ALTER TRAUM

A WELL-FORTIFIED CASTLE

Prague was no longer safe. In 1420, church dignitaries took part of the St. Vitus treasure to the sandstone castle of Ojvín, where king Charles IV used to go to relax, to protect it from Hussite raids. Later, it turned out that their tactical maneuver had paid off – the valuables they had hidden in the underground chambers beneath the chapel remained safe there. The castle withstood two major raids, and the treasure remained there until 1562, when the Jesuits moved it back to Prague.

Today, the place is called Oybin, it is located on German territory and hides another treasure: the oldest sandstone route graded Xa. Just walk to the east side of the castle and you will see a roughly 50-meter wall of unusual shape. It looks like a cast of a wavy sea surface (including bubbles) that someone erected and leaned against the side of an impregnable table mountain.

This is where the fairy tale was supposed to end, but it actually continues: the first climber, Werner “Schöni” Schönlebe, about whom you can read more below, invested a lot of his time in this wall, especially in 1981. From the summer onwards, he spent every free moment on the forbidding vertical face of the Nordwestlicher Zwilling tower, and it reportedly took him a whole day of climbing before he managed to place a thin sling in a crack from a climbing position so that he could drill the fourth ring-bolt. When he completed his work on November 1, the route Alter Traum (Old Dream) was created, which Schöni modestly rated IXb.

However, it soon became apparent that this number was quite off the mark – the first brave climbers agreed on a difficulty rating of Xa, RP Xb. (Alter Traum thus surpassed Bernd Arnold’s 1982 route Schallmauer as the oldest ten, author’s note.) And it also resisted Czech climbers for a long time… We know, for example, about the attempt by Jindra “Hudy” Hudeček and Jörn Beilke. “We climbed AF style to the fourth ring (out of seven, author’s note) and then rappelled down. We also wanted to check out the neighboring Trilogie Xb that day, and we almost climbed it, but we didn’t have the energy left for RP attempts,” recalls Jörn. Another climber, Ondra “Plagát” Sojka, also reached the fourth ring in 2018, but he blacked out on the route, so the wall also resisted. “It was already winter and we ran out of willpower.“

So we set ourselves a goal in the editorial office that we would like to capture a Czech ascent and that we would lure someone to this historic route. The first documented challenger was Sam Maštálko, who bailed the route in 2019 at the third ring. After three years, we returned to the site with Honza Kendík – another attempt and another bailing at the third, enchanted ring. It looked like we were going to give up on this idea, but we decided to give it one last chance. In 2024, we persuaded Honza Vopat to give it a go, thanks to whom we can publish the following video with the label: “Climbed.” It may have been an “AF-battle” style climb, but it was successful. Good triumphed over evil. Will Honza ever return for RP? You’ll find out in the new video…

In 2022, we revealed on the eMontana website that we were going to attempt the climb… Martin “Magnusek” Klonfar later admitted to us that this motivated him to try Alter Traum as well. And anyone who knows Magnusek will not be surprised that he was the one who ultimately made the first Czech ascent. How did it go? We asked him for a report:

AN UNEXPECTEDLY INTENSE REWARD

Martin „Magnusek“ Klonfar

I realized that I needed to try Alter Traum after searching eMontana for Czech climbs a few years ago. Until then, I considered Schallmauer in Rathen to be the oldest Xa in Saxony. Last fall, I went climbing with Vojta (Přibyl), and since he needed to be back in Liberec early, I offered him a lucrative destination in Oybin. Or rather, I kind of forced it on him, as he might have preferred to jam his knee somewhere else… But given the direction and strength of the wind, it was the only place where we could climb that day without ruining our hairstyles.

The weather was definitely suitable for sports, but it’s a north face and the reserves of slime in the holes probably dry up rarely – so there was no point in distracting ourselves with thoughts of RP. Fortunately, the boulder from the third ring is without dirty holds. It took me a while to figure it out, and then I climbed it several times because, surprisingly, the fun doesn’t end in the belt of holes below the fourth. You have to hold on a little (the dirty holds come back into play), but your feet are bare and the ring is high. I could reach the quickdraw, but in the end I had to jump over the ring. Fortunately, as a “classic” climber, I can afford to do that. And it definitely didn’t work on the first try. Then there are about two difficult moves around the fourth ring to get to the crack. Linking it all together would be a pretty bold goal for me, even without the frog slime.

The crack looks like it will be a reward, but surprisingly, after turning left, the reward became unexpectedly intense, spiced up with many meters from the ring, where I failed to put any sling. There are a couple of rotten in-situ slings there, nothing to write home about. I think Vojta liked this part the most.

Fortunately, we had already climbed Reginakante (VIIIa) before, so there were no further surprises after the connection.

I can’t really imagine how the local “Handsome” (Schöni) climbed it back in the Mesozoic era with slippers on his feet. It’s probably a different league altogether.


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Below in the gallery, you will find photos from all three attempts that we have documented over the past six years. We would also like to thank our assistant cameramen, Pepa Horák and Thomas Pöschmann, who accompanied us to the site.

BALANCE ON BEER BOTTLES

And what was this “handsome” Schöni actually like? Military service in the 1970s took the boy from Thuringia (*1951) to the barracks in Zittau, in other words, within striking distance of the sandstone towers of the Zittauer Gebirge. He spent his free time there, and when he couldn’t climb outside, he trained. He even built various training circuits on the floor of the barracks.

He was one of the first climbers to take a systematic approach to training. This included walking on taut chains or ropes – he trained his balance at a time when slacklines did not yet exist. “For him, training was more than just fun,” recalls Andy Stephan from Saxony, who was lucky enough to meet him a few times.

Jörn Beilke knew him a little better: “I spent weeks with him and other friends at the Kirchlehnhütte in Krippen, Saxony. (In the 1980s, this hut was a central meeting place for climbers from the GDR who wanted to leave the country, author’s note.) We did a lot of climbing at that time. Schöni also tried to improve his bread baking, search for medicinal plants, repair the stone walls around the house, and improve climbing harnesses… In other words, these few sentences are not enough to describe his personality. Incidentally, Schöni also traversed the winter ridge of the High Tatras with Michael Urbczat and wrote a book on training.

In 1989, Schöni left Saxony and moved to Franconian Switzerland (Bavaria, author’s note), where he lived with other climbers in a mill for some time. “Schöni never fit into any social framework; he loved nature and his freedom. He liked to move from place to place. Although he had a university education, he didn’t mind earning a living doing odd jobs so that he could climb. Freedom was more important and valuable to him,” summarizes Klaus Leupolt in his article for the DAV yearbook.

Schöni often spent the last winters of his life in Spain, mostly near climbing areas. However, he almost completely gave up climbing itself. His motto was: “If I can’t climb at the top level, I’d rather not climb at all.” Over time, he withdrew almost completely into seclusion, and very few people remained in contact with him. “I also remember him as taciturn and solitary. He would leave for the south in winter to seek warmth and live there the whole time in his car with only his dog,” recalls Andy Stephan.

Schöni left behind other routes from the period of his life when he was at his peak. In addition to Alter Traum, he also completed the aforementioned Trilogy, which is an even bigger challenge than the route we filmed. It is located on the same wall a few steps to the right, has a minimum number of repeats, is sometimes listed as Xb/c AF, and has not yet been RP climbed.

If you want to get acquainted with his style in a slightly gentler form, you can try, for example, the famous ârete called Pferdefuss Xa, RP Xc on Teufelsturm in Saxony. Lots of rings, beautiful line… It’s a safe route, but it hasn’t counted many RP ascents. Schöni also has his mark on the legendary west face of Meurerturm: Zwischenspiel ! VIIIc, RP IXa, which he climbed with his main climbing partner Steffen Otto from Waltersdorf in the Zittau Mountains. (By the way, Steffen climbed Alter Traum five times and didn’t even write it down in the book, author’s note).

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to interview Schöni for the video – he died in 2023 and he is commemorated by a small plaque next to the start of the Alter Traum route.

HONZA VOPAT RECALLS

“It was a beautiful, cool, sunny autumn day
when Honza Kendík, Standa, and I stood under a shady wall with the Alter Traum route. As far as the eye could see, about 18 meters, it was well protected, with no risk of falling to the ground or a brutal fall… But I didn’t know that the part you couldn’t see was three times higher and had significantly fewer rings than the beginning. For me, at least, the main part of the show takes place in this upper passage. The entire route thoroughly tests a person’s climbing skills and quickly reveals their weaknesses, except perhaps for brute strength, which is only useful in overhangs.”

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Thanks for all those who supported our editorial team during 2025. For the coming year you can buy our new vignette/sticker. Happy climbing!

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