The stars never seemed to align for an Alpine summer climb in 2019: in June there was still a lot of snow higher up and when the snow was gone, either Arno was in Scotland, I was busy, one of us was ill or the weather was unstable. Finally, on the 20th of October 2019, it seemed to happen with Arno and me being available, with a stable, warm weather forecast that predicted around 20 degrees. Arno had suggested the route "Kunterbund" (colourful) which is a well protected, grade VI (E1?) route in the Scheffau area of the Wilder Kaiser. A description in German and topo is here https://www.stadler-markus.de/alpinklettern/wilder-kaiser/kletterroute/kunterbunt.html.
The walk in is roughly 500 m up which we did in one hour.
The route is on this West-facing limestone wall in the Wilder Kaiser mountain range.
After an easy warm up pitch, Arno started a tricky 5+ steep wall with a Dutch (?) team above us.
Here, Arno is a wee bit higher and the lead Dutch climber above climbs the tricky and exposed traverse on 6-rated pitch.
After that I climbed an easier 5+ pitch...
... which Arno follows here.
The next 6--rated pitch started with an overhang...
... followed by a tricky...
... traverse on an exposed wall. Fantastic climbing.
The next pitch were "Wasserrillen" (water runnels) rated 6 which was balancy climbing on half decent footholds with often little for the hands. Here, Arno arrives at the end of that pitch.
Three more 5 pitches of lower quality followed but together a really nice route with lots of high quality climbing. From high up we saw the snow capped Alpine near 4000 m peaks towards Italy.
Finally, a 2019 summer climb. Just 8 pitches but lots of high quality climbing just before nature is closing shop for the winter.
HW
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