My vertical world: July 2018

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Valle del Orco

In july Marieke and I visited Valle del Orco for our first time. We were very courious about the rock, the cracks and how it would be to stay in one of the major granite crack climbing sites of Europe.
To start with the last it was very quite. Compared with Val di Mello there was almost nobody climbing. We finally had three climbing days. We did not went up to the Sergent but climbed on minor rock faces.

Of course we climbed the Fissura Kosterlitz (first 6b in Italy ever, 1970). The rope solo of this crack would be next step but I wasn't confident enough yet...

Really cool climbing of Apogeo (5c), Cochise (5c) and Bianca Parete (6b+/6c). I managed to redpoint Bianca Parete in my second attempt.

Apogeo, 25metres, cool crack climbing

Bianca Parete, first hand and fist and then in undercling position to the right to a no-hands-rest and than another 20 metres of perfect hand jams... yeahhhhhh...

Marieke on top rope!

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Ettringen

First week of july Marieke and I spent almost a week in Ettringen again. We met Eoin en Ted and had a great time together. Eoin actually redpointed "Mut der Verzweiflung", VIII+,IX- and I got the opportunity to tope rope twice. Hard and impressive crack!

I climbed some new routes like Harakiri (VII-) on the Dürener Wand, Meister Proper (VII), Goldbärchen (VI) and Analstahl (VI+) at the Music Hall. I also redpointed Wirbelsäule (VIII-) on the Grosse Wand in my second attempt, short but really impressive finger crack.

We met Günther who was one of first generation of openers in the Ettringen area in the late 80's. Günther told some really cool stories out of these days. He opened for example Geierwally, Phoenix and Capuccino corner on the far right of Grosse Wand. He had a new project on the Grosse Wand and one morning we worked together on cleaning and placing bolts, great time with him!!