From the first Via Ferrata to 6a+ Sport and Trad Multipitch
Via Ferrata to get things going
I had read about Via Ferrata before we headed to the south of Spain in March of 2019. The idea to spice up hiking with a bit of scrambling and Via Ferrata intrigued me - so I bought a cheap harness and the necessary kit to give it a try and put it in the van with the other stuff. One of our first camp spots was close to the Ferrata through up to El Cid and I took my new shiny gear and headed out and up. This first experience was great: Challenging as the Via is rated 4 out of 5 in difficulty and adventures as the protection is not as fancy and new as maybe in the alps. During the trip I did a few more vias and had great fun on them. I did learn to read the topos beforehand though as I encountered a zip line in one and did not have the necessary gear for it (I did rig something with a sling and a carabiner but had to wiggle my way along and rip up my hands good).
Onto real rock climbing
Back home I was convinced that I would continue to explore the space of climbing by continuing to do Ferrata. Additionally my girlfriend and I started to discuss whether we should give proper rock climbing a try as we live in one of the prime spots for climbing in Europe and could do this hobby together. After a bit of back and forth (mainly me being hesitant of buying stuff and then maybe not using it). We took the plunge and invested about 300 Euro in a basic set of sport climbing gear for two people. Shortly after that I stood at the base of a 3c climb with quickdraws on my harness and my girlfriend ready to secure me. We had practice at home beforehand but this was true learning by doing - which worked out well for us but might not be the way for everyone! In the few weeks we headed out on a regular basis to local spots and explored and continued to learn a bunch (both that we really liked climbing and in terms of skills and technical know how).
Introduction to alpine and multi-pitch
As the summer drew I got more and more interested in expanding from single pitch sport climbing to longer stuff aka multi-pitch and maybe going into the real mountains. After some self guided study of the I took the decision that taking some training in that area would be a good idea to learn quickly and not make any possibly fatal mistakes. Also a course might be helpful to validate what we had been doing on our own so far. After some googling I found that the German Alpine Club (DAV) has a training department that offers an introductory course on alpine and multi-pitch climbing - exactly what I was looking for. So in July I headed out to the Alps for this course but I added a few days of Via Ferrata climbing with a friend from Hamburg right before that. You can read about this trip in Austria here!
From Austria I went right to the outermost corner of Germany and the German alps for my weeklong course which happened in the mountains surrounding the Blaueishütte (a beautiful place to be). In hindsight the course was useful but a bit too long for what was covered. In summary it confirmed that the stuff we had done so far was solid and correct, that the multipitch skills are not that complicated if you work methodically and that climbing longer routes in the stunning setting of the high mountains is great fun! I capped this trip to the Alps with a traverse of the Watzmann mountain ridge with Jochen, whom I had met at the course. Again you can read all about that here.
Continuing to improve and explore
Back in Spain we continued to climb outside on a weekly basis still progressing in skill, grades and also climbing specific fitness. We already were looking forward to meeting friends for a climbing related trip to Germany in August again. That trip went to the industrial area of the Ruhrgebiet of all places. That seems like a weird idea but read why it's not here!
Later that year we again went out with our Van on a trip through France this time and now had the climbing gear packed and ready. We did not seek out climbing areas specifically but always looked on thecrag.com wherever we went and almost always found something that peaked our interest. The highlight might have been the first multi pitch my girlfriend and I did in the Arsine climbing area in the shadow of the Meije. Oh yeah and there were many Via Ferrata too.
To cap 2019 Jost from Hamburg visited us on Mallorca and we did tons of stuff including a rather exciting ascent of a 8 pitch trad route in the Tramuntana mountains. Since then we still go out on a at least weekly basis and I am happily pushing my limit almost every time. I also continued the climbing specific strength training I started a few months into this journey. For 2020 there tons of stuff planned even though the whole Covid-19 mess has already led to a few changes as we had to cancel a trip that would had included tons of climbing at the Costa Brava and Montserrat - however we will definitely pick this up as soon as things get back to normal. Until then I will need to stick to suffering on the hang board I guess!
Adventurers: Brigitte, Jost, Jochen, Melanie, Bengt