Today I’ve sent “The Essential” (9a) at Luisenwand in Frankenjura which was first climbed by Markus Bock in 2008. It’s a short bouldery route on small pockets and crimps. It actually comes down to approx. 8 meters of hard climbing.

Right at the 2nd bolt I took several gastons and thumb holds in weird angles. It is very special and definitely the hardest passage of the route for me. It finishes with a deadpoint move where I cross over into a two finger pocket while I’m really stretched with my body. When I figured out the moves I thought it is so hard just because of the bad holds but in the end I realized that it’s about the right body position. When I extruded my right leg it felt more in control and doable. Just a tiny difference makes it work.

Afterwards it isn’t over. There is still another deadpoint move from a small two finger slot into a two finger pocket which is pretty hard. I never fell there when I’ve tried it from the bottom but I was always close to fall. Today I just fell once at the last hard move of the route. As I fell into the rope I couldn’t trust my eyes. I felt so confident to stick it but I somehow missed the good hold in the crack on a long move to the side. So back on the ground I rested a bit longer as usual, put on the syked-mode and fired this beast off afterwards. That felt great when I clipped the anchor

It’s my first 9a in Frankenjura. Some years ago it still felt impossible to send 9a in Frankenjura but nowadays not anymore. At the moment I feel in good shape and I’m super motivated. I’m with Ruben and he is also working on it. It already looks pretty good and I think he is close to send it too. We’ve still some days left here. The conditions seem to be good. It started to get warmer due to sunnier weather and therewith it became more humid but we don’t mind. We want to crush anyway

More to come soon and cheers from Bamberg

David