good and relatively wide, but very long.
Finally we found ourselves in a fissure.... The
first bit of chimney was all right but then overhanging
rocks blocked the way and forced Barth to work
round them. We crossed over into the left branch of
the chimney, but this was considerably narrower,
wetter and more difficult. I left my rucksack here,
tucked some cramps and pitons into my pockets and
climbed up to Barth, who was inside a fissure and
trying vainly to get out; the crack was extremely nar-
row, overhanging, and lacked any handhold. As we
wormed up it we had the unpleasant feeling that it
was squeezing us out. Barth tried again and again
without any luck.
So we did it like this: We hammered in two pitons
to which Barth tied himself and then climbed on u p
as far as he could; I climbed up after him inside the
fissure and wedged myself in so that my hands were
free to give Barth a leg up. With this kind of human
ladder Barth managed to get past the smooth bit. His
left hand found a hole he could use as a handhold af-
ter clearing out the pebbles. Then he doubled around
(very difficult) and thus got into the main chimney. I
wasn’t too well placed, as the entire rubble Barth was
clearing out landed on my head and he was standing
on my hands. I then climbed back down to the bot-
tom of the fissure, releasing the rope from the fas-
tening and climbed after him. After hard work and a
lot of exertion I too overcame the fissure, and was
gratified to find myself in the broad chimney, as I felt
suffocated in the narrow crack. This was probably the
reason why this route had never been climbed before.
...
We had to step out onto a ledge barely a hand’s
breadth, with a sheer drop down into Laserzkar. The
hut and lakes seemed tiny down there boy, it was
windy up here! Straddling the knife-edge ridge like a
horse, I crossed between the two peaks.