It's quite a while since the last captain's words were written. In the last two-months we've had good ‘passatwinds’, which let us travel the seas quite fast these days. By the way, the sea had been quite rough last week, but lets go step by step and start where it all began…

 

Above: Pinotage-7C+, Sektor Sassies, Rocklands.

In a beautiful village called frankenfels, the home of the unrepeated 'Mauerblümchen' 8b+/c. It took me quite a while to figure out the secret of the protagonist on the other side of the ring, than he goes down in the 5th round. (sorry folks, I love these stupid metaphors).

The next harbour was a well-hidden wall in Styria, the place where Conan, Mr. Universe and the Terminator were born. Quite magical, with incredible limestone and guess what? I wasn’t going to tell you where it was because otherwise all these Styrian Conans and Mr. Universes will come to terminate me.  I did an outstanding and technical 8b 3rd try and later that day flashed 'Schwarzes Blut' 8a+.

Above: Flash ascent of 'Schwarzes Blut '8a+ at Styria

In June Flo and I tried 'City Slickers' our 300m project at the Dachstein area. I could redpoint the third and maybe hardest pitch (8b), before a thunderstorm forced us to rappel from the 4th pitch.

Above: Rocklands

And than: Rocklands! The Promised Land. My 6th visit so far. A lot of bouldering, exploring, hanging out, meeting new and old friends... just perfect. I planned to stay 6 weeks, but unfortunately I had to leave after 2 weeks, because while checking the x-ray (which looked like an image they might have used 100 years ago) of my heel the doctor said: “You've got a problem my friend: your heel is broken…” Two days, 20 hours of flying, 10 painkillers and a not so obvious amount of beer later, the doctor in Vienna said, “Lucky bastard, not broken”.

Above: Working The Vice 8B at Rocklands.

Yes!!! In my way too short visit of the boulderparadies, I had to leave too many unfinished projects behind. Seems, that it might not be my last visit. However, I could climb 'Roiskoop' 8A and another 8A pretty fast. Two hours before my accident, I've done the Lamiche-dyno: 'Springback' 8B (and it didn’t feel super hard). After one week of rest for my heel, I am climbing again. Short walks and endless tufas are required, but that’s the topic of the upcoming logbook.  

Cheers Everybody - Berni

Above: Rest days in Rocklands as they should have been...