Hungarob Combination, new multi-pitch on Orabeskopf, Brandberg massif, Namibia

"In September 2011 Jörg Helfrich, Alexander Stahl, Till Kramann and I travelled to Namibia to establish a new route up the Orabeskopf face. This is located in the southern part of the Brandberg massif and already has some other routes established by Majka Burhardt, Kate Rutherford and Peter Doucette in 2009.

After the physically exhausting gear haul to basecamp beneath the face (1200 altitude difference, 35°C in the shade, 2 days, 2 intermediate camps), we stayed there for eleven days there.

Just like other expeditions, our main problem was finding water, but due to the strong rainfalls this year we surprisingly found some water basins. Sadly though this water source was down at the first intermediate camp, two hours away, while another water basin was in the neighbouring valley, also 2 hours away. But this situation was nevertheless far better than our worst case scenario, which would have been descending every second day to our car and hauling water back up.

We worked constantly in teams of two climbers: while the first two carried water, the other two established our new route. This is 370m high with difficulties up to 7c (6c obligatory) and was bolted from below but presents long runouts at times and trad pro is necessary to integrate the bolts. The route has an alternative start on the right-hand side of the West pillar and can be described as offering extremely varied climbing: steep slabs, vertical face climbing, cracks, terrible friction slabs, off-widths, chimneys... everything!"

Manuel Hofmann

> Route description Hungarob Combination