Hard New Ice Climging Routes and Scary Soloing in Austria

On January 7th the Austrians Albert Leichtfried and Benedikt Purner completed the first ascent of Centercourt WI7+, 300m. This route is located in the Eisarena in Gasteinertal, Austria. It took Leichtfried one and a half hours to climb the crux pitch of Centercourt, placing a single bolt on the lead that still did not make him feel that this pitch was safe. The line is now probably one of the hardest ice fall routes in Europe. Leichtfried and Purner are both Austrian Alpine Guides and are building up quiet a resume of hard new routes in their home country. Before Christmas they climbed a 1000m long route that weighed in at WI6/M7 that they named Moonwalk.

Continuing the hard Austrian ice ticks this month was Rudolf Hauser. Just to the side of Centercourt is a 270m long WI6 called Supervisor. This route was first climbed nearly twenty years ago by Joseph Steinbacher and Hans Zlobl and it took them eight hours. In January this year Rudolf Hauser free soloed the route in one hour and forty minutes.

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source: climbmagazine.com