Ascents of Talwand as Retreat

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.