around 1pm meant we were often some of the first people there, partly due to most of the crag not coming into the shade until the afternoon. A normal climbing day for us then ended when it was nearly dark at about half nine, making the most of the coolest hours of the day.

Lowering off after the last route of the trip which was also one of the best  - Files de Lumiere 7a

Route choice was decided by what was free and what was dry on the first couple of days, although we were told this was actually a quiet time for Ceuse. The popularity of the crag did make jumping on routes easier though since many routes already had the quick draws in place; it sometimes felt like a waste of effort to have carried ours up there! One of the routes we tried on the first day was Bourinator, a classic and savagely steep 8a roof climb. Lacking in raw power after months of long stamina European sport climbing, trying the route a couple of times left me feeling totally destroyed. With many other routes to choose from I decided not to spend any more time on it. Chris however bagged it on the last day, bon effort!


Wild bat-hang 'rest' on Bourinator!

Happy boy! Chris celebrating after climbing Bourinator

For the rest of the week I chose to play to my strengths and enjoyed onsighting plenty of amazing routes. By the end of the week I had clocked up 3 7a's, 3 7a+'s, 2 7b's and 1 7b+ onsight. I did succeed on a quick redpoint of the classic route Changement de Look 7c, which was an intense sequence memory exercise. The crux of the route was a long, sustained and complex sequence on small pockets.

The climbing at Ceuse combined with the walk-in and out each day makes for a physically draining experience, people mainly choose to climb only 2 or 3 days on without a rest. After 3 days on we certainly felt like we were ready for some rest, so we headed south to visit some friends in Sanary sur Mer on the Mediterranean and indulged in leisurely activities such as swimming, going out on a speed boat and plenty of eating!

Actively resting! 

After heading back to Ceuse the final few days flew by. Most climbers we spoke to were staying in Ceuse for at least three weeks, some were there for months! After sampling the climbing I can see why people stay for so long, there are just so many good routes and trying to redpoint harder routes takes time. I think the minimum length of any future trips to Ceuse will need to be at least two weeks!

Enjoying the sunset from the summit of Ceuse after ascending the Via Ferrata up the crag at the end of the day

Citroen Dispatch - Split-charge relay leisure battery setup

Since I'm interested in electronics/electrics and I like my electronic gadgets when I converted my Citroen Dispatch van into a camper a couple of years ago I made sure I put in a large 12V auxiliary/leisure battery. The actual battery I used was not a normal leisure battery, it was actually borrowed from a friend left over from a wind turbine project, I think it's originally from a UPS system. With 110Ahr capacity it's big enough to power my four large LED light units (Four units of 8 x 3mm LED's in series) for one months continuously, change a phone for 8 days continuously or power a laptop for 36 hrs continuously (assuming a 50% discharge of the leisure battery).  A leisure battery is different from a normal car battery in that it can handle 'deep-cycling', while lead acid car batteries should always be topped-up and never let to run down on a regular basis.

I added a split-charge relay and ran a wire from the engine bay to charge the leisure battery when the vans engine in running, when the engine is stopped the relay breaks the parallel connection between the main van battery and the leisure battery. The means the leisure battery drained without danger of not being able to start the van's engine.  

Fig1. Split-charge system block diagram

Caution: The information in this post is just an account of what I did, I take no responsibility for your van, nor do a guarantee that the information is correct. However the system as been working reliably in my van for over two years and almost 22K miles.

I used a 12V 100A relay.

 The main steps to setting up the system are:

  1. Finding the correct wire from the alternator to provide a signal to the relay to indicate when the van's engine is running (Fig 4). The relay is an electromagnetically operated switch, the charge control signal from the alternator activates the electromagnet in the relay which pull together contacts which create a parallel link between the two batteries. This connection is broken when the electromagnet in the relay is switched off when the van's engine is stopped. You can use a multimeter to check you have the correct wire from the alternator, it should read 12-14V when the engine is on and 0V when the engine is off. This cable must be tapped into carefully without breaking the link and soldered and heat shrinked to avoid any shorting. The the photo below for location of this charge control signal wire, it's the thin brown wire coming out of the alternator.
  1. Running a wire (I used lighting flex with both live and neutral connected together to increase capacity) from the engine bay to the back of the van. This is actually harder than I though it would be. On my Citroen Dispatch the engine bay is practically sealed off from the rest of the van. I found (by laying on my back in the drivers foot-well) I could remove a plastic slug from a rubber grommet which created a hole large enough to poke a piece of stiff fencing wire though when then could be used to pull the flex through. In the end, this worked out to be a very tidy and waterproof job. I removed the plastic trim and rubber floor under the drivers seat the route the flex tidily into the rear of the van. I located my leisure battery behind the bench passenger seat.
  2. Find a good earth in the rear of the van. The van chassis, as with all vehicles is the earth/GND/Negative. This reduces the amount of wiring needed by half; this meant I only needed the run one wire (the positive) from the engine bay the charge the leisure battery. To complete the circuit the negative (-) of the leisure battery needs to be connected to the chassis. It needs to be connected well to have a 'good earth'. When I fist connected up the set-up I was confused why the leisure battery was charging at a slower rate than it should have been (measuring the current with a multi-meter in series). After much fiddling it turned out that the leisure battery had not been connected the the van chassis with a good enough earth connection. A good earth connection can be found by making sure the contact is clean of paint, dirt and oil and part of the main van chassis.   

Fig 2. Under the hood

Fig 3. Split-charge relay

Fig 4. Identification of alternator charge control indicator wire

The state of charge of the battery can be estimated from it's open-circuit voltage (voltage across the terminals when nothing is connected), here's a graph taken from Wikipedia for estimating charge % based on voltage:

When the battery is charging it will read about 13.5-14V across it's terminals.

Given the time I would love to tidy up the wiring in my van and add a little built in LCD display to show how much charge is left in the battery.

Good luck with your van conversion projects, it's a lot of work but very satisfying!