Barbara Zangerl unstoppable! After serving her "apprenticeship" as a boulderer that culminated, in 2008 and at merely 19 years of age, in her reaching the limit of female bouldering with her send of Pura Vida (Fb8a+/8b) in Magic Wood in Switzerland, the determined Austrian climber decided to turn her attention elsewhere. Inverting everything and directing her power no longer at short intense problems but towards countless moves on long multi-pitch routes up big rock faces. And, in rapid succession, she repeated routes which have come to symbolize a rigorous first ascent ethic coupled with extreme difficulties: Hotel Supramonte in Sardinia, Delicatessen in Corsica, End of Silence up Germany's Feuerhorn, Silbergeier in Switzerland's Rätikon, Des Kaisers neue Kleider on the Wilder Kaiser in Austria. Zangerl's transformation came about thanks to her supreme athletic background and this evolution now boasts another factor: her ability to carefully control mind and fear while executing a difficult trad climb. Yes, because yesterday afternoon she surprised everyone (first and foremost herself) with the first female repeat of Prinzip Hoffnung at the Bürser Platte in Austria. The slab and crack freed in 2009 by Beat Kammerlander and repeated recently by Italy's Jacopo Larcher. While the technical difficulties are estimated somewhere in the region of 8b/8b+, the crack - or rather two cracks - need protecting with tiny wires and during the first 10 meters falling off is strictly prohibited. Needless to say, Zangerl's ascent is of utmost importance and ranks as one of the hardest female trad climbs to date.
Planetmountain.com
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