Bielatal Day 1 | chossclimbers.com

Go back to Saxon Sandstone.
Go back to Decin And Family.

Chinesischer Turm.

A 45-minute drive the next morning along progressively narrowing roads; one particular section near the end was overgrown with bushes on either side and featured a road sign showing a fat red circle with a white interior which I think is Euro for “stay the fuck out.” Nevertheless, we persisted and finally emerged in a tiny village on the German side. Helmut and Sophie (who’d serve as an interpreter for this first day) met us at a parking lot and we hiked up 10 minutes to a cluster of small towers. They looked at our assortment of pretied monkey head knots and only shook their heads. The main issue is that for cord of 7mm or less, it needs to be Kevlar or it’s just not strong enough when placing the knot as a nut. Instead, we borrowed a handful of Czech-made “ufos” [oofos] from Helmut – canvas protection which works a bit like a very large slider nut – to supplement our slings and cords. We did two very easy, single pitch routes (Winkelriss and Löschnerwand, both on Daxenstein Tower) to get used to the highly unusual protection. After that, we climbed a slightly harder Alter Weg on the small but proud looking Chinese Tower (Chinesischer Turm). This gave us a nice preview of a couple more towers for the following day.

Photos

First day commute to the climbing. Germany on the left; Czech Republic on the right. The tiny road shadows the border for a few kilometers here (August 2021).

Leading Winkelriss route on Daxenstein Tower. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Higher on Winkelriss (August 2021).

Views from the summit of Daxenstein (August 2021).

Shirley on Winkelriss. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Shirley nearing the top (August 2021).

Shirley on the summit (August 2021).

Daxenstein summit (August 2021).

More summit views (August 2021).

Unknown climber on a next door tower (August 2021).

At the rap ring on Daxenstein (August 2021).

Waiting out a brief rainstorm (August 2021).

Leading Loschnerwand on Daxenstein (August 2021).

More Loschnerwand. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Nearing the top. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Shirley starting up Loschnerwand. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Shirley on Loschnerwand (August 2021).

Shirley topping out on Daxenstein again (August 2021).

Not sure what the pointer thing is (August 2021).

Rapping off Daxenstein (August 2021).

Moving over towards Chinesischer Turm (August 2021).

Starting up the Alter Weg route on Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower; August 2021).

Leading Alter Weg belayed by Shirley. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Higher on Alter Weg (August 2021).

Almost there. Photo by Helmut (August 2021).

Shirley starting up the Chinese Tower (August 2021).

Views from the summit of Chinesischer Turm. Leftmost tower in the distance is the Kleine Herkulessaule; on the menu for the following day (August 2021).