ADAM, „VERTREIBUNG“ AND „MAXIMUS“ IN ELBE SANDSTONES

SECRET OPERATION

“Do you know what Adam climbed in Saxony?” “Any info on whether Adam sent Vertreibung today?” “Have you heard anything about Adam in Saxony?” Although this spring visit took place somewhat “under the radar,” word of mouth works, and news of these feats spreads easily even without social media. However, another awesome video from Adam’s production was released yesterday, so we can now publish the following interview.

In mid-March, Adam Ondra headed to the German side of the Elbe Sandstones to test for himself just how slippery it gets there without chalk. And it was better than he expected. Friction and strength were on his side, so he logged the second RP (PP) of the Saxon kingline Die Vertreibung der letzten Idealisten Xc, RP XIIa—the name could be translated as The Deportation of the Last Idealists.

This route through the center of the Nonnengärtner valley vall had long hung on a huge poster at Robert Leistner’s home; he and a group of friends had made the first ascent in 2005. But he knew he would return one day for the RP ascent. He drew notes on the poster for almost every foothold and handhold and memorized the route over the course of 14 years, all of which led to a successful free ascent. “I felt a huge sense of relief then, and it set me free,” Robert recalls.

And how did Adam, who logged the first RP repeat, like the route? “The line is awesome, the climbing is incredible, a real treat. The climbing style is such that the holds are mostly positive, and you can just crimp everything.”

Just like Adam’s parents in the 1980s, he, too, fell in love with Saxony this year. She’s “elegant, tall, flat, dark, and inaccessible”… The next route is called Circus Maximus AF XIb, and we’ll talk more about it below.

How does it actually happen that a climber living in Arco ends up in Saxony?
I’ve been drawn to Saxony—it’s been on my mind for quite some time. It’s harder for me with Czech sandstone… I can’t afford to chalk where it’s officially forbidden, and get caught on camera doing it. And the Left Bank in Elbe Valley? It seems to me that they’ve run out of routes there. Even To tu ještě nebylo XIIb is actually kind of a dud in terms of the line. Sure, in Teplice and Adršpach, you go and see those monumental walls and lines that could easily be French 9a. But for me, it doesn’t make sense to climb hard lines there without a chalk.

In 2022, I met up with Robert Leistner in Prague… And he explained to me a bit that in Saxony, there are routes that are worse without a chalk and routes where it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I saw this for myself once during a sweltering summer with Petr “Špek” Slanina at Czech Paradise, where it actually worked out… I found out that when the rock is more spongy, it soaks up sweat. And that it depends on whether you’re using more rounded slopers or positive holds.

Back home on the Czech sandstone, difficult climbing on positive holds is practically nonexistent. Whereas in Saxony, you can find quite a lot of it. And those routes in Saxony are from a completely different universe. From the little I saw, I thought to myself: ‘Wow, that’s a real madness. I haven’t seen anything like this in the Elbe Valley.’ And now I’ve discovered that the potential there is even greater than I thought…

It seemed to me that you arrived during the absolute best conditions the Elbe Sandstones have had this year. Temperatures up to ten degrees, dry weather, wind… That wasn’t a coincidence, was it? What were the logistics like?
I originally wanted to come last November, but after moving to Arco, I couldn’t make it happen. So the trip was postponed to this year, when I set aside the entire month of March for it. When the forecast a week ahead made it clear that the weather would be good, we organized it.

So someone from the Czech Republic heads up to the north face of the Eiger for a four-day window… And you headed out from Arco for four days to Saxony.
(laughs) Yeah, it was tough to coordinate. We had four cameramen with us, and Robert had to make time too… But we pulled it off. The weather was good on the first day. The second day was the coldest, but the humidity definitely made it the worst—chalk would have saved the day. It rained on the third day, and on the last day, when I was trying Circus Maximus AF XIb (by Robert Leistner, a 60-meter vertical route over 14 bolts, author’s note), it was absolutely perfect. Eight degrees, just the right breeze, neither cold nor hot, and low humidity.

AM I RIGHT HERE?

Was RP XIIa of Vertreibung your main goal?
Yes, I wanted to climb Vertreibung; Robert’s beautiful video really got me hooked… That route was the main reason I went there. And I knew about Circus, too. But I expected it would take me a while to climb Vertreibung, maybe even two trips. I thought to myself, “It’s going to be tough; you’ll make one attempt and need two days for your skin to heal.” I expected that a route like this, without chalk, would be much harder to climb.

So how did it go? And what was the OS attempt like?
I had no ambition to onsight it at all… I managed the first pitch, but it was a struggle. No warm-up, OS, roughly Xa/b (7c+ approx.) in Elbe Valley… It’s a bit more crystalline there, and when I climbed it, I thought to myself: “Man. Am I in the right place? I don’t know if I’ll enjoy this without a chalk…” But the second pitch is on completely different rock, with mostly positive holds and pockets. That was absolutely amazing.

But an onsight of this route? Even if it weren’t 8c but just 8b+, that would still be an incredible achievment’. It would mean onsighting an XIa, which would be completely blank on a vertical wall. Plus the fact that you don’t have any chalk… I don’t think anyone will onsight this route for a long time.

I fell a few times in that first crux, and it was quite an experience to take some whippers there. And I had Robert there, calling out the beta and belaying me. We just figured out that while Robert is about the same height, he has a wider reach, so I often couldn’t even reach the holds he was suggesting.

After me, young Jindra Hudeček junior gave it a top rope try and moved through it really nicely. You can tell he’s a top-notch climber.

The final section of the route follows the variation (Superdirekte Wand der Abendröte Xa from 1982, author’s note) by Jindra “Hudy” Hudeček and Standa Šilhán… Is this section a bit more bold than the rest of the route? Did you place any slings?
Robert had rappelled down the route the day before and cleaned it up a bit. Cameraman Honza Šimánek asked him if he could remove that fixed sling in the Superdirekt to make it more interesting for the video when I went to place it there…

But I looked at it from below and told Honza, “I definitely won’t be taking that sling.” Hudy also told me an interesting story about it. Apparently, Wolfgang Güllich once climbed Superdirekt, placed that sling there incorrectly, and fell from the top-out. He flew about 20 meters and nothing happened to him. That’s how I found out that the fall had already been tested by Wolfgang Güllich, so I had nothing to worry about. In the end, I didn’t even take the sling on the route, and I did the right thing—that placement would be pretty exhausting. If you don’t want to fall, you’re better off not placing it. I think that potential fall would have been totally fine there.

“If you don’t want to fall, you’re better off not placing it (the sling).”

I was a little surprised that the last ring is even there. Apparently, they didn’t even want to put it there at first, but in the end, Hudy was tired and drilled it in. The best part about the finish is that you’re climbing the Superdirekt, and between the second-to-last and last rings, there’s maybe eight meters where that fixed sling was, and you’re climbing hard there the whole time—combining finger holds and a hand-jam with the edge on the left. Truly beautiful. You reach the rest, where you clip the last ring, but there’s no no-hand rest and you’re still in a slighttly overhanging terrain…

And above you awaits a tricky 6C exit. And there, if that ring weren’t there, the exit would be a totaly crazy thing. It’s so high that it’s impossible not to be scared, yet a fall would still be safe. You’re eleven meters above the ring and yet still relatively safe. There aren’t many routes like that on sandstone; Klekání Xa comes to mind. You rarely have such a perfect “flight zone.” (laughs)

I deliberately wanted to onsight that last section. So on my first attempt, I climbed up to the junction of the two routes and left an extra quickdraw in the ring so I wouldn’t have to bring extra weight during the attempt. (laughs) On the free climb attempt, I then reached that ring, clipped the quickdraw to my harness, and climbed the final section to the top.

FROM BRNO TO SAXONY

So you checked off the main goal of the trip on the very first day… What did you climb next?
At Frienstein, I then tried the Hypnose Xa, RP Xb, where I fell at the first bolt. It was a typical situation there: if you’d used a chalk, it would’ve been like Bezzubý Yuchen (Xa) in Labák and you wouldn’t have had any trouble. But a little sloper at the first ring shot me down. I could totally feel the residual sweat from all those people who take rest at that ring and start fumbling around there for half an hour. I think if it were washed down with water, like they do at Fontainbleau, it would be a lot better.

You also climbed the Rübezahlstiege VIIIc route by Herbert Richter—you only need one quickdraw for that, right? How did you like it?
An absolutely amazing route. I didn’t actually meet Herbert in person, but I think his segment in the video is totally awesome. His comments are absolutely great. And that route, which he climbed barefoot, didn’t seem easy to me even in climbing shoes. Pretty intense for 1960.

Yeah, VIIIc some 66 years ago…
By the way, Saxony appealed to me partly because my parents used to go there in the ’80s. I think this area really shaped them. They hardly ever went to any other Czech sandstone areas because from Brno, the train to Saxony was always the fastest option. My parents met in Rathen in November 1983 and have been together ever since. That day, my father climbed Superlative IXc. (Alternating with Pavel Weisser and Bóďa Prudil, author’s note.) That was one of the few routes I’ve actually seen—years ago, Ivča and I went for a walk there. I really wanted to climb that one, and I’m sad it didn’t work out.

“My parents met in Rathen in November 1983 and have been together ever since. My father climbed ‘Superlative’ that day.”

A TRIP TO NIRVANA

What was next?
The second legendary route I knew from Jarda Maršík’s article was Ausflug ins Nirwana Xa. You climb a chimney there, from which you make a wild traverse into the valley wall. I managed to free climb it on two ropes so I wouldn’t have to belay… A truly wild route. I don’t think it’s particularly dangerous, but it’s an absolutely incredible experience—you have to figure out exactly where to climb out of that chimney. But you’re safe up there, and you really don’t want to leave.

Then you climb up to the grandiose valley wall and imagine yourself in Bernd Arnold’s position, who’s up there barefoot, and that terrifying wall has never been climbed… You believe those little holes will lead you all the way to the top. And that’s exactly how it is—they’re so perfect and exactly where you need them. A great combination of exposure and discomfort. At the top, I got stuck for about twenty minutes at three meters—it was also challenging in terms of orientation, and I got pretty stuck. (Given that this was likely the first free ascent of this route, Adam suggested the grade RP Xc, author’s note.)

Next, you tried Ewige Jagdgründe Xb, RP XIa from Robert Leistner and Tobias Wolf. How did that go?
I didn’t climb that on-sight; I fell twice there, and it’s a beast. I got completely pumped. (laughs) That would be an absolute hit in Elbe Valley. The first 15 meters are easy, and for the next 30 meters up to the top, you’re really climbing. And it’s still hard—no handholds come along. You’re combining wall climbing with edge climbing. I was thrilled by it.

I’d mostly been bouldering all winter, so I was lacking in endurance here. I really struggled with it. (laughs) If I’d managed to onsight it in my past endurance shape, I’d consider that an absolutely extreme achievement. It felt harder than Vertreibung to me. It’s consistently hard. Even the last two bolts in the slabby terrain, where you expect it to finally get easier, are brutal.

Does anyone even have it on RP?
Someone probably does. Maybe Felix Neumärker (Yes, and Tobias Wolf, ed. notice). If it’s supposed to be XIa, which would be an 8a+ in conversion, then that’s way off. Specifically on this route, though, the chalk would help you a lot more than on Vertreibung or Circus Maximus.

And what about the Circus Maximus?
It’s a crazy wild ride. I’d like to go back to that one someday—it’s a total challenge. That one really appeals to me. If we lived in Brno, I’d be back soon; this route has motivated me enormously…

It occurs to me… Would you like to try any route from Bernd Arnold’s strongest years in the future, where skipping the sling isn’t a good idea? Some “oldschool sandstone stuff” which you have to protect by your own?
I need to climb a few routes that are safe and easy, but where I’ll be forced to place my own gear. I’d like to learn this somewhere where my life isn’t literally on the line. Because my sling-placing skills are literally zero. And when I say zero, I mean absolutely zero. At the same time, I’m not suicidal, and I won’t climb something where it’s all about placing gear, especially on slightly worse rock. So this time I chose routes where you just clip the rings or don’t place anything at all… (laughs) Once I learn how to place slings, I might even be tempted.

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