Loska Stena, new route by David Lama and Peter Ortner in Slovenia

Another month, another route for David Lama and Peter Ortner who, after their success on Cerro Torre in January, evidently found the will to test themselves on the difficult North Face of Loska Stena, a mountain located in the Mangart and Jalovec chain in Slovenia's Julian Alps.

The two Austrians opted for a line in a section of the face called Briceljk and after sharing the start with Grapa pod Črnimi strehami, they broke off right up virgin terrain, resulting in a 1300m high route established with two bivies from 25 – 27 February, in alpine style, without bolts and with difficulties somewhere in the region of 7- and M6.

In reply to our question as to why this choice in particular, Lama told planetmountain "In truth Peter and I wanted to climb a new route up this face before our Patagonia trip. It's long, wild and crosses a section which didn't have any other routes. Our climb begins up Grapa pod Črnimi strehami, then ascends just to the right of Novogoriška, with which it may share perhaps two or three pitches. We didn't come across any in-situ gear. It then traverses right to the large pillar, before continuing straight up to reach the summit snow fields."

Much like most other routes on this face, this difficult winter ascent is characterised by run-out, dodgy gear and poor belays and Lama underlined this fact clearly "Due to the poor pro, the commitment level of this route is very high indeed."

It is worth noting that the new route, which is simply called Lama-Ortner, weaves its way up a face where some of the best Slovenian alpinists have left their mark, such as Tadej Golob, Tomaž Humar, Aleš Koželj, Gregor Kresal, Pavel and Peter Podgornik and Miha Valič. To these one needs to add the Italian Emilio Comici who in 1930 established the first major route up this wall together with his companion Jože Cesar, the historic  Cesar – Comici.