Ainhize Belar Barrutia repeats world's first 8c, Wolfgang Güllich's Wallstreet in Frankenjura
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In the 1980's the Krottenseer Turm in Germany's Frankenjura was one of the premier crags in the world, with routes like Chasin the Trane put up by John Bachar in 1981 and Hitchhike the Plane put up by Wolfgang Güllich in 1984 breaking new ground in the nascent rotpunkt movement.
Standards rose exponentially during that decade and after Güllich had established the world's first 8b, Kanal im Rücken at the Kastlwand in the Altmühltal in 1984, and the world's first 8b+, Punks in the Gym at Mt. Arapiles in Australia in 1985, in 1987 he returned to the Krottenseer Turm. A fierce line on the lefthand side of the tower had caught his attention and after training specifically, he swiftly freed it at X+, calling it Wallstreet.
While working on the first repeat Frankenjura local Milan Sykora noticed that a tiny pocket had been enlarged and improved by unknown climbers. Güllich, shocked, promptly cemented the pocket and then freed the line once again via a new, even harder sequence. In doing so he nudged the grade up to XI- and established the world's first 8c. Its extremely bouldery crux section comprised of 10 intense moves warrants circa 8A boulder and despite the place it holds in climbing history, even today repeats are few and far between.
Guido Köstermeyer made the first repeat in 1989, while the coveted first female ascent was carried out by Mélissa Le Nevé in 2014. Other female climbers who have successfully redpointed the line include Johanna Ernst a few months later, Laura Rogora (2016), Chiara Hanke (2018) and Lucia Dörffel (2022). Ainhize Belar Barrutia has now added her name to this list. Despite poor conditions, the 17-year-old from Spain needed just 3 days to come up trumps a few days ago; the ease with which she literally dances through the crux is startling.
Belar made headline news in 2020 when, aged a mere 14, she climbed the 8c Gezurren erresuma at Valdegovía. Earlier this year she climbed 9a with her repeat of Begi Puntuan at Etxauri, while this summer at Oñate she repeated Honky Tonky and Honky mix. These two lines are of special importance as it is on these that Josune Bereziartu became the first woman to climb 8c and then 8c+, in 1998 and 2000 respectively. Belar's ascents of all these shows she's interested not only in nailing numbers, but also redpointing routes with a reputation.
