Getting Lotta Balls with the Help of Black Magic to Conquer Frogland

More marvellous multi-pitches in Red Rock! On September 18th, our fabulous journey started with Black Magic 5.8, a very cool, simply fun face climb with lots of exposure, especially at the airy traverse in the third pitch. We continued with Lotta Balls 5.8+. It firstly leads along a great hand crack towards “lotta balls” – a steep wall with marble-sized knobs, which is simply fun to climb! After that, very long dihedrals lead to the top. In the evening, we savoured our dinner of salad and the best, most juicy smoked salmon we’ve ever had.

After getting the “lotta balls” for it, we ventured to the mysterious, legendary Frogland 5.8 the next day. Well, unfortunately we didn’t see any frogs, but at one belay point, we suddenly heard a low thump. We almost couldn’t believe it but it turned out to be a small snake which fell from above and landed on a ledge 1 metre next to us. It maybe had a concussion (or was suicidal or wanted to base-jump and forgot the parachute?), as it turned around in a circle like mad before falling off the ledge again, further down the steep wall. Crazy. However, the route itself was great, with a flake to “bear hug” in the beginning and very varied climbing from cracks to a tricky face traverse to squeezing under a chockstone in a chimney.