CVL: What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever eaten?

IP: Weisswurst.

CVL: What?

IP: Bavarians eat it for breakfast. It’s a white sausage. You eat it with sweet mustard, pretzels, and the white beer, in the morning.

CVL: A beer in the morning?

IP: Ahh, not before 11. We used to do it when we [had] to be at the airport very early. I don’t like it but it’s kind of traditional [laughs].

GL: How long have you been in the US?

IP: This trip?  About four weeks.

GL: You went back home after the Ouray Icefest [where she won overall in 2005 and the women’s division in 2006]?

IP:  Competitions are getting kind of boring. There is a lot of waiting in the isolation chamber.  The people are very nice, but you travel a lot, and you climb almost never.  Just in the open, semifinal, final and then back home.

CVL: What do you like most about Indian Creek?

IP: It’s not only the climbing; there is also the silence and the sunset. The people are so relaxed. I don’t feel pain (in my hands and feet) when I crack climb.  It’s similar to ice climbing because you wake up early, you get cold, you get painful pump, and get scared.