Wüstenblume - Sass dla Crusc-Heiligkreuzkofel

Finally we got some quite good weather days in the Dolomites (actually just one really stable day :-) ) and so Thomas and I decided that we had to take this opportunity to climb at least one long route. On saturday the weather wasn't perfect so we climbed the Via Franz (320m, VII, 12 pitches) on the Meisules. The weather forecast for sunday was good so we decided to have a look at Wüstenblume (400m, VIII+, 9 pitches) on the Heiligkreuzkofel - Sass dla Crusc. This route was first ascented one year ago by Josef Hilpold and Ulrich Viertler, two southtirolean mountain guides. The route, a superbe climb that was opened without using any bolts, follows a logical line on the left of the classical Mayerlverschneidung.
Friday morning we took the chairlift and went up to the start of the route.
The first pitch seemed quite scary and dangerous to us because of a short section on very loose rock and mud and so we decided to climb a new variant that starts about 15 meters to the left of the original line: first we followed a crack/flake and then we traversed to the right reaching the second rock piton of the original pitch. On the rest of the route the rock is way better. The climbing is physically and psychologically  demanding and mostly very obbligatory (especially pitches nr. 5, 7+8) - challenging, certainly one of the best routes we climbed in the last years. The quality of the rock pitons is mostly very good, we even "tested" two of them :-). It was my eighth route on this face and after having climbed the route we also understood why they called it Wüstenblume (desert flower) - because of it's rare beauty!
The next day we got up a bit later and decided to climb an "easier" route on the Ciavazes and so we went to do "Parmigiano Reggiano" (260m, 7a, 9 pitches). Nice but not easy for the grade!
Topos:
Via Franz (The 2nd and 10th pitch are VII-/ VII !)
Wüstenblume
Parmigiano Reggiano



Wüstenblume:

Parmigiano Reggiano:

Grundschartner - North ridge - Mittergrat

As this weekend I had to go to Innsbruck to visit some friends I took the opportunity to do a climb I aimed to do for differnet years: the Mittergrat on the Grundschartner (3061 m). It is said that this route is one of the best granite climbs in Tirol and besides it is one of Walter Pause's extreme classic climbs! The starting point to climb the ridge is Häusling in the Zillertal. The aproach is pretty long, almost 1500m. The climbing is mostly about UIAA  IV  with some pitches graded V and one or two pitches  graded VI (depends on the topo). Fortunately the weather was good enough and so after a unconfortable night on the front seat of my car I started at about 8.15. After having passed the Bodenalm I didn't take the best way up but someway I got to the begining of the ridge. The climbing, mostly on not very steep terrain along cracks was very nice and sometimes very exposed especially at the begining. At about 12.45, after 1,5h climbing I reached the summit. The descent is rather long (and even longer if you get a bad description on internet...)and so it took me two an a half more hours to get back to the car. All in all a great day in the mountains!

(Gear: 50m kervlar rope, rapel device, 2 karabiners 1 quickdraw, light harness, climbing shoes, chalk bag, 3 slings, beanie, gloves, down vest, jacket, 1,5l water, some energy bars)

Topo:  http://wuidebuam.blogspot.de/2001/07/topo-grundschartner-nordkante.html