Menhir - the adventure

First of all I have to tell you what Menhir is.

Menhir is a single pich on the big and amazing "Meisules dala biesces" wall. Well, Meisules is known for some of the best alpine routes in the area, but Menhir is different... something special.
As I said it's a single sport climbing pich. There are no other routes, neither easier ones nor harder ones. So you walk up the slope just for this single route. Already this makes Menhir something different, but there are more things that make this route so special.
For example the length. Menhir is 45 meters long, a real endurance test piece.
This route is also pretty much conditions dependent. In the winter you can't climb over there because of the snow and the low temperatures. So if you want good conditions you have to try Menhir in the summer. But also in the summer the conditions are different. If you try the route in the morning the sun shines and it's really hot. As soon as the sun disappears the temperatures drop and it's almost cold. The conditions for climbing are perfect in the shadow but for belaying it's quite cold.
All this things make Menhir so special and so amazing.

But let's get to the ascent now:

Some moves after the crux                                                                                                                            Pic by Martin Dejori

 I tried Menhir for the first time about 2 years ago (2010) with my good friend Rudi. He almost onsighted the route and did this 45 meter pich on his second go. Impressive =) But I had no chance. I did every move quite easily and climbed through the crux, wich might be a 7a boulder, on my first try. Nevertheless I came not even close on climbing the whole route, I had by far not enough endurance.
Then, one year later (2011), I went up once again, but walked back down with the same result as the year before. I needed to get much more endurance.
This year my motivation for this route was much bigger and I really wanted to climb the whole pich. At the beginning of the summer I thought that once again I have not enough endurance because I was mainly just bouldering, but the bouldering strenght helped me a lot on this route. And finally my dream came true.
It was the third time I went up to try Menhir this summer. The second time with my friend Andi. Because of the lenght of the route I never did more than 2 tries but Andi said we might just have one try because it might start raining every second. Last time Andi was the first to start and this time it was my turn to start. I wasn't sure if I should climb up just a little piece to get warm or if I should immediately give it a serious try. I gave it a serious try! I felt confident and shaked my way up the wall. My fingers were feeling strong and I wasn't getting pumped at all. After about half an hour I clipped the chain not even being really pumped. I was just super happy and I still am super happy.
After me Andi gave it a burn beeing really motivated now that I have climbed the route. He climbed easily through the crux but fell of some moves after. He wanted to climb up as far as he can once more to built up some endurance, when all of a sudden it started raining! Well, after a few seconds it was not just raining anymore, it was hailing! We were in the middle of a big thunderstorm. Since the wall of Menhir is not so steep there is not a lot of space to be covered from the rain so we decided to pack up our stuff and run down to the car. Run, run, run... and when I was finally sitting in the car I was just laughing. I have never been so wet before... a real adventure =)