Ettringen

Last year we finished our rock climbing season in Ettringen, on one of my last visits I tried Le Mitard for the first time - on toprope...
Le Mitard is a nice clean crack line in the sector Lonnenloch. Le Mitard starts with a short roof and after a few metres the small hand to finger crack winds his way up in a cool S-shape figure. In the lower part you climb more on the wall to the left of the crack and then you turn to the right on a small underhand hold. The last 5 metres are on thin hands and if you have bigger hands ring locks will also work...
The route is easy to protect but you have to be confident and trust the gear you placed!
Saturday after a good warming up I gave it the first try. Only a few metres below the anker I flew off the wall...
After an hour I a gave it the next try and I do not exactly know what I changed in the upper part of the route but somehow I managed to reach the belay. I took other rock climbing shoes and I placed a bigger 0.75 cam above the 0.4 cam, maybe this made the difference.

In the end I redpointed my first 8-/8 in Ettringen. This is also my first 8-/8 on gear/tradstyle. I was really happy but of course my mind immediately made up plans about Ogre in Finsterlay and Seepferdchen at the Grosse Wand.... can't wait....

 Miel in Fleury Mirogis, 7-, great route as well

 start of the upper part...

 nice layback on small foot holds...

pull as hard as you can en put your right foot in the wider part of the crack... small cams...

go for it...

next cam - 0.3 well fitting and good for your mind...

searching for foot holds

last part on small hands...

 strong support, thanks Tessa!

and also thanks to Mike for the cool pics!!!