The event isn’t any old meeting, but a unique three-day climbing meeting with competitions, prize draw, climbing workshops and parties on the beach. Furthermore, this Kalymnos Festival will host some of the world’s most famous climbers.

The Festival is also an opportunity to test climbing skills in various competitions, such as the particular one which takes place at the completely new crag – word has it that its truly amazing – which has been equipped specifically for this event.

Check out THE NORTH FACE JOURNAL and sign up for the event. I´ll be there, hope you too …

Check out this little movie from Story Teller Collective:

Enjoy a short trailer about our experience. I tried to edit something from my gopro-footage …

Patagonia February 2012 – Trailer from Hansjörg Auer on Vimeo.

With different partners I pushed the route upwards starting together with my friend Ben end of Feburary. The plan was to stay on the wall at least for three days with portaledge. I was impressed, as we reached the base. I didn´t expect such an overhanging wall. Anyway, this attempt turned out to be not the right one. A brooken stove, bad weather and hard terrain forced us to retreat on the second day.

My younger brother Vitus, my friends Elias and Berti accompanied me on the next days. Hard aid climbing combined with some free sequences on super loose rock was the deal. It was tricky, scary and cold with a nearly fatal fall on the last day when I fell off with a big flake, which chopped all my protection too. I was glad that my brother Matthias was going with me on that memorable summit day.

Of note: 60 years ago some climbers out of the group around the legendary Hermann Buhl tried to make the first ascent of the Crystal Wall. Even the vision to climb it at that time commands my full respect. They stopped their attempt after the easier first two pitches. They left one piton.

Get some impressions by reading the words describing the last day on the wall:

40 cm of fresh snow. Minus 10° Celsius. We are taking turns making our 2-hours way up to the base of the wall today. The climbing starts. After a few minutes, a big noice and everything is in motion. I scream, don´t know whats going on. A few seconds later: Silence. I feel pain on my back. My right hand is bleeding. I´m hanging headfirst. The moments of the big fall at the beginning of the day. I check my harness with big eyes. I lost important gear. One of the gear slings broke. But I´m too psyched to retreat now. I´m giving everything I have. Fighting hard, can´t feel my toes in my climbing shoes but after three new pitches I reach the bottom of the long final snow field. Matthias arrives. We smile. Now we know that the way up to the summit is free. But the terrain acts deceptive. We are looking for snow crusts, but our crampons are scraping often the blank rock below. At 5pm feeling the last sun of that day we shake our hands at the highest point.

Height: around 500 meters

Grading: M6, 6c/A3

Left gear: 20 bolts, 6 pitons, 2 stoppers

I love the EOCA model. It is a neutral organisation, working together with the biggest outdoor brands to protect nature – somthing we all need to be proactive in doing. We have to think about the sustainability of what we are doing in our every day lives adoring the mountains.

Find out more and visit: EOCA – European Outdoor Conservation Association

It´s my third time on a trip to the mountains of Patagonia. On my first visit, my friend Thomas and I we just had one goal. We wanted to climb summits. After three weeks we stood on Cerro Torre, Ag. Saint Exupery and nearly on Fitz Roy. We climbed fast, with a mix of free and aid but economic. We just needed good weather and with our goal of just reaching the summit it was not necessary to have the best conditions.

In 2009 I was establishing a new route on the Central Tower of Torres del Paine. We climbed with portaledge in capsule-style. A tactic which allows you to use bad weather or at least short weather windows to gain new terrain. It was hard but it worked out perfectly.

This time I am psyched to try the best form of mountaineering. Alpine style free climbing. I´m teaming up with my good friend and best rope partner Much Mayr. Ten years ago he had a vision. Everyone was traveling to Patagonia for summits, but he wanted to free climb. He rather climbed a few pitches free instead of reaching the highest point. Over two seasons he tried to free Torre Egger, scouted out the easiest line and had a few attempts. He was always shut down by bad weather and icy conditions. Eight years later we wanted to finish his vision. But we´ll need not only good weather. We need best conditions too.

After the incredible January bad weather was covering the Torres for more than 20 days. It was getting colder and colder. The cracks and dihedrals seemed like snowy, slopy ledges. And the chance of trying to free something on this great walls was despite my never ending motivation supersmall.

But finally good weather arrived. Last chance, let´s go. We hiked up. Waited for one day and kept an eye on our project. But we missed the runlets, which are appearing, when the sun is heating the rock. Nothing. Simply nothing happend.

Plan „B“. We teamed up with Thomas and Mario for a first ascent on La Silla Westface. A beautiful and 1200 meters high wall on the fourth highest peak of the mountain range.

We climbed, jugged, rappeled and got to our bivy spot after a long day. Much and Mario fixed our two ropes during the evening sun and everything was ready for the final summit push. But then as the darkness of the night was losing ground it started snowing. We waited, suffered in our bivy but there was no sign of improvement in weather. The hard decision was payable.

Descending, one more night on the base of the wall but somehow at least happy that the patagonian weather let us the chance to try a new route I stopped on our walk back for a minute. Good bye and see you next year.

I´m trying to inhale the perfect smell which the wind is blowing down from the summits. I´m following my friends Thomas, Mario and Much outwards and somehow one phrase out of a famous movie directed by Woody Allen came in my mind:

“There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win.”

That´s not how I used to teach mathematics when I worked in school some years ago. No, it´s how our group changed in terms of their entirety during the trip.

(Kilian, Anna, Heiko, Barbara, Sabine, Lukas, Elias, Me) + (Ben, Lu) – (Sabine, Lukas, Elias) = (Kilian, Anna, Heiko, Barbara, Ben, Lu, Me)

All in all we had lots of fun regardless who was joining or leaving us. Beside playing football and joking around on the rest days we had some really nice fights and sends of routes up to 8c and perfect climbing conditions for the whole time. We climbed in Margalef, Balaguer, Santa Linya and Oliana. Viva Espagna … hopefully next year too.

This time you can enjoy not only climbing pics ;-) … Thx to Heiko.

To be honest, I felt a little bit drained after the last free solo climb on Schüsselkarspitze. But the conditions for climbing have been just like a dream. Perfect weather with perfect conditions. So for sure I went out to experience more of the amazing routes near my home. It was really weird to climb on our crags at beginning of Dezember. Normally you´ll just find some chamois searching for some remained climbers food ;-) …

I don´t know where to start so maybe I just write down a list with some catchwords. It´s normally not my style to tell you stories, but maybe that´s the best way to make this Tohu-bohu more clear and it´s anyway nothing special:

Hexentanz der Nerven on Schüsselkarspitze/Wetterstein:

short, super fun, poor protection, together with Matthias – a friend from the college of education, coincidence that we met the evening before

Schlemmerrisse on Fleischbankpfeiler/Wilder Kaiser:

cold, no sun, cool crack line, one of the best routes in Wilder Kaiser

Feuertaufe on Urlkopf/Lofer:

David in good shape – freed everything, I checked out the sequenzes for my go (hopefully next year), not so hard as expected

Sport climbing:

Climbing Team Ötztal spent some days on our new crag, Heiko and myself bolted it already a few years ago, hard stuff, we need more training; spent a few days on the crag called Chinawall too, tried the second ascent of Much Mayr´s latest first ascent, unfortunately no success; also cleaned two amazing trad lines just a few minutes from my home together with my friend Heiko, a lot of work, for trying them we have to wait for the next season – the place is like a fridge

The North Face Athlete Summit in Sayulita/Mexico:

meetings, working, fun, party, supercool team, inspiring, new expeditions, long travel, …

HAPPY NEW YEAR and BIG THX TO MY SPONSORS!!

Last days have been really intense. I don´t know why, but I played the match again. I walked on the borderline between passion and sanity. I was searching for this discrepance for a long time. To be honest, I never found the perfect moment during the last four years. I thought that I am more or less done with free solo climbing. But on the same side I knew that it will come back anyway in sudden. I was just rappeling after a nice climbing day with a friend of mine after doing the route „Hexentanz der Nerven“ on the same face and suddenly I got the message. Two days later I set off.

I free soloed a multi pitch route called „Bayrischer Traum“. Around 400 meters high, steep and a classic line. It´s located on the Southface of Schüsselkarspitze in the Wetterstein Mountains. It was opend in 1980 and free climbed in 1983. I climbed the route first time in 2002 but I was not able to free it. Then I never went for it again. I did many other routes on the wall. The most impressive days for me were the first free ascent of „Vogelfrei“ in 2009, the first repeat of „With or without you“ and the Free Solo of „Locker vom Hocker“, both during the incredible year of 2007. And last week I was able to add another important day for me.

The crux pitch felt hard. It´s exposed, steep and kind of powerful. If I compare it to the Free Solo of „Pesce“ it´s not far behind. For sure the new solo adventure is still more in my mind than all the other things and the facts that it was the first time to climb a powerful sequenze without rope and that my physical shape is not the best at the moment due to traveling too much over the last weeks, influences maybe my cognition. But anyway, I don´t want to challenge my adventures. I just want to tell you the truth how I experienced it.

„I climbed up along the West Ridge to the summit the day before. Everything went perfect. I was able to sneak out from every person who was around. I enjoyed a perfect sunset, made some amazing pictures before I went for the bivy. On the next morning I rappelled in and checked out the hardest sequenzes over four hours. There was no moment where I thought that it´s not possible, but I knew that the crux will be demanding. I was completely steered from this powerful cocktail of self confidence. I arrived on the base of the wall, chilled for an hour, listened to my ipod music and started at 1 pm. After one hour I topped out, screamed to signalise the end of my concentration, walked a little bit around and sat down and left my thoughts drifting. I climbed down the West Ridge, packed my stuff and walked down silently. When I came home, I was totally psychological exhausted. I started to talk about my adventure with my family and close friends. It helped me a lot.“

There is no clear grading of the route. It´s somewhere around UIAA 8. The route is well protected with bolts. Some pitches were cleaned up years ago. From this it follows that the line is not a demanding masterpiece, but in Free Solo Style you just pass the gear and you get a different feeling. I can tell you.

I spent the last days with Luka Krajnc and his girlfriend Nastja. Luka is a great Dolomites climber from Slovenia and a really relaxed guy. A few days ago time has come to do an El Cap ascent without hauling and working to much. Just climbing light and fast in French-Free-Style. We went for the Salathe Wall on the Southwest Face.

I led the first block up to “Heart Ledges” where Luka headed on for the cracks up to “The Alcove”. I took the lead up the amazing corner systems to “Sous le Toit”. Then it was again Luka´s time for the “Headwall” before I finished with the four pitches from “Long Ledge” up to the summit.

It took us 14 hours of climbing to reach the top. We climbed many pitches free and pulled on gear on the harder sections. For sure it was miles away from the record time but our goal was to enjoy the lightness of climbing, do it in one day and follow this outstanding line on it´s 50th birthday. It´s really amazing to find out what achievement Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt and Tom Frost made for the climbing community. The crack up the headwall looks amazing. Exposed, steep and long. Hopefully I will find some time for a free climbing session in future.

The comment of Tom Evans, the legend on the bridge, was quite funny:

A European team, whose names are Luka and Hans, are dressed just right, and as a result have sent the entire route in just 14 hours. They were last seen, today, moving up the headwall as I departed. See folks… it pays to dress well!! What to wear while jugging on the Salathe. Hans has it made now!

I met Hazel in Camp4 and the first thing we did was hauling our bags up to “Heart Ledges”. Two days later we set off. Within the next 5 days we freeclimbed every pitch except the “Monster Offwidth”, where I slipped completely unexpected two meters below the final ledge. Unfortunately due to my totally wounded knees it was impossible for me to do this pitch again. Hazel seconded it free.

Then the route goes up right. We had lots of fun on the technical face climbing pitches. I climbed the “One move pitch” second go and onsighted most of the upper hard pitches. In total I climbed everything onsight except five pitches, which I did on next goes and the mistake on the “Monster Offwidth”.

At the beginning Hazel had some problems to stick the reachy bouldery move on the “One move pitch”, but finally she found a crazy solution. She climbed everything free and the fact, that she followed some of the crux pitches is just a forgetfully detail and changes nothing to pronounce big congrats about her ascent. She became the first woman free climbing Golden Gate and with her talent and strength it won´t be her last free climb on El Capitan.

Supercool!!