Dry Island

Funny... as I drove to Murgtal this Monday, the sky went dark after Pfäffikon. Sure… I was aware about the fact, that it would be a risk for rain this evening. But the rain radar (forecast) showed a quite good chance, that Murgtal could stay dry. Some kilometers later it was dark as hell and started to rain cats and dogs!! So I was close to reverse and go back home.

Aldo was already up at Murgtal and told me by phone that it is still dry. Some minutes later he gave me a call again and told me that is was raining at the upper sector “lake” and that he will go down to the lower sectors, which seemed to be still dry. So I decided to give it a chance and drove further…

In the end we both were lucky that our decision was good to give Murgtal a try.  I seemed that it has rained all over, but not at the Murgtal himself.  What lucky guys we were…!! It was like a DRY ISLAND! ;)

Aldo started to climb at his project at a lower sector… and I went up to Freds Shield the way up to the lake. It’s a beautiful shield close to the road, in between trees and a few meters next to the stream.

The other magic wood... 

On this bloc is just one single line from Fred Nicole. An 8B+ if it’s started sitting. But it is also possible to do a quite logical standstart… which is called to be 8A.  The shield is quite overhanging… with just small crimps on it. Not really my stile… but it looks awesome and is one of the nicest steep faceclimbs I’ve ever seen.

I just went there, because of the fact, that my main project “Bourguignon, 8B” was not accessible. If the stream is coming so high, there is no chance to cross it. So I went to “TheShield”, how Gu called the line after Fred hasn’t given it a name.

The ones who are reading my bloc recently knowing about the good time I have at the moment. So it was not any more a real surprise that I made short work on this one too. But a 30 minutes ascent was nevertheless unexpected. I had a short look some days ago… but just for about 10 minutes after a long evening session. So I had no chance to even do one single move…! But on Monday it worked quite well. My fingers were fresh enough to hold on those “nasty” little crimps… and after about 20 minutes I figured out my solution for the first part.

Self made shot... what a nice scenery...!! Position after the first and before the second crux-move...

After a little break I gave it another try and climbed to the last crux-move. According a movie from Gu it seemed to be a really hard one… but to my own surprise I used spontanous a totally different beta and did it the first try. The last moves were not the problem and I suddenly stood on the bloc… screaming like a teen. ;)

The second crux-move...

Afterwards Aldo went up there too an gave it also some tries. Firstly he thought that it would be impossible for him…. but after a while he was able to climb up to the second hard crux-move too. Cool… it seems, that he would have also a realistic chance to climb that beautiful line.

A bit later in the evening... Aldo is doing the first crux-move.

While Aldo tried the standstart I gave the sitstart some tries… AND… every move was possible, except the first one. It was also possible to link that stuff together. So I really have to come back and work on that 8B+… if it really is an 8B+. If it is one… it would be my first one…!!!!!! Vengaaaa… ;)

keep on rokin'