Pythagoras

AW: Pythagoras

We climbed the route on 08 August 2020. It was a great and somewhat adventurous day so I thought sharing some of our experiences might be be useful for someone:

• according to the Wandbuch, we were the 7th ascending party - there was only one entry from 2019 and no entry from 2020 yet :)
• except for the very first stoneman when we branched off the main tourist path, we didn’t find any markers and managed to get to the route by mostly just orienting ourselves towards the wall (which is visible most of the time during the approach) - there was a small path to follow in the beginning but we totally lost it higher up - the approach took us 2 hours - orient yourself to the “right side of the entrance to the Kessel” and expect climbing up some debris slopes, through a small creek and also some 2-3ish climbing by the end
• last rainy day was Wednesday; we climbed it 2 days later on Saturday: it was still pretty wet, especially the first pitch - we managed to climb through all the wet parts but I suggest waiting for better conditions if you can
• the first pitch was the most challenging: imagine a long dihedral with it’s central crack fully covered with slimy mud and sometimes 3-4 meters between bolts while stepping into slimy little pockets (also covered with dirt) - both of managed to climb it without a rest but it was on the edge. Bring cams + I suggest 14 bolts if you want to clip some of the extra gear.
• the crux pitch was totally fine and extremely well bolted (about 16 bolts) - most of the time you can clip while still near the previous one - both of us fell due to broken down a hold (I actually fell two times for the same reason) - the crux crack was wet but since the stone is quite sharp there and there was no mud, it wasn’t an issue
• expect some quite brittle pitches - most of these are not hard and you can easily look around for alternatives and test holds but it wasn’t a pleasant ride
• all anchors had two points, most of them are connected via some sling; all bots were good quaility ones; we never felt lost in the route and could find the next bolt without much difficulty
• abseiling was fun and anchors was easy to find - there are two abseils where you get off the wall and abseil ~40 meters with nothing around you - one of them still high up the wall :)
• it got dark half an hour after we started walking down from the wall and we got completely lost - we abseiled down from a tree through the steep debris field at the top and then just followed the largest debris slope until we miraculously got down to the forest and hit the small footpah we started hiking up

Overall it was totally worth it: highlights are the wild and beautiful surroundings, the spectacular abseiling and the feeling of remoteness. Negatives are the problematic approach, the wet (slimy) conditions and the brittle rock. I've also uploaded a few photos.

Thanks Mario, Roman and Markus for making this possible!