[Tom de Gay]

Planning a short trip to the Sächsische Schweiz with a friend from Berlin, probably late September. Has anyone been? Any survival tips or route/area recommendations? Best guidebook? Guess I can leave the rack and chalk at home but might need to stock up on slings. Any tips for tieing jamming knots?

[jwi]

I will be in Berlin for work from mid September to mid October and I am hoping to go down over the weekends a few times. I know absolutely nothing about knots as pro but I've done some googeling and have found the following:

What strength has a placement of knotted cord?
Sicherungstechnik

[grimer]

I've been to the Falkenstein area, some places around there, as well as the Czech stuff just across the border. My impression of the Saxon stuff was there thare are lots of factors standing between you and having a good time.

The guides are the first. We had a guide from a shop that reminded me of a latin dictionary. Let me walk over to the shelf and take it down and have a look, bear with me for a minute.





Right, just pulled it down and opened it. It's a small book, about the size of a CC guide, and there is a top-down drawing of a tower group with 324 routes marked on it. Kinda hard to work out what you are looking at on the ground as the terrain is very complex and tends to have climbing on more than one level. Perhaps the descriptions will help?

Here we go:

Ringparbel  Xa; Bernd Arnold, G Lamm, G Ludwig, Tanja Benedix, H. Kamutzki, F. Forker, H. Tottmann, J. Gerschel, G. Mukler, G Heisig, 16.6.85 - 7 m li. von "Ostriss" uberh. Wand (R) zu 2. R. Weiter rechtsh. zu 3 R u. Wand linksh. (4. R) zu 5. (R. Mulden zu gr. Abs. Li,. Rinne (7. R) zu Pfeiler auf Terrasse "Birkenriss" zG.


Obvious, really.

The no chalk thing made it hard to relax. The fact that, at best, you might be on the right route was stressful specially as there were three bolts in a hundred feet. Knotted slings. Hmmmm. I had about ten but these were made from either eight mill or ten mill rope, so essentially i had five hex fives and five hex sevens. Tobias Wolff, who climbed in the Peak a few years ago, said he never placed them, just ran it out between the bolts as they weren't worth the effort.

I do't think we saw anyone else climbing there. I got the sense that the area had strangled itself to death on a knotted sling.

Incredibly beautiful place, stunning. I bet if you could hook up with a local who didn't want to kill you you could have an amazing time in the world's most traditional climbing area. I used to know a guy called Enni who I hear does some guiding there. I wonder could I find his details?

[Muenchener]

Ringparbel  Xa; Bernd Arnold, G Lamm, G Ludwig, Tanja Benedix, H. Kamutzki, F. Forker, H. Tottmann, J. Gerschel, G. Mukler, G Heisig, 16.6.85 - 7 m li. von "Ostriss" uberh. Wand (R) zu 2. R. Weiter rechtsh. zu 3 R u. Wand linksh. (4. R) zu 5. (R. Mulden zu gr. Abs. Li,. Rinne (7. R) zu Pfeiler auf Terrasse "Birkenriss" zG.

And there I was thinking my German was fluent

Here goes:

7 metres left of Ostriss (East Crack) overhanging wall (R = Ring ??) to 2nd R(ing?). Continue rightwards (? not sure what the "sh" is short for) to 3rd R(ing?) & wall leftwards. 4th R(ing?) to 5th R(ing) Hollows/Scoops/something like that to big sloping (something?), runnel, 7th R(ing? ... but what happened to the 6th?) to pillar onto terrace "BirkenRiss" (something?)
See? Easy.

The grade appears to be derived from the number of members of the first ascent party required to form a human pyramid to clip the first bolt, unless I'm counting wrong

[grimer]

Might have got some spellings wrong, but you get the idea. Especially as a lot of routes are wall climbs with no lines so you have a big flat face where every now and again you can see a ring. Have you been Muenchener?

[Muenchener]

Nope, and tbh I don't intend to either. I am old and cowardly and was never any good on grit, and this stuff looks like giant grit but steeper. If I want to drive several hours to go trad climbing I'll go in the other direction to the Dolomites, where there are holds and I'm allowed to place gear.

[HaeMeS]

Been there a couple of times. Beautifull area with great climbing. Not to be missed. Unfortunately the local rules on climbing are a bit weird. Some of the best rock is left unclimbed, because its on walls instead of freestanding towers. They should leave the historic routes as they are, and be more open to other stuff. Like allowing climbers to develop sportclimbing on the walls so the towers can be kept as they are now.

Grades on easier routes are weird. On a lot of routes you're supposed to belay at every ring. Silly. It's hard to understand from the guidebook if aid (like standing on your partners head) is allowed or even needed to get past a difficult section.

Leave the rack at home, and learn how to knot the slings („Kinderkopf und Affenfaust (2010)“ Gerald Krug, Geoquest Verlag, ISBN 978-3000149528). Placing knots is like placing nuts. Trusting them is something else.
http://www.gipfelbuch.de/schlingen_legen1.htm
You can even buy ready-made sets of slings...! It's like buying a set of nuts.
https://mont-k.de/onlineshop/products/de/Bergsport-Klettern/Schlingen-Schnuere/Sachsenschlingenset-1-und-2.html

There are no good guidebooks - no Rockfax-style topo-guides. Maybe the best guidebooks are from http://www.geoquest-verlag.de/?q=node/202.

As for the climbing: Bielatal has the most solid sandstone and is the place to get started. Just across the border the Elbtal has even better rock, and you're allowed to use chalk...    Haven't been there but the pics look great: http://www.geoquest-verlag.de/?q=node/202

Have fun - but beware of robberies. Don't leave your stuff lying around on the ground when you climb a tower.

- - -

7 metres left of Ostriss (East Crack) overhanging wall (Ring) to 2nd Ring. Continue rightwards ("rechtsh" is short for "rechtshaltend") to 3rd Ring & climb wall tending left (4th Ring) to 5th Ring. Follow scoop to big terrace on the left. Follow runnel (7th Ring) to pillar onto terrace and folow the route "BirkenRiss" to the top (zG = zum Gipfel).


Just like the old Brittish guidebooks, isn't it? Having topos would make things far to easy for novice climbers...

[Muenchener]

rechtsh = rechtshaltend

Ah yes, of course

Mulden zu gr. Abs. Li. = Follow scoop to big terrace on the left

Abs = Absatz? I was thinking "abschüssiges" [etwas]

zG = zum Gipfel

Thanks

Just like the old Brittish guidebooks, isn't it? Having topos would make things far to easy for novice climbers...

I don't remember them being quite so cryptic

[HaeMeS]

Abs = Absatz.

[grimer]

Am I right in the impression that i got, that very few people go climbing there?

[T_B]

I do't think we saw anyone else climbing there. I got the sense that the area had strangled itself to death on a knotted sling.

That made me laugh. I love those knotted slings.

I'm right in thinking that this area is just over the border from Czech and Decin? Now I know Decin is not everyone's cuppa (f*ckin wimps), but at least there are bolts as well as rings and knotted slings.

They have the same guidebook 'issues' as Gwimer describes though, but not as bad as other Czech sandstone areas...

And you can get away with using chalk, which is helpful.

On the knots front, just take loads of 11mm and tie overhand knots. Anything smaller than that feels like it will pull through constrictions most of the time. I fell onto one in Ardspach and it held. But most of the time it feels like soloing. Some of the locals have these incredible small-football sized knots that are supposed to expand sideways when loaded. V dubious.

[Muenchener]

Some of the locals have these incredible small-football sized knots that are supposed to expand sideways when loaded. V dubious.

I reasd something, on one of those sites telling us how sound jammed knots are really, about entire coiled ropes stuffed in and tied off with a (big) prusik as wide crack gear 

[Falling Down]

Beats in-situ draws on maillons 

[Tom de Gay]

Thanks everyone for the informative and thought provoking replies.

[jwi]

I just got back from a short visit to Elbsandsteingebirge.  I think climbing in Elbsandstein is absolutely brilliant. I am down in Berlin for a month and a friend came down from Stockholm over a rather extended weekend: the plan was to go down there and climb thursday -- tuesday, but the weather turned really bad, so we only got two days of climbing.

Our plan was to "warm up" in friendly Bielatal, and then move over to the massive towers in Schrammstein gebiet (Flakenstein and Teufelsturm looks super-good).  Unfortunately the weather turned horrible, so I have only climbed in Bielatal, where the towers are smaller and the rock is much more featured and yields more to face climbing.

Half of the routes we did was purely for peak-bagging purposes, an activity that comes natural among the many dramatic towers and needles.  We like chimneys and are quite comfortable with them so lots of the "old routes" was not particularly mentally challenging.  Also, for climbers that are happy with soloing easy routes on solid rock most needles are easy to access.

We did a few cracks and found our rack a bit too sparse.  We brought mostly figure-of-eights on 6 to 10 mm rope.  The fatter coords felt much more secure, and I think it is possible to get some placements that I could conceivably fall on.  Tie them really long (most secure placements seemed to be deep into flared cracks), and with a long tail for easy cleaning.  We had like one affenfaust (monkey fist) but should have had a few more, and better tied.  It might be worth it to buy a few monkey fists from Arnold Bergsport in Hohnstein http://www.bergsport-arnold.de/

I had to back off one route, but other than that we held it together quite well.  Bielatal seemed really popular: even though Thursday was an ordinary week day, lots of people where out climbing and hiking, and for some of the more popular routes there was even queues!

Lots of the climbing was very family-oriented: mom or dad soloed an easy route to the top of a tower and pulled up the rest of the family to the top were they had cake and wrote in the route book.

Elbsandstein is not the best place to boost your scorecard.  I found climbing without chalk quite challenging, in particular on slopers (of course).  I think a good way to prepare for the climbing would be to boulder without chalk for a week in a sandstone area, Font or Grit say.

For those that can't be without the physical challenge in climbing Elbsandstein is not a good destination for a short visit.  Most of the hardest routes there seems to be put up by a few select local climbers.  Even on safe routes there are parts where a fall is absolutely unthinkable

[Tom de Gay]

Thanks for the trip report.
No report from me I'm afraid - just before we were due to go my climbing partner got knocked off his bike and injured his shoulder, putting him out of climbing for a while. Must confess I was a little relieved though! Advice noted and will hopefully get there next year.