Ascents in Großer Stübiger Turm

Sandy start, hasn't been done often yet this year. Great wall climbing along a thin flake from the second bolt on.

I actually wanted to climb the first pitch of "Vajoletweg", but didn't have a topo on me and chose the wrong crack. In hindsight, it's now clear why this felt so hard for 6-. Quite difficult crack climbing with some mediocre jams, hard to get over the overlap.

Traditional 1920s climbing deluxe. It's funny how little the "Direktausstieg" has to do with the original route (they just share the first pitch). Once again I found it terribly hard to freeclimb the first pitch, so in the end it might be harder than 6. I'm still wondering how they brought "up" (which is to say "down" for this route …) the second back in the day. The second pitch is mostly overgrown, which is such a shame because it would be such a beautiful, easy stroll in great rock. At the belay in the cave, I realised I had left my cams at the bottom, which would have come in handy for the traverse along the "Kriechband", which you really couldn't crawl on. At least I didn't want to try. Exposed, but fun (don't pull too hard on the flake, though …).

The next best thing to a "real" hand crack. There are holds left and right sometimes, but it's certainly much more efficient to jam all the way up. Difficult and strenuous over the bulge before the anchor.

Awesome layback climb, along all kinds of flakes. Unusual!

Once more to put up a toprope.

Had a 26 minute epic onsighting this. Thanks David for having the patience of not just pulling me down at some point. Barely any rest positions, so I rested on basically everything. Did lots of committing moves just to see immediately that it doesn't work this way, so I had to back off yet again and try something else. Must be one of my hardest – and definitely my longest – onsights so far. Great, tricky wall climbing that is hard basically everywhere, even the very last move onto the slab is tough. I have no clue how I got through this.

Fell on the one really difficult move in the route because I didn't have my feet in the right position. Found a nice beta that's still dynamic, but quite controlled. Didn't do the easy part up top because I didn't have nuts and slings on me.

After I had worked the crux, I thought it would be easy, but the middle section before the moss still pumps you up! Great route with a steep but juggy start, a technical crux section and wonderful pocket pulling after that. Took a sling and a set of wires for the upper part, which is still worth doing despite the moss!

Great way to end the day. I was quite exhausted, but could still enjoy it.

Good climbing on rough edges and crimps, with solid distances between the bolts, which could end in a fall on the big ledge.

Quite the adventure. I don't think there are more than a handful of downward traverses in Frankenjura; I wouldn't really want to second this, but Harald used a trick with a long tail of rope to make it to the second bolt safely. From the belay, the "Direktausstieg" leads up through good, but dusty rock (the last documented ascent of this was in 2014) to a juggy dihedral ("Scheri-Kraus-Variante") at the end of which you can thread a good sling.

Perfectly dry today, so the start wasn't a problem at all. Highly enjoyable.

Hunting classics today. Started out with this brilliant, easy finger crack. Still very rough. I started directly in the middle crack, turned out to be harder than expected, but the right one was still wet when we arrived. Hard move on slopers at the first bolt, but what follows makes up for everything below. Marvellous rock quality and fluid moves through the dihedral with the finger crack. And a sunny summit with gorgeous view, too!