Maximilian Dauser ticks his first 9a, Nice Freshly Baked

Maximilian Dauser has done Nice freshly baked (9a) in Frankenjura. It shares the start and the middle section of Shangrila (8c+) which he did in 2021. (c) Thomas Dauser

"The start of my big 9a project was after sending Shangri-La, as it didn't feel like my absolute limit and I was curious about that process. Previously, my sole goal was doing Shangri-La, which itself was a new level for me.

The process of about 1.5 years around sending Nice Freshly Baked is very special to me because I could prove to myself that I can still push my limit at climbing whilst having a family with a toddler and a baby and pursuing my career as an attorney. The greatest challenge was to create a proper balance between those three goals in life (and deal with being regularly sick - as probably all parents of little kids). Sometimes you want to put a goal last, like I didn't climb outside for about half a year around the birth of my daughter last September. And sometimes you want to prioritize the climbing part, so I tried to create enough time for a second day of climbing per week at the project when the conditions were good in the last weeks."

"The route itself starts with a hard boulder problem and continues with about 12 moves of power endurance climbing up to another boulder problem with a low percentage large move to a hidden hold and two more hard moves. Afterwards, it is basically done. I already got up to that large move regularly last year but couldn't stick it in most attempts. I even fell a couple of times at the next move. In the end, all pieces fell together and I could climb Nice Freshly Baked."