Janja Garnbret & Domen Skofic climb the highest chimney in Europe

Janja Garnbret and Domen Skofic from Slovenia started the world's longest artificial multi-pitch climbing route. The route is located at the highest chimney in Europe at 360 meters. We show pictures and the video of the inspection.

In 1976, the tallest chimney in Europe was built as part of the coal-fired thermal power station Termoelectrarna Trbovlje (TET) on the Save near Trbovlje. The power plant was closed at the end of 2014. Since then, the chimney has been the target of illegal climbing activities.

Flaviu Cernescu climbs up the chimney on the ladder

After numerous unauthorized inspections of the chimney along the installed ladder, a climbing route has now been set up on the Trbovlje chimney. The 13 pitches of the multi-pitch route called Never Ending Story were set up by Katja Vidmar and Simon Margon and represent a world record. It is the longest artificial climbing route in the world.

The route is divided into 13 pitches with difficulties between 7b and 8b +. The top athletes needed two attempts Janja Garnbret and Domen Skofic for free inspection.

For Janja Garnbret, who is one of the strongest competitive athletes in the world, the terrain was pretty unfamiliar.

Before she got into the climbing flow, she made a few falls into the rope. Her climbing partner Domen Skofic is also a typical competitive and sport climber. Before this project, he had only climbed a multi-pitch route once. He too had respect for the project, but at the same time was impressed by this gigantic artificial object.

Janja Garnbret and Domen Skofic inspecting the highest chimney in Europe

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Credits: Cover picture Jakob Schweighofer / Red Bull Content Pool