Ascents in Postăvaru Massif

Linked with the previous one

Left exit

Stopped a bit in the crux - far less scary than it was the first time though. Far less rope drag on halfropes too

Wet

New belay station right after the old tree. Rapping down the line can be done in 4 raps on 60m halfropes (unite pitches 2 and 3). Next time I'm doing it with my ropes on me tho, they got tangled in all possible bushes

Nice and smooth, classical first-pitch Animale bushwhacking

Layback is easier if you don't layback it. Very aesthetic pitch

Really cool dihedral here. By now I was quite beat and rested on the rope a lot. The traverse was incredibly fun.

Ropes ended up crossing each other quite a bit, made things a bit tough in the crux since I needed to sit on my PAS in the piton below and untangle them with about a meter of extra slack before I could reach the draw in the crux.

Crux (a traverse on technical slab) wasn't easy even as a second

One of the most beautiful pitchs I've climbed in my life - so varied! Climb a crack, alternating laybacking with hand jams, then traverse on a technical slab to the great dihedral. The great dihedral is the best possible argument for uniting the old 2 pitches in the current single mega-pitch, it has such incredible flow, the initial part is a good rest from the layback crack since your weight is off your hands now, and then it arches for another balancy traverse on underclings ending with a rather bouldery exit beyond its corner, out on easy slab before the end.

Slight rain,moving as fast as we can

By this time the rain had stopped. Ridge is lovely

By this time we had caught on to another team on the route, and also the rain had started again rather more in earnest than the first time. Since their leader had already passed the now-quite-wet crux just before, they were kind enough to let us hitch one of our half-rope ends to one of them and have us both second it on a long, long chain of half-ropes. Crux is really iffy and unpleasant when wet, a lot of essential feet are smears and you really don't feel like pulling hard on the right slab either, it's not quite neatly attached to the wall. Ended up doing a lot of pull-ups and using the pitons as footholds.

Quite friable, especially on grassy bits. Takes some small friends as pro.

Straight up and onward, Bucegi starting to smoke up at our backs. Nearly missed the belay, this seemed to pass like a dream

The airy chimney pitch. I barely remember the moves, just the fear and the moving forward smoothly... Didn't see the downclimb piton so I used a friend instead. Right mess at the belay, rope drag like nobody's business

Behind us, Bucegi mountains are in a full storm. Ahead, the crux pitch. Get through this and it'll be fine. The crux is at the start, an unprotected traverse on smears and then a few m of dihedral with no good left holds for hand or foot. Lone bolt in the middle of the dihedral can just about be reached by my taller second, so I do the traverse protected and take 4 tries to get through the dihedral. Long live mobiles even when you don't place any, was digging out a potential nut placement on top of the dihedral and found the perfect left jug. Rest of the pitch went smoothly, not in the least because of me being willing to pull on a draw or two

Way less runout than the legend says if using mobiles (make sure you have slings) but beware of rope zig zag, I ran out of rope 2m before the belay tree, improvized something out of bushes and boullders. Storm caught up with us by the time I was done with my little gardening project(all fine, life wet). Should have simulled...