In the woods somewhere

Getting the onsight of Infiziert 9+.

It seems in recent years the vibe of sport climbing has turned to long, orange, tufa-crusted climbs in holiday destinations like Spain or a Greek island. I think maybe we’ve gone soft as back in the 80’s it was all short, hard and nasty. The epitome of this style is the German forest of Frankenjura an hour north of Nuremburg. The likes of Wolfgang Gullich and Sebastian Schwertner climbed the initial desperates then Marcus Bock and Alex Megos raised the bar to provide some of the hardest climbs in the world. Therefore, I decided see what it was all about and myself and Rob McTague travelled there for a month at the start of June.

Infiziert 9+

With two guidebooks with each containing thousands of routes the difficulty for Rob and I arose in choosing a crag. The first main area to head to is the Unteres Püttlachtal area which has two major crags: Bärenschluchtwände and Püttlachtaler Wand as well as many other minor crags. On Bärenschluchtwände there is the famous ‘Göttner Gedenkweg’ 8, ‘Hercules’ 9/9+ and ‘Rauchende Bolts’ 9. The third route’s name translates to smoking bolts and this occurs because the falls are so big! Another great route name was ‘Queeel disch, du Sauuu’ 10/+ which translates to squeal you pig and probably describes a sausage finger climber pulling on the pinky mono at the top! 

Even clipping is hard on Frankenjura routes!

Next is the Krottenseer forest which is an open coniferous forest on a hill so often gets a fresh breeze. The best crags here are Krottenseer turm, Kanzelfels and Rabenfels. The first has two legendary 9’s with ‘Chasin’ the Train’ and ‘Hitch Hike the Plane’ as well as ‘Ira Technocratie’ 10- and ‘Wallstreet’ 11-. My experience with ‘Wallstreet’ was a tough one as I climbed the crux on the second session then naively thought ‘ok this will go next time’ and got my hopes up. I then must have fallen on the same move close to fifteen times and the climbs basic nature allowed me no room of tricking my way through. Leaving it was disappointing but it’ll again be at the top of my list when I return. The Kanzelfels is a crag deep in the woods with a darker nature and features some unique climbing for Frankenjura. It is mainly crimpy and even features some knee-knocking slabs. Classic routes there are ‘Maximator’ 9-, ‘Nosferatu’ 9 and ‘Fred Feuerstein’ 10+. The last is apparently a ‘king line’ and on arrival I saw people doing 6-foot spans on it, so I tactically avoided getting my 5-foot span involved.

Getting my wings out on the small pockets on Kelu 10

A further major area is the Wiesenttal valley which winds from Plankenfelds down to Behringersmühle and firstly appears sparse of climbing but there are many top-quality crags hidden in the trees. For example, we visited: Zwergerschloss, Galawand and Mader Gedenkwand. A few classic routes are ‘Plan B’ 10,   ‘Härte Neun’ 9 and ‘Stalingrad’ 9-. This trio all feature steep athletic climbing and ‘Härte Neun’ is the wildest of all with a crux involving taking a cut with your feet swinging a million miles from the rock.

The final area we often visited was the Kleinziegenfelder Tal which has crags like Holzgauer Wand, Rolandfels and Toni Scmid Gedekenkwand. These crags have an abundance of sustained power endurance climbs up to twenty metres with classics like ‘Nimue’ 9-/9, ‘Nikita’ 10-, ‘Infiziert’ 9+ and ‘Mambo Cavallero’ 9-. The first time we visited the Holzgauer Wand a local had brought a banjo and proceeded to play the crustiest music while his friends accompanied him by tapping on tupperwares and blowing over bottles. We experienced similar friendliness at Rolandfels with a woman offering me her knee-bar pad for a flash attempt on ‘Respektios’ and a couple guys peer-pressuring me into trying ‘Kelu’.    

This generous, laid-back nature was embodied by our hosts Christian and Roly at Bed and Boulder. They helped us sort out our car disaster and Christian showed us around his boulders in the local area when we were stranded. These were beautiful, secluded spots with nice rock and movement. I even did a first ascent called ‘The Kane’ after Harry Kane scored the last-minute winner in the World Cup. The combination of history, self-less people, varied rock and challenging climbs will for sure make this a popular destination for years to come. Although my recommendation comes with a warning that every route here will make you work, no matter if it is five grades below your best it’ll still push you however this surely helps the improvement and is more fun!

Trying to get my finger out of the mono on Queeel Disch, du Sauuu 10/+