Last Saturday was one the first warm and almost dry weekends in Germany – so Jan-Erik and I took the opportunity to drive over the French border into the Kronthal in the Vosges. Kronthal is a well known but still cool training spot for me. It is an old quarry next to Straßbourg and provides a wide variety of hard routes from 7a to 9a like no other area in the Vosges with amazing wall and roof climbing. I really like this area, because on the one hand most routes there are really cool to climb and on the other hand there are a great number of lines.
Sadly the Kronthal is next to a highway-like street – so if you are more interested rocks with a nice surrounding, I would drive a few minutes more into the Vosges (e.g. Grotte du Brotsch, Waldeck, Grotte du Baldur, etc.). The routes there are a little bit easier, but the natural surrounding and rocks are worth a visit.
„La Salpêtrière“ is a very impressive sector in Kronthal.
On this day we did „Fausses fractures“ – a tricky but nice 7a – and later on, we tried „Orange Amer“ (8a) and „Andro Gym“ (7c) in the left part of the Kronthal. Our day ended with a short rain shower, but I am looking forward to the following weekends (then hopefully without rain showers 🙂 ).
