Nassereith Climbing Rope Solo

Published on 2024-05-05 by Michael Stanton

I was back, armed with a little knowledge which can be dangerous!

I drove down the night before and slept in Mantra, my Berlingo van. I hiked up to the wall with a thick 50 meter single rope and a 50 meter double rope for use in the necessary abseils from each route.

I decided to start with an easier one I hadn't done before, "Herbstsonne (4+)". My technique was the upside-down Grigri, with Petzl Traxion on the back of my harness with the cache loop feeding between my legs. I also had a Petzl ASAP, but didn't use it today.

The climbing was fun. I found it took 30 minutes to climb the 25 meter first pitch, abseil and reclimb. Over the next pitches I reduced this time somewhat, but never managed to do that whole sequence in 15 minutes. More like 20 to 25 minutes. Including the abseil from the top of the 4 pitch route (I ignored pitch 5, 15 meters of grade 2-3), it took exactly 2 hours back to the base with ropes flaked and tennis shoes on.

Not too shabby!

I made one error. Near the top of the 4th pitch, I couldn't pull up slack rope, and had to belay from a single bolt. This will sound strange, but over the course of the very busy and intensely mental day, I have forgotten what the problem was. Take that as an indication of how busy you are fiddling with gear (and rather a sobering indication). Anyway, I decided to solo 10 meters of easy ground to reach that upper belay. This felt strange with two heavy ropes hanging from my harness. The abseils were straightforward.

Next, I moved my pack over to climb "Leben in Sonnenschein (5+/6-)", which Helmut and I had climbed 2 weeks before. I learned that short pitches are kind of annoying -- lots of rope management with the main rope and the trail rope, when there is no good ledge to stack them on. I've got to find a good solution for when there is no ledge. It's worrisome to just let the rope hang down (something like a backpack is likely the answer).

This is a pretty wonderful climb. Enjoyed it again, though again, I was very busy.

I got back down and decided to eat my oatmeal. I'd brought a glass bowl, powdered oatmeal and a spoon. I discovered that the glass broke in my pack somehow! I was able to hold it together while the oatmeal absorbed the water before it could leak out. Another couple looked at me strangely as I did this.

It had rained a bit on the last pitch, and if it had continued I would have stopped. But it was only 14:00, so let's do one more route. However, my feet were getting tender and my hands, too. By the last two pitches, I was hurting quite a bit. Because I always reclimbed the pitches, these 11 pitches were more like 22!

The first pitch of "Südost Wandl (5+)" went well enough. The second pitch, wow. Two weeks ago I told Helmet it was the best 5+ pitch I'd climbed, and today, despite sore feet, I found it spectacular again. 30 meters of climbing where the exposure and the moves are quite uniformly interesting. I'd forgotten about the spice of a leftward traverse at the end of the pitch. During the abseil to clean the bottom anchor, I had to deal with the traverse and setting the line carefully.

On the last pitch I made a mistake again, and this time I remember what happened! Due to being tired, and my feet aching, I left the free end of the rope tied at the belay, completely failing to imagine that since the pitch is 35 meters, I would definitely need it! The climbing is quite nice on this pitch, but I was annoyed to be stopped cold and again have to belay from a single bolt. I abseiled down and saw my error.

I was mostly annoyed that I'd have another twenty minutes of work in miserable rock shoes because of this error before I could zoom down to heavenly tennis shoes!

This time, once back up at my single-bolt anchor, I put away the Grigri and just did an old-fashioned clove hitch with plenty of slack for the 2 final bolts and easier ground (3-4) to reach the anchor.

(This route also has a final pitch that isn't worth climbing: grade 3, 20 meters, loose and low-angle ground -- I ignored it).

Finally I could make 2 abseils to the ground, going off to the side where a trail above the start of the route means you don't have to make a 3rd abseil.

Shoes back on, I looked at my watch: 8 hours of almost non-stop effort. I was quite tired and wow, the toes did NOT want to climb anymore. I laughed at my breezy thought of doing some rope soloing at Bad Heilbrunn on the way home -- not a chance!

The only picture of my rope soloing day

No pictures, except for a sad picture of my broken breakfast oatmeal bowl...