When I first moved to Innsbruck, The Source was known as “the Sprung project”, due to its crazy all points off dyno in the middle of the route. I tried the project during my first visit to Schwarze Wand, pulling through the quickdraws to arrive in the jump, then failing miserably on the move, again and again and again, finally lowering off thinking it would be a damn hard route.
The infamous dyno! - Photo Riky Felderer
Two years later, and a lot has changed. The project has become The Source, 8c+, and I find myself back at the black wall (Schwarze Wand) a little fitter than before. After climbing up to, and sticking the dyno on my first red-point try, I fall in the next boulder just 2 moves above. It turns out that the dyno is only the beginning of the troubles, and that from here to the top, the route is a series of continuous and varied boulder problems.
In the past this would have been the end of everything, with simply no chance of recovering enough from the previous to complete the next. Its great for motivation to revisit these old “impossible” routes, and see just how far you have come. The next time you are half way through a long training session and sore skin and tired body are screaming out to stop, these will be the memories that make you push on to the end.
A little R&R before the jump - Photo Riky Felderer
1 day and 3 tries later, I clip the chain of my favourite route ever. It has been quite the little journey, involving a fall from the final easy slab due to numb fingers – one of the perils of climbing in the Zillertal in November. I was a little worried about running out of time as I am packing up my apartment and saying goodbye to Innsbruck in the next few days to move full time to France. Thankfully, I found a way to deal with the freezing temperatures and finished the route just in time. The last 2 years have been unforgettable, and have enabled me to move in new interesting directions, and visit places that before were off-bounds.
The Crux - Photo Riky Felderer
The Source is simply amazing, involving crazy and interesting moves up a beautiful section of all natural rock – the perfect showpiece for this spectacular wall, and the perfect final route for t