Project Taufenkopf 9 years later

In 2001 I climbed the Yosemite variant on Taufenkopf together with Daniel Steuerer. It was one of my first routes, where friends and nuts were necessary. Just while I was belaying Daniel at the forth belay I saw a big eye-catching roof about fifteen metres to our left. A few months later, early in January 2002, when we did the same route again, we rappeled down bearing left until we reached the mentioned roof. We invested a few days to prepare the route, but then we could start to climb it – it was the first route we've bolted on our own! We were sure it was possible to climb it but in the end we spent no more time on the project...

At the 30th of May I wanted to climb the Lärmstangen E-face together with Daniel. The previous evening Daniel cancelled our plan and I decided to go to Taufenkopf instead to continue our old project on my own.
It was crucial more difficult than I could remember. It took me hours to get an idea of how to climb the route. Although my fingers hurt at the end of the day I managed to climb all of the particular climbing passages. I was really looking forward to coming back again in the near future...

It was just about five days later when I returned to Taufenkopf. But this time I brought along Florian Klingler to climb the first four pitches. When we reached the roof the conditions were perfect and I was sure that I could climb through the whole passage.

The first ten metres were not that hard but then the pitch got more and more difficult. The further I got the more I had to concentrate not to fall off the wall. I managed the last few metres although the holds got smaller and smaller and I was still hanging!

The route completes the existing variants on Taufenkopf. It is best to climb the first three pitches of „Tsunami“ before a 7b+-pitch leads to the impressive final edge. The route just gets it's alpine style through the 150 metres of air underneath your butt. The rock is consistently solid. My personal highlight, you can see on my pics, is the final pitch. Because I managed to climb the route at the first attempt it is not easy to say how difficult it is. But at least you have to calculate with an 8b+...