Germany

Moving to Germany in the Spring. Anybody live around there or have some good info about climbing there? Specifically around Nuremberg and Frankenjura?

CnC wrote:Moving to Germany in the Spring. Anybody live around there or have some good info about climbing there? Specifically around Nuremberg and Frankenjura?

There´s about 80 million of us!
I live near the Frankenjura, it´s my local area. There´s a few other English/American climbers dotted around, mostly down toward Munich.
Information about climbing in the area is so extensive you´d need to be more specific about what you want to know, there´s about 20,000 routes within 2hrs drive from my house, it´s mostly sport climbing and beer is cheap.
I´ve lived here for 25 years so any specific questions then ask away.

Where in Germany are you moving? I'm in Freiburg and there's loads of climbing in the Vogesen (France) and Baselerjura (Switzerland) within an hour drive. Also loads more climbing in France/Italy/Switzerland/Austria if I want to drive a bit further

I haven't been to Frankenjura yet (Baselerjura is much closer and very similar), but will probably make it there at some point during the spring.

I'm in neighboring Baden-Wuerttemberg if you're headed this way

I'll be living near Ansbach. Looking for single pitch sport climbs up to 5.12a that are around 30meters tall. Any good recommendations for guide books? English preferred but will be able to get by reading German. So far I've found Franken 1 and 2 by Ulrich and Harald Röker.

CnC wrote:I'll be living near Ansbach. Looking for single pitch sport climbs up to 5.12a that are around 30meters tall. Any good recommendations for guide books? English preferred but will be able to get by reading German. So far I've found Franken 1 and 2 by Ulrich and Harald Röker.

The first thing to know is the Frankenjura is a geographic term covering a limestone plateau. It´s split into two areas, the Northern and Southern which are about 100km apart and it´s flat and boring in between. The northern Frankenjura climbing is covered by the guides you mentioned and southern Frankenjura by a seperate guide. You are more or less in between the two.
For an overview of the climbing in Germany with all the info for guides, number of routes, crag height etc the book to buy is Deutschrock which is an atlas of all the climbing in Germany tmms-shop.de/kletterfuehrer…

The three areas nearest you are the Oberer Altmuhtal, the northern Frankenjura and Blautal.
The Upper Altmuhltal is probably nearest down to the south east and the two main crags are Dollnstein and Konstein near Eichstatt with a few hundred routes. They come under the southern Frankenjura where guide books are concerned with around 1900 routes, the current one is Konstein for just the Konstein/Dollnstein areas and Sudlicher Frankenjura by Dieter Brunner for the whole area or the guide from Panico Verlag
Which is better/more suitable/still in print I´ve no idea as I use a clapped out old edition of something from the 90´s. Routes to 30m no problem.

The northern Frankenjura the guides you mentioned from Gebro Verlag are the most suitable and accurate, there´s a picture of me in one of them:-) They have around 9000 routes in the two volumes.

The Schwäbische Alb is the area to the south west and starts just below Aalen and extends down so very easy to get to, that is covered the selected guide by "Spatzle & Seil" also by the Röker brothers (Gebro Verlag)which covers 1500 routes.

These areas are all limestone of varying types (other rock is available further afield). In some of the areas a few bits of trad gear are handy but the bolting is fine if a bit spaced out compared with many areas. A clip stick is standard as the first bolts can be extremely high. Photo-topo´s are a rarity, you can´t actually see the cliff for trees most of the time so hand-drawn topo´s are developed to an art form.
You are expected to lower-off. Single-bolt-lower-offs are standard so if you´re one of those "I´d never trust a single bolt" types then don´t come! Two ropes are normal, a 60/70m and a 40m as some cliffs are up to 50m and others a bit short!
The northern Frankenjura is generally steep to horribly overhanging with finger pockets, the southern Frankenjura smoother and slabbier (and often slippery), the Schwäbisch Alb kind of normal.

Jim Titt wrote:There´s a few other English/American climbers dotted around

Also there are many many life-long German citizens who love to climb, and speak plenty good English. Many are glad for opportunities to practice their English-speaking.

. (hint: Stay away from the word "belay", which has two different meanings in English-language which tend to get confused by speakers of other langauges which have separate words for those two meanings.)

Well yes, I forgot to mention there is a section of the DAV in Ansbach which would normally be the first place to go to find partners. They have some sort of climbing wall and own the climbing hut at Konstein.

Hi - I am also looking for partners in this region of Germany. I've recently moved to Ulm and will be staying for some months. I am working more or less 2 or 3 days a week (and need another 1 or 2 days for other stuff) but in general I have a lot of free time for climbing. Let me know if I can climb with you or meet one of your climbing partners who also has a lot of time!