Magic Wood became one of the most popular bouldering spots in the Alps in the last years. The unique density of outstanding boulder problems in all grades and the familiar atmosphere on the camping makes this small spot sp special. The location at a relatively high altitude in the Swiss Averstal makes it a perfect bouldering area even in summer.
The rock of Magic Wood is made of coarse gneiss stone. Steep overhanging boulders and sharp crimps are characteristic for Magic Wood. Only the boulders near the river provide some washed-out slopers and differ from the rest of the area. Most of the classic boulder problems are graded between 7a and 8a. But as more and more climbers visited this spot in the last years, more boulders also in easier grades were established. The great diversity in grades and in the style of the boulder problems from slab to overhangs and from crimp battle to funky dynos are a great advantage of Magic Wood.
I fell in love with Magic Wood on my first visit and kept returning every year. And there are so many outstanding boulder problems that I want to climb that I never get tired of this place. One of the classic boulders that I wanted to climb, was ‚Jack’s broken heart‘ [8a/+]. For this, you have to climb a powerful roof traverse with some quite athletic movements, followed by a pretty high top-out slab. The landing is super exposed and the highball finish on the slab is quite scary. Each time I was in Magic Wood so far, I got some stories told of people you failed on the slab and missed the landing falling down the 6m descent. If you see the height of the boulder and the descent behind the landing, it is hard to believe that you survive such a fall …
When I first tried it, it was hard for me to get into the long moves of the roof traverse. And I was pretty afraid of the upper part – I refused to think about entering the slab section with tired forearms and slippery fingers. I was astonished by the ease of Paul, who could climb all the single moves quite fast and secure even though he still struggled to connect the movements. On the second day, I was able to do all the single moves and realized quite fast, that I had only a limited number of tries to climb this boulder. Trying the powerful lower part on and on until perfection was super exhausting and we got more and more tired.
So I focused and did some tries from the beginning even though I never climbed the connections before. I knew I had only a few tires left this day and completely focused on climbing – and then I just climbed the lower part and kept on climbing. Even a quick beta change in the shaky top slab could not stop me. Climbing this Magic Wood classic was a super cool feeling – and seeing the surprised face of Paul who had not expected me to climb this boulder on this day was also a quite good feeling.
Climbing this boulder way faster than I expected, I had no fixed projects for the following days. So, I could do what I love the most in Magic Wood: just run through the forest and try all these cool boulders standing around. Thanks a lot, Paul, for your patience and support …
