Sterling Athletes Team

German climber Markus Bock has redpointed a 20 year old project in the Frankenjura that he has graded 9a+ or 5.15a.

http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/markus_bock_climbs_frankenjura_9a/

"The Man That Follows Hell" "End of the 80's - Beginning of the 90's the visionary Milan Sykora bolted a route at a crag calls "Gr�ne H�lle - Green Hell" in Frankenjura - also famous for Moffatt's route "Bastard" 8a+. It's a 40 degree overhanging limestone wall, typical Frankenjura-style of climbing on small monos and 2 Fingerpockets. At the middle of the 90's Milan gave up this project cause thought its not possible to climb it straight like he has bolted it and another Frankenjura climber named Andy Hofmann tried it for several years with the start of the "Spiderman" 8a. Starting like that Andy came really close to do it, fell on the last hard move on the route. But after some injuries on his ring-bands which were coming from the small holds and edges in this route Andy gave up beginning of 2000. A friend of mine Manuel Brunn finally did it last autumn after some years of trying it constantly, called it "Kawaschuwu" and gave it the grade of 8c+. Myself, Dai Koyamada and Adam Ondra repeated it and confirmed the grade. BUT: What still has not been done and nobody thought it could be possible to do was the original straight up start like Milan has bolted it. I said to Manuel I will put out the old rusty hangers - but when I was hanging in my harness I realized that there could be a possibility to climb it and so I decided to change the old hangers into new glue-anchors instead of putting them out. This happened in November 2008. May 2009 came, the rock was more or less try and I was motivated to have a look on it. But the first 2 days it was more sobering. It's a 4 move boulder-problem on really small pockets leads into the first hard move of the 8c+. One of these holds is a sidepocket which you reach stretched out and so its hard to bend down your wrist and get your fingers into this pocket. This pocket has such a sharp edge that if you not tape your finger you will rip of a bloody flubber on the first try. But exactly this edge is so important that you stick on this sidepull. With a mono you get this sidepocket, than you have to move your feet up into the overhang (this is really hard cause whilst doing this your fingers slip out the sidepocket a bit), get a intermediate sloby 2 Fingerpocket and fire a long move to the left to the first hold - another 2 Fingerpocket that you have to score exactly - in "Kawaschuwu". These 4 move start is for me at least as hard as all the hard climbing in the 8c+. Without the first 2 moves I climbed the route for sure 15 times! But the third and fourth move was in combination that hard for me that I only got the 2Fingerpocket at the start of the 8c+ only 4 times till I succed on the route. I tried it for more than 10 days in spring, came once over the Boulder, but fell in the 8c+. The summer came and it wasn't possible to try it cause about the heat. I was really motivated to come back on it as soon as it was starting to get colder I thought. This normally happens in September. But the September came and went and was humid , to warm and so shity that I can not remember on one like that. But I was on to try it whenever it was possible, climbing and training in the upper sequence as often as I could just to have a better chance when I get one try over the start. On Saturday the 3.October the good conditions arrived. Cold windy weather with blue sky. After some failed tries I got the pocket - fighted all the way up move by move and came really close by falling at the last hard move. It was really frustrating - spending so many days to get over the start and then falling at that close. But I have known that this could easiliy happen. I decided to stop and to try it on the next day again. Sunday: I warmed up on the classic "Fight Gravity" 7a+ and drove over to "Green Hell". Like always I climbed in the upper part around for a while to come in a bit. 1st try I got over the start again, fighting up like the day before, fired out the last hard move and stuck on the pocket for a moment.Not possible to control the swing I was falling again. In moments like that its really hard to keep a clear head. Thoughts like "will the weather be good the next days", "will it be possible to bring up all the motivation next year again if I will not do it this year", "is there anything wrong in my sequence I climb",... are buzzing in the head. 6 more tries failed in the start - I said to myself: "Just one more - only one more!" I took all together and got over the start again, got to my highpoint again - and this time I got the pocket better as the times before. 2 moves later I got to a big jug where you can shake out a bit - the last 4 meters to the chain are easier climbing. I had finally done it! Its called "The man that follows hell" and I suggest 9a+ for it, Its the second time I give out 9a+ for a route after my 1st ascent of "CORONA" in 2006 which was this year confirmed by Adam Ondra who did the first repeat.