‚TNT‘ (8b+) – a short but super steep route with some really tricky moves. It’s one of the benchmarks in the Palatinate and after climbing ‚Mekka‘ (8b) at the beginning of the year, this was the next step.
The first time I tried TNT was some years ago after climbing ‚Gamba‘ (8a) and ‚Mamba‘ (8a+) at the Retschelfels. But even I was not weak at this point in time, I couldn’t do any of the moves in TNT. I had not the power and not the skills needed for TNT: after some easy moves at the beginning you have to do a small jump into a pocket, take some super bad under clings, put your foot super high into the pocket and do a tricky move to the edge of the roof. If you stick this move one time, you still have to do the super far top move to a good sloper rail and you probably will fall there a lot of time. (Except you are called Julius Westphal – then you can do it for warm-up 🙂 ).
The super far top move caused us falling a lot of times …
Last year in November Flo, Leon and I started to try it again and it still felt super hard. Well at least for Flo and me – Leon understood very fast how to climb the tricky crux in the middle and climbed it every time to the end of the route. But then he fell over and over again at the top move. Flo and I struggled with the tricky move to the edge of the roof. In the end, nobody of us was able to climb it before the winter and then the rock was closed for half a year.
After Leon sent it a few weeks ago, Flo and I were motivated to try it again. This time I felt way more comfortable and figured out very fast how to do the tricky moves in the middle part. I fell a few times at the top move, but then I was able to stick the last move and to send TNT. This was an absolute dream project – I am very happy that I finally did it. I don’t know exactly what made the difference in the end: climbing five days in a row to get the optimal shape or lots of chocolate cake before the final go. Who knows … 🙂
Even if I hated it at the beginning, I nowadays love to climb in the Palatinate, because it provides some premium climbing problems like TNT and even more cool problems in the lower grades. And I love it, hanging around with friends at some rocks trying to push the personal limit on and on. Thanks a lot to Flo, Leon and all the guys who joined us …
