The creators of Actiontalk accompanied the German alpinist Robert Jasper to the place where he wrote climbing history several times and show the beginnings of mixed climbing and dry tooling.
Winter does not really live up to its name this year, especially for ice climbers it is a disappointing season in the Alps. But there is still the ice-free variation of this sport: dry tooling. In the first episode, we focus on an area that is not worth mentioning at first glance: The Grotto of Eptingen near Basel.
The grotto is just a stone's throw from the motorway, far from the big mountains. But one thing immediately catches the eye of the climber: the huge overhang. The German mountaineer Robert Jasper became aware of this place as early as the 90s and considered it a good training ground for combined walls in the Alps.
He started climbing on the scanty ice and kept dodging the crags with crampons and pimples. Mixed climbing was still in its infancy. In 1998 Jasper succeeded with “Trait de Lune” the first M8 + in Europe - of all places in this inconspicuous place. This was followed by further milestones such as “Ironman”, the world's first M14 +. At the same time, Jasper, who played a key role in the development of modern mixed climbing, transferred his findings to the Alps and committed futuristic lines such as “Flying Circus” on Breitwangflue.
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Credits: Text and image Actiontalk
