Attic M11+ for Gregor Kresal

Grega Kresal from Slovenia has recently made a demanding first ascent of Attic M11+ in the Planica valley, Julian Alps.

March 2003

Grega Kresal from Slovenia has recently made a demanding first ascent of Attic M11+ in the Planica valley, Julian Alps. The 34 year old architect spent 12 days spread out over two winters to complete his project, which takes a line directly through a series of roofs to join up with his Aqualung, unrepeated since its first ascent in 2000.

Kresal is no newcomer to hard mixed climbs, having numerous M10's to his name, including a fast repeat of Stevie Haston's "The Empire strikes back" M11, Val di Cogne in 2001. Both Kresal and his climbing partner Dejan Mikovic successfully redpointed The Attic at the end of February, grading it M11+. We asked him to tell us more about the climb, and the grade...

Attic
"I climbed the route from the bottom up right from the start, and it took me three full days to artificially equip it, with difficulties up to A3+. First I placed six bolts and seven pitons on the hardest pitch, but when we started to learn the moves, all the pitons came out, and now it's almost impossible to substitute them. The first pitch leads to the large roof and is quite easy (only M6) but it climbs crumbly verglassed rock and shouldn't be underestimated. The roof now has only six bolts and the falls are quite long and sometimes strange. Small friends can be used in two places, and we climbed with with double ropes as this was a lot safer. The start and finish of the hardest pitch overhangs about 70 degrees, and after this you can continue up Aqualung for three more pitches (WI5 M5, M7+ an WI5)."

The grade
"I really didn't want to grade it M12, eventhough last year I thought it might be this hard, because there are other grades between M11 and M12, such as M11+, M11+/M12... We should be more careful, skipping grades is not good for climbing. We already know that M grades are a bit different from other grading systems, but standards continue to rise. In sports climbing 8b is always followed by 8b+. M11+ should be the first grade after M11."