Ascents in Bärental

#jahreserste2024

Alpin angehaucht, aber gut gesichert

Beautiful, elegant climbing up the black arête. The right-hand finish is the obvious choice nowadays, and spectacular, too.

Easy start to a ledge, then a little awkward up onto the slab, back to the left (careful, loose rock) and up the finishing slab, which is nice.

Good wall climbing, even though the rock quality doesn't look too promising from the ground. Quite the runout towards the top, and it's not too easy there!

Forgotten route, probably hasn't been done in ages. The vegetation is thick. It's a shame, because the climbing isn't that bad.

Still amazing. However, next time I will probably climb it the original way, traversing in from around the corner. The start is so awfully chossy.

#jahreserste2022

The wet start didn't exactly inspire confidence, neither did the fact that the most important hold to get out from below the bulge seemed extremely brittle, followed by a reachy move into a slimy, lichen-filled pocket. Had to sit in the rope, managed to go on to the next bolt, but bailed there because all the lichen-covered slopers were still a bit too slimy. Didn't have a brush either.

Wonderful #warmup. Challenging, but not too hard. Loose blocks in the beginning, but then a relatively compact crack dihedral with an airy chimney finish (a blue cam and a sling for a little rock tunnel were helpful).

Amazing dihedral with wonderful, fluid moves in mostly good rock. A section in the middle was wet, but still climbable. The way to the book is a bit run out due to the fragile nature of the rock. There's a bolt above the little pillar to the right of the cave, so you can climb to the highest point. Great classic.

Did this right after failing on "Mayon", hoping that the holds would be better and dryer, which turned out to be true. The brittle start is indeed a bit "pfui", but the "hui" part in the headwall makes up for it. Unfortunately, there's another little "pfui" part with a bit of vegetation before the final "hui" part through the white exit dihedral.

Finally! When I passed the point where Christoph Rauch bailed yesterday, I could fully understand why. The climbing could actually be nice without the thick moss and dirt over every hold and foothold.

I couldn't leave my gear behind, so I just had to return as soon as possible and finish what I started. The first part went much smoother today, since we had already removed some of the moss from important footholds and more importantly the thorns. Set up belay in the original position, then I relatively quickly went up to the place where I had bailed yesterday, but realised that I had to sit in the gear at the ring to dig out a few more footholds. Everything was still slimy and full of dirt, but in the end I found a relatively reliable foothold to gain the big flake. However, what looked like the edge of the summit from below turned into steep grass with some protruding icy rocks. But I found another solid placement for a nut which gave me the courage to finally heave myself up onto the summit. Not exactly the best conditions, but maybe warm, dry moss would have been even worse? First party on the summit since 2014! I should come back some time and clean the route some more since it's actually really worthwhile! #jahreserste2020

I seconded until the first bolt to belay Christoph Rauch, but we had to call it a day at that point.

From the ground, it looked like the first ten meters would be the problematic part of this endeavour. Oh what wrong an assumption that should turn out to be. Despite it being chossy and dusty, it was easy and you can place a few solid pieces before reaching the bolt on the ledge. There, I already had to set up belay because the way up was blocked by thorns. Bovist brought up scissors and saw, so the journey could go on. Interesting passage up the diagonal ledge to the little rock chamber (original end of pitch 1). From there on, most of the holds were initially covered in (frozen) moss. Dug around a lot and finally found a good cam placement next to the slightly unreliable rock tunnel, so I pushed on and reached the slab beneath the final wall. Unfortunately, the slab, too, was covered in frozen moss, which broke away after standing on it for a few seconds. I quickly put a carabiner in the rusty ring at the end of the slab and backed it up with a small cam. By this time, I had slipped quite a few times already and I realized that I didn't have any more sensible gear on me for the last few meters of climbing. I tried a few times to get over the last steep bit, but had to retreat in the end; lowered off my cam and the rusty bolt.

Nice flintstone pebbles below the roof.

The lower part was indicated in the guidebook via the wall to the right of the crack. However, this wall consists of terrible choss and there's only one rusty peg and hardly any chance to get gear in without ripping apart the wall. Better start together with "Südriss", then traverse over for the upper part, which is actually a nice crack in relatively solid rock.

Nice little climb to the small summit of the upper tower.

Slightly loose in the lower half, but even considering that, there's just a ridiculous amount of bolts. Normal bolt distances in the upper part. A big block on the ledge is apparently just sitting on two tiny pillars of wedged-in stones … otherwise good rock in the upper part.

Somehow got myself into an awkward position in the final bulge. Had no immediate idea how to solve it, so I pulled myself up on the draw, because the sun was already setting … hadn't realised that clock change had been on Sunday already, otherwise I wouldn't even have gone climbing that late. I would nevertheless say that the final bulge is much harder than 6+.

Went up this one with head lamp after sunset. Nice slab up to the ledge. Instead of going the easy way up and left to the belay and right again below the roof, I went rather directly (there's a bolt with a hanger on the way). The exit to the right of the roof is nice with big pockets, but a bit reachy I guess. Maybe easier in daylight.

FFA.

FFA.