Lara Neumeier repeats Headless Children in Rätikon

On Friday August 30th 2024, German climber Lara Neumeier managed to make a rare ascent of Headless Children on the Schijenfluh in the Rätikon massif in Austria. This 230m, 9-pitch route, boasts difficulties up to French 8b and was first ascended between 1997 and 1999 by Marco Müller, Koni Mathis and Bruno Rüdisser before being freed by Mark Amann. Despite being described as an amazingly beautiful climb, Headless Chicken dropped off the radar until 2016, when Austria’s Kilian Fischhuber made the second free ascent and confirmed both its beauty and 8b difficulties.

Neumeier was joined this summer by close friend Nadine Wallner, who is also working on the route. The pair spent 4 days together trying the individual pitches, before Neumeier climbed the route on her first full lead attempt, on day 5. This is only the 3rd female ascent of Headless Children, following Nina Caprez in 2018 and Barbara Zangerl in 2019.

After her ascent, Neumeier commented: "I've had the idea of trying Headless Children for a long time. At the end of July this year, I finally went up for the first time with Nadine Wallner where we checked out the first four pitches. Although we didn't get very far on our first day, we were motivated to come back soon. So we went back to Rätikon for two days in mid-August to try the upper pitches up to the crux. During these two days, I climbed all the moves except for the famous mantle in the 8b pitch.

After watching Kilian's video and Babsi Zangerl's pictures, we returned at the end of August with a better beta for the mantle and tried it again. Once the mantle worked out, I knew that I was ready to give it a send try. Two days later was the day you always wish for as a multi-pitch climber. With full support from Nadine, I was able to send all pitches to the summit first try on lead."

26-year-old Neumeier has sent various other classic hard multi-pitches in the past, including Hotel Supramonte in Sardinia in 2018 and Delicatessen in Corsica's Bavella mountains in 2022