Fotograf in Potsdam

Portaledge

I’m happy to say I finally spent a night in a portaledge. It was pretty cool. Somehow Christian and I came up with the idea to spend the night on the Potsdam climbing tower. I think originally we actually meant to sleep on the tower itself. There is a big ‘natural ledge’ which has plenty of room, but it is sloping quite a bit so it would not be too comfy. In the end Christian ended up buying a Black Diamond double wide portaledge so we would hopefully pull off the FOA (First Overnight Ascent) of the tower in style.

With rumors flying around the climbing community of our impending ascent, we were worried someone might already be on our route as we approached the base of the climb. It was already dark, 10:30pm, as we had critical stops to make for beer and cheeseburgers. In any case we thought we were ready. Unfortunately we were not really ready. We had no quickdraws. I led the route with single carabiners on the bolts. Truly amazing how much rope drag there is even on a route which is basically straight up if you don’t use draws. Anyway the route was not hard. I have never climbed at night before, but it was really no problem using just a headleamp. Almost before the top of the route, I traversed over to the middle of the wall where we would anchor for the night.

I hauled up one of the bags, and then the ledge. It is a major undertaking to set the ledge up on the wall, which I discovered a few days before with a practice run on a retaining wall at work. So, we decided to set the ledge up on the ground, so then we just had to haul it up and clip it in. We hauled another bag, and then Christian followed the route. At first the ledge seemed a bit unstable, but after a few adjustments things seemed pretty ok. We each had a beer. Sounds easy but it wasn’t really. Lots of ropes and systems that I haven’t practiced much before, so everything went slowly. By now it was 1:30am, so we were ready for bed.

The ledge is pretty comfortable. More comfortable than sleeping on the ground. It didn’t bother me that we were hanging in space. We are still tied into the ropes with our harnesses on while we sleep, so even if the ledge completely failed we would be ok. And there is no feeling that you will just fall off, because of all of the straps supporting the ledge this is basically impossible.

In the morning I rappelled down to set up the camera and get a couple of pictures. Then Christian belayed me while I finished the 2nd pitch and bagged the summit! Yeah! The FOA was finished. It was a great time and maybe we’ll make another FOA of another tower this summer.

There are more pictures in the gallery.

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