Onsighting Astroman, Yosemite

I am at the Mammut Headquarters in Seon and suddenly get asked if I have a week free in 10 days and if I've climbed the Nose. I don't understand the connection at first, because the Nose is in Yosemite, which is damn far away. But that is exactly the route meant... and ten days later I'm sitting on a plane from Zurich to San Francisco with my Mammut teammate Stephan Siegrist. I can hardly believe it. The organization was very fast and spontaneous and I am excited for my first trip to North America.

From the airport we go directly to Yosemite Valley, where Whit Magro from the Mammut Team USA and Jason Thompson, the photographer, are waiting for us. Our project is huge and we are extremely motivated, so we pack all our gear the next morning. But actually, the weather forecast for the next few days isn't as good as expected, which means we have to wait a bit before we start. We use the time to climb single-pitch crack routes, weather permitting. Unfortunately, it gets worse and worse and we have to battle a lot of rain. Slowly the hopes of realizing our film project fade, unfortunately! This leads to us spending a lot of time with park rangers to shift our film permit. Lots of bureaucracy.

But then we have at least one day of stable weather, so we can attempt a longer route. On the recommendation of our local, we decide on Astroman, a Yosemite classic on Washington Column. The first pitches look like perfect cracks and I am motivated to start leading right away. Since there are three of us, our plan is to swap leads every three pitches.

I have to fight against pumped arms, but I still manage to onsight the first three pitches. Awesome! The boys are impressed and motivate me to try to onsight the complete tour. So I stay at the sharp end of the rope, me the "Rookie" of the team, followed by two strong climbers cheering me on. Insane! I never thought this would happen to me!

The next pitch is the infamous Harding Slot, where I have to take off my helmet to fit through this narrow throat. But the hardest part is getting into it: My feet slip on the smooth wall and I press against it with all my strength not to fall. Then finally I am stuck inside the slot. Now it means unclipping gear from the harness and slowly squeezing upwards, which demands every muscle in my body. I arrive at the next belay pretty exhausted, but happy.

Unfortunately, I don't have much of a break, because Whit is with me quickly and we keep going. The next pitch challenges me too: I have to make several attempts to get over a small roof, which almost makes me lose my balance. At the belay I am completely powered out, my hopes for a complete onsight of the tour are fading. Plus, the next pitch is supposed to be hard too. But first we are forced to take a moment's pause, as this is the last abseil opportunity and rain is threateningly approaching. I am anxious, because I definitely want to keep climbing this super tour, now that I have fought my way this far.

The break does me good; after an energy bar and some water I feel better immediately and luckily the rain veers off. So on we go, full concentration for the last really hard moves: First a few boulder moves on small holds, then a weird thin crack from which I have to push myself over an edge onto a slab and then a crack system on to the belay. Not easy, but it works - Yippee!

Then one more pitch with a wide crack before I have to gather all my courage again to master the demanding slab of the last pitch. It is not only tricky but also sparsely protected. I actually manage to keep a cool head and top out without falling. Up there I can hardly believe it: I have onsighted Astroman, a notorious Valley classic! And that as my first Valley tour. Even though everyone always says that as a European you can't climb anything here at first. I am overjoyed that I could climb such a tour in perfect style. Thanks to the other two for making this possible for me, for bringing me up to the idea in the first place.

After a week we fly home again without our big project, but still happy with a different success. The realization of the big project, filming the Nose with 360° cameras, succeeds a few weeks later in an exciting and exhausting 2.5 day push.