After a week of warm, rainy and generally miserable weather most icefalls were no longer in good condition. Arne, Mark, Tereza and I were still eager to climb something, so we went to the Cheselenflue. A huge limestone face with lots of hard routes. I have already climbed the highlight, the Dr Blau Chäfer. Late last year Arne and I returned and ticked off Meteorit. This time we were going for the route Roter Punkt, the most difficult of the three.
We chose a South facing wall, thinking we'd have the best chances that it would be mostly dry this early in the year. The weather was gorgeous. Freezing air, but so much sun that we could mostly climb without wearing our jackets. Our theory was mostly correct and the sun melted the snow on the wall. What we didn't account for was all the falling ice this implied. Every couple of minutes we'd have a meteor shower of ice rushing down the wall. Big chunks would make a helicopter like whop-whop-whop sound before exploding with a cannon boom on impact. Scary.
Luckily our route was steep enough that the bombardements passed us without causing harm. Arne had a super strong day and onsighted the first 6b+ pitch. This featured an early crux only a few meters from the start before it traversed into a small roof requiring powerful moves. Great warmup. I got to lead the second, much easier 5c+ pitch. This was made more difficult by the fact that anything less than vertical was wet and icy. I had to scrape out a lot of snow and ice before I could find any purchase on the rock.
The third pitch is one of the best I've ever climbed. It's the namesake of the route Roter Punkt (red dot), referring to a single artificial hold that has been placed on a blank section of rock. It was Arne's lead again and he showed "Grosses Kino" (great performance). The pitch starts out with a long traverse to the actual start of the climb. In normal conditions this would be a complete non-issue and walking terrain. In wintery conditions it's a different matter altogether. You can't walk in wet slippery snow in climbing shoes so we balanced on a small ledge of crumbling rock instead. The last protection so far away that a fall would lead to a nasty 10 meter pendulum swing. Not nice.
Once that had been overcome the real climbing starts. A sequence of powerful moves on small crimpers through an overhanging section before you reach a long flake affording fantastic lean back moves. This is followed by a short chimney and a traverse to the anchor. The traverse is on a downward sloping ledge. You need to keep pressure on your feet by pulling on low underclings. Again something you usually wouldn't think twice about, made terrifying by wintery conditions. Friction foot placements on wet downward sloping rock are scary! This pitch is more than 30 meters long, requiring 16 quickdraws and a lot of endurance.
The whole route is 7 pitches long, but we decided to bail from where we were. The next pitch would have been an easy 5a which meant that we'd have to dig through snow while being exposed to rock and ice fall from above. We had also spent way more time than we should have getting to this point, so it was getting late. Lastly, the 6b+ pitches required everything we had and the route still held an even harder 6c pitch in store. Thus we rappelled.
Tereza and Mark made up the second rope team and Tereza put us all to shame by calmly leading all three pitches. Where we had been cursing and panting and calling for a rest she just cruised past. I guess that's what you get for training with the national climbing team all week long... Impressive performance.
Mark and Tereza stayed in the valley for the night. They brought their ski touring equipment and wanted to enjoy the beautiful full moon from their tent in the snow. Arne was headed for a day of skiing with friends from Germany while I went back to Zürich for a Dinner Krimi (theater performance during a four course dinner). Great weekend all around! I'll definitely return for a clean lead of the entire route ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment