Orvin - Grande Lame

During spring, it is always a pleasure to visit the village of Orvin, and its nearby crags. There are numerous sectors, mostly with moderate routes, and even short multipitch routes. My personal favourite is the sector Grand Lame, which offers superb slab & crack climbing. Well, some people might say that the terms superb/slab/crack don't go together...Or that you simply don't climb cracks in limestone, if you are sane or not completely insensitive to pain :D

While there is no accounting for climbing taste, there certainly is accounting for where you park your car. Please respect the prohibition signs, and park reasonably! Otherwise, it is very likely that cars will be banned even from the tolerated parking spaces. In fact, it seems that this has happened already at the former parking space in the road bend from where you could reach Grande Lame in about 30 min. Now you need to park at Les Prés-D'Orvin, which adds another 1.1 km to the approach, and thus almost doubles the distance -.- I am speculating, but an increased amount of climbers during the pandemic does not seem like the least likely reason...

Perfect face with cracks in the sector of Grand Lame. The prominent crack in the middle is Gaminet (6c+). 

Nepomuk 6b clean
Beautiful limestone, richly structured by cracks...quite homogeneous, with a moderate climax through the middle section. At the same time, the placements are not super obvious in this middle section, so take your strategic pick between fiddling around, or just running it out to reach a better stance.
The style of climbing is likely perceived as difficult by those unaware of crack climbing techniques, but otherwise the grading is probably very fair. In terms of gear, the cracks could take lots of hardware, but one set of small cams (Dragonflies 3-4, BD C4 #0.3-0.75) and a complete set of nuts should suffice.

Gaminet 6c+ semi-clean
Having picked up the rhythm in Nepomuk, you can turn up the pace a bit in Gaminet, which is a quite impressive individual crack in the middle of the face. I had come with the ambition to clean-climb this line, but buried it at the first two bolts.
While there is a good placement a bit below the first bolt, the moves seemed too insecure to me to rely just on that. It was not a rational decision, I rather obeyed my gut feeling. But in hindsight, the following factors likely made up the decision: (1) being close to the ground (2) landing area being a small rock ledge (3) not knowing the apparently delicate moves (4) first piece of protection quite close to ground (5) no clear perspective of reaching a good position after the delicate moves (6) no perspective of better placements.
So I clipped the first bolt, and moved on to the second to place a nut at the wedged block, but when I pulled on it, the block sounded so hollow that, without thinking twice, I clipped the second bolt, too X)
Afterwards, the crack finally features sufficient options for protection, so that I felt confident enough to do that part on gear only. Moreover, the climbing also becomes more secure due to the crack (not necessarily easier, but it feels less likely to just slip off). Far up, there is even a cavity for those who like no-hand kneebars! :)
Gear-wise, I think it can be done with one complete rack of cams and nuts, while doubles of #0.4-0.75 might help. I did not find use for #2, though.

Milking the no-hand kneebar in Gaminet (6c+).

Eile mit Weile 7a+
Tough, but good memories...I had given this route already three gos on one occasion last year, but always fell off at the burly layback in the upper part. After the first two bolts you reach the last resting jug for the rest of the route. The first half is relatively easy on slots and edges, but it drains your forearms, if you spend too much time here.
A prominent, but shallow finger crack in the upper part represents the crux. When I arrived there, I could already feel the tribute I had paid during the first half, but somehow managed to shake it off a bit on some ok-finger-jams. However, the jams are not good enough (for me) to climb on them, so the layback was inevitable. Relying more on determination, and the beta from last year, I reached the small ledge to the far right with a sturdy gaston move. Here I could get a bit of bad rest, before embarking on the final part, which is still tricky and potentially heart-breaking. Moving out of my rest position required some marginal handjams in the wider, flaring crack above, and almost made me fall, because I thought about forcing a suboptimal solution, but fortunately I changed my mind just in time.
For the final part, different betas exist, and they differ mainly whether you go left or right. I chose to use some ok sidepull pockets to the right to finally place that saving foot jam to reach the anchor...what a fight!

To the right of the big crack Gaminet (6c+), the glue-in bolts lead the way through Perskindol (7a+).

Perskindol 7a+
After red-pointing Eile mit Weile, there was still time to open a new project at Grand Lame...and it certainly is worth working on it. However, this line really butchers your skin...and I am not talking about the fingertips. The crack in the upper half is quite pronounced, and offers many options for jamming, but often quite painful for the back of your fingers and hands. You simply don't climb cracks in limestone^^...but at the same time my "skin" had taken already taken a bit of beating at this point.
Anyway, over the first two bolts the line is shared with Gaminet, and at the third bolt you go out to the right into the slab. It is a bit tricky to reach the crimpy slot (right heel hook?), and once you reach it, there seems no way around going full-slab, which means pressing your feet into the blank face and crimping hard...however, to move on, it might be helpful to spraddle between two opposing "side-feet".
The section towards the crack is less slabby, but not entirely trivial. Thankfully, there is a pretty good jug at the start of the crack, not quite a full-recovery jug, but pretty good.
For my standards, the crack itself is neither easy nor very hard, so it boils mainly down to stamina and moving quickly enough.
My personal crux was to exit the crack, because suddenly there are only ridiculously small holds within reach, but again, for my standards ;) It took a couple of tries to find a solution, which did not result in a massive barn door...basically: left hand in good, but painful lock-slot, right hand on ok sidepull, then jam right foot high in crack, big gaston to the right into ok-handjam, switch feet in crack, right foot into face, get left foot up in crack, pull/stand-up, grab one of the better holds with left hand :D
The final left-traverse to the anchor is a bit balancy, but will likely not throw you off :)

You simply don't climb cracks in limestone, if you are sane or not completely insensitive to pain :D