Once again we receive a success message from a person who is not mentioned too often in the media. The German climber Michael Gunsilius succeeds in repeating the clean climbing route Principle hope (8b / 8b + E9-E10) on the Bürser plate.
Principle hope climbing is like a battle, says Beat Kammerlander in an interview after his first ascent in 2009. "The handles are extremely small, you get bloody fingers and ruin your climbing shoes," continues Beat. The climbing style, combined with the sparse protection, make the route a special case in times of perfectly protected sport climbing routes in the overhang. Exactly this video and the statements by Beat Kammerlander piqued Michael Gunsilius many years ago. For now, however, he has shelved the idea of a step through. It was only when friends from Michael's circle of friends scored the route that he seriously decided to plan the route. Michael told us how it went from there.
Michael Gunsilius on the process until the successful transition from Principle Hope
“On December 23, 2016, I started to boulder out the key point solo with the Micro Traxion. It went pretty well and I was able to climb the route relatively quickly in top rope (within a few days). Placing the wedges and trusting the mobile fuses, however, was not good enough to make a serious attempt until the rapidly rising temperatures in spring. At that time I decided to postpone the project until winter 2017/18. Since I work full-time as a management consultant and usually only have time on weekends for experiments on the rock and the weather often didn't play along, the project planning dragged on for another two months. How many days I finally needed, I can't say exactly, I estimate 10 days. On the last five days I only made one attempt at a time and ultimately needed five attempts to lead the way through. "
Michael Gunsilius before the successful climb
Who is Michael Gunsilius?
Michael lives in Durach, southeast of Kempten in the Allgäu. There are some conglomerate areas in the area for climbing. The 9a climber and 8b boulderer are often drawn to the nearby areas of Switzerland or Austria. Of course, Michael also likes to flee to the south, especially to Lake Garda. When asked whether he already had new goals and projects in mind, he replied evasively: “Of course there are future goals and dream tours, but I don't want to talk about them until they have been realized. Suffice it to say that if time allows, I definitely want to do a difficult multi-pitch tour. Then I would have performed relatively well in all disciplines. ”Well, then we’ll be curious to see which route Michael’s going to take. Maybe it will be Beat Kammerlander's latest test piece, Battle Zone (8c) in the Rätikon?
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