The Elder Statesman

screenshot by fromjugtojug

It is done! I sent The Elder Statesman on Friday. Some pain, a lot of blood and tape but it was a lot of fun!
It's not a long route, but during the first 25 moves you need a lot of concentration. The wall isn't that steep and the holds are small and sharp. So its a lot of struggling with the skin and conditions. Handling this and being precise and concentrated is the main difficulty of the route I think.

Markus Bock did the first ascent in 2011 and graded it 11/11+, so it is one of the three hardest routes in Germany. It is located in a very beautiful area and I enjoyed a lot to spend some time there.

I had already worked it out earlier this year. It wasn't too easy to figure out the beta for the first boulder. There is one small structure that's difficult to recognise as a hold when it wasn't chalked. So I needed to work it out a bit, but everything else worked fine.

You mainly climb on crimps, that’s my style! But they are so sharp that I lost a lot of skin at every workout... There especially were two holds I was worried about... Easy to hold with good skin and good conditions.. But sometimes there was no chance to put weight on it. Luckily I found a nice beta to skip this skin cutters. I ended up with a long powerful move to a shoulder hold. Funny, it was a kind of Jungle Speed move I liked so much :-)

screenshot by fromjugtojug

The Sector isn’t so popular, so it’s difficult to find a partner. I was lucky that Manu Brunn was motivated to try it too. It was a nice time trying it together. Apart from one section we used the same beta, but the moves that were hard for me, he did easily and for me it was the other way around. One week ago, he sent it! Was nice to see it! And there will be a video of him soon. Some other days I got special belays from Markus, Alex Schweikart and Chris Mengel, super nice. 

In the evening of the 4th climbing day this fall- trip I managed to climb from the mono in the beginning up to the top. That was pretty much all off the route, so I was ready to try to send. After one rest day I fell off three times on a snatch up to a crimp. I really hoped to send the route after getting the crimp... It's hard after that, but still possible to fall… .That would be annoying! Manu fell off after that move several times, so I had a lot of respect of the end of the route...

screenshot by fromjugtojug

I rested at home and drove back to the rock the following weekend. I was very motivated, but I got two cuts in the first go... That had already happed a few times before, but this time I even couldn't climb with tape...very bad, one weekend without any good try... After some days at university we drove back. I wasn't too optimistic to send it...  I taped my fingers, and did it on the 4th go of the day, that was nice!!!

Manu and I think that it is maybe more 9a, but not a soft one I think even if it isn't so powerful..

The last day I saw Gabriele giving some good tries. So good luck for him!