Second(!) ascent of this route from 1957. As you can imagine, the adventure factor of this one was maxed out. Basically no protection in the first pitch (a wide shoulder crack, later narrow chimney) and extremely dirty on top of that. I was quite glad that Raimund led it, wouldn't have dared to. Raimund brought me up on the best belay he could improvise (three wonky trees and a mediocre sling in the crack). The guidebook here then says you have to build a human pyramid on the left, then climb a wall to the arête on the right. After some vain attempts from Raimund, I gave it a shot and with some sketchy moves away from Raimund's shoulders, I reached a sort of secure position with my hand in a wafer-thin undercling and my feet on the least crumbly pieces of rock I could find. I was quite surprised to find exactly there the remains of a metal shaft. We assume that the first ascensionists placed it there with the intention of putting a ring in, but didn't have any rings left, and after completing the climb without it, they realized it's "only grade V", so they were ashamed to add the ring and left just the shaft. Lucky us, because without that shaft, I wouldn't have dared to continue. Placed another sling in a brittle rock tunnel, wrapped a runner around a chossy chicken head, then finally made the move to the right and rescued myself to a tree (which, according to my partner, wouldn't have held a fall as well, but I think it would have :-D). From there it got much easier, but still the dirt and vegetation made it a sketchy endeavour. Took us so long that we had to hurry quite a bit to catch the last bus.
- with
Raimund
