Traumpfeiler (Pillar of Dreams)  5.9

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Type:  Trad, Sport, 9 pitches, 850 feet Consensus:  5.9- [details] FA:  Heinz Lothar Stutte, Helmet Magdefrau, 1981 Submitted By:  Steven Lucarelli on Jun 21, 2010 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (5) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

Traumpfeiler follows the left skyline with the cru...

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Description 

This route is a mega classic and a must do if your climbing the grade. You can expect pitch after pitch of quality steep climbing right to the summit with typical but reasonable runouts for the area. Additional protection is most useful on the crux pitch but you could get by without it if your feeling solid. And although this route is called 9 pitches it is easy to link any of the pitches. In fact when John and I climbed it only took us 4 pitches.

With a 60m rope we linked the first two, then we linked 3 through 5, 6 and 7 and finally 8 and 9. Long runners are useful for this and the rope drag was pretty minimal.

Location 

Traumpfeiler is located on the north side of the Heiliger Geist formation. The best approach is to park on the main road north of the route at a large pull out below the Ayiou Nikolaou Anapavsa Monastery. From hear walk south around the left side of a crop field on an obvious trail. The trail crosses a dirt road and continues toward the Heiliger Geist. When you start nearing the north end of the formation keep your eyes open for a trail that heads right into the brush and drops into a streambed. A short climb up the other side of this stream bed should put you right at the base of the climb.

If there is a large cave with some wood scaffold looking structures in it up to your right then your in the right spot.

To descend walk south along the top of the Heiliger Geist until you get to the southern end. Look for a single eyebolt to the left (east) that is in an obvious water runoff. Make one single rope rappel and one double rope rappel down this water chute to the ground. (Note: I'm almost positive that this could be done with a single 60m rope using intermediate anchors but we didn't try since we had two ropes). Once on the ground head left (east) past a blue door that goes into a room in the rock and follow the obvious trail to town.

To get back to your car follow the roads through town staying right until you get to a dirt road. This should be the same one you crossed when you first started the approach.

Protection 

Bring about 12 quickdraws, a few stoppers in the medium sizes and .5 to 2 Camalot size cams. If your linking pitches bring more draws, more gear will be useless. All the anchors are large ring bolts and a lot of the protection bolts on the route are the same. Some newer bolt have been added making it more reasonable to leave you cams and stoppers behind if your feeling confident.

Photos of Traumpfeiler (Pillar of Dreams) Slideshow

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John starting up Traumpfeiler	John traversing to the anchor at the end of the 2n...	John starting the crux.
Me hanging out at the anchor a long way up.