Shangrila (8c+) by Lena Herrmann

Lena Herrmann reports on Insta that she has done Shangrila (8c+) in Frankenjura. The German did her first 8c+ in 2016 and the year after she tried Shangrila for the first time. All in all, she workef it for some 30 sessions. (c) Stefan Riedl

Can you tell us more about the long process of projecting it?
It was an on-off-story with this route :D When I tried it for the first time in 2017 I wasn‘t strong enough at all. The route starts with a two-move boulder which was super demanding for me and I did not succeed in this. When I came back, being able to climb the boulder (sometimes) I thought I might have a chance. After the boulder the route is still 8b/8b+ish but I underestimated this part a lot!! So there were quite some seasons where I still tried and sometimes I succeeded in the boulder and fell afterwards or I did not even succeed in the boulder. This period was super frustrating for me. Then there was covid where I have only been bouldering, also I had a pulley injury and later on a little Inflammation.

In 2022 I‘ve made huge progress by changing my training. I focused a lot on boardstyle-bouldering and have always been surrounded by my friends who were way stronger than me in this style. This made me progress a lot. Then the boulder was no problem for me anymore and I was so close. Then I got sick and had to wait for autumn. Here I was busy with my master thesis but had several top-hold-drops. I had great winter training, which made me succeed directly this year on the third day of the season.

What's your next plan?
I hesitate a bit if I still want to continue to only climb in the Frankenjura. I did this for so long. Maybe I will look for routes which I can visit on the weekends. But I don't know yet. There are still some Frankenjura-diamonds which I want to at least check out once :)