A Poetic article about a mystic experience with an old man.  He was a climber in Rathen (a sandstone area in Saxon Germany) next to Czech border. It originally appeared on the Czech version of this site www.Lezec.cz .

This poetic text by Jarda Marsik (Decin, CZ) is hard to translate, so we will keep it quite brief.

“He was a such mysterious mechanic. He was shoeless, old, bald and bearded.”


The mysterious  mechanic

and once more

“He climbed alone, soloing quietly in silence. In the beginning, we said nothing - we were so shocked. It happened in Spring, March to be exact. A nice weather forecast lured us to Rathen…”
We climbed the valley route to Höllenhund tower and its 70-meter wall. We were at the 3rd ring when we noticed him on the wall of the next tower Hinterer Höllenhundturm.

He was Soloing the route Talweg VI (Saxon scale – 5 UIAA). It was a bold act to be sure,  but we can understand it. The route is not too high, and not as vertical as our “bigwall” on Höllenhund …
From the front peak we went to the main peak by the route variant Alternative VIIIb. Astonisher,  we saw the fellow had climbed just to a small chimney between the front peak and the main peak. He had to join to the Höllenhund wall and he continued to the peak by this direction. He was there faster than we were. He greeted us silently, did not sign to the peak book and sat at the sunshine and looked around the country.


and on the peak

We began to wonder whether he would need our help with abseiling down. To go down without the rope from Höllenhund is no fun...
But as we were contemplating the matter, the old man disappeared in the spot where the route Herrenpartie ends - the one from the most vertical walls in Saxon in nearly 80-metres height.
We started quickly to abseil to see how it happened. From the bottom, the Höllenhund was empty and the fellow moved somewhere in upper parts on the right side. Probably he climbed back. According to a climbing guide book he probably climbed Südwestwand VIIb (6 UIAA)…


The way down

We learned that this was not the only route he soloed, when we met the gentleman once more on Falkenstein (Saxon, Germany) in the similar solo.

And we though about him and his blue work pants? We got it! “He must have a fury at home, a years ago she prohibited him climbing and sold his equipment. He only can dress casually, to announce the departure to his job and set the right direction to the sandstone towers where he is absolutely FREE.”



The probable track

Tschüs


(Editorial´s remark: the story causes a discussion in forum. The readers speculated who is the mysterious old man. The names of other similar old men were mentioned. Look at: www.Lezec.cz (in Czech language). In some German forum he was identified as Rudi – look: http://www.teufelsturm.de/forum/index.php (go to the discussion on January 7 - German language)
http://www.kleimbing.de/Storys_mit_Fotos/Elbsandstein/elbsandstein.html
http://www.kleimbing.de/Storys_mit_Fotos/Elbsandstein/Elbi_5/elbi_5.html
- the sites are in German language)