Solveig Korherr - excelling at sport climbing and bouldering, and now launching into trad...

Solveig Korherr, who over the last six weeks, has done several 8A boulders and an 8c route, has been on a trad trip to Cadarese, where she sent two 8a's and onsighted a 7c. As she previously has done both a 9a route and an 8A+ boulder, she's edging towards being a top multi-discipline free climber. (c) Francesco Zanuso


Can you tell us about your trad experience and how you benefit from being a multi-discipline climber?
As I’m still rather new to trad and crack climbing, spending two weeks in Cadarese was a great learning experience for me. The granite cracks in Cadarese were definitely a bit more forgiving than in Indian Creek where I spent a little bit of time too. As they are more features outside of the cracks, I could get away with my sport climbing skills a lot more. Climbing The doors (8a) was a big highlight for me. It is very outstanding and varied line as it changes crack sizes. The lower part was quite pumpy for me. I was laybacking most of it because my fingers didn’t quite lock in the crack and I’m still not very good at ring lock technique but luckily the crack got thinner at the top. As I was still a bit scared of trusting my gear and I placed almost too much and it cost a lot of time. In the end, it was a huge fight, especially because the hardest move comes at the end after 30 meters of climbing. I was really happy when I reached the anchor and felt super fatigued just giving everything.

Another epic and memorable fight on this trip. was Bookcacke (7c+). I think my legs have never been this pumped before😄 It was really cool to experience some open dihedral climbing. This one felt super hard to me compared to some other climbs in Cadarese. Big thanks to Jon for telling me to persevere more after I didn’t quite understand how to climb the top part at the beginning & showing me the kneebar wisdom.

I love how trad climbing is not only physically but also mentally challenging. There is still a lot to learn for me and I’m motivated to do more trad climbing trips in the future. Since I’ve been mainly focusing on sport climbing over the last few years, it was great to branch out into other disciplines as well. So far, it has been a very good experience for me. It is nice to change it up for motivation and climb whatever is best in the area.

I definitely learned to be more patient. For example, when I crack climbed for the first time, it was really frustrating at the beginning, but in the end, when I lowered my expectations, I started to have a lot of fun and got better at it. Now, I even get really psyched when I can find a hand jam or finger lock in a sport route. It’s definitely harder to maintain a high level in every discipline, especially in sport climbing, where I have the highest expectations, but bouldering and sport climbing can work quite well together. After spending a lot of time bouldering in Ticino this winter, I felt quite strong, even on the sport climbs. I just chose some shorter routes for the beginning. Bouldering definitely taught me to persevere more, even when moves seem impossible at the beginning, and not give up too quickly. I’m hoping that I can transfer that to my sport climbing.

In general, in between rock climbing trips, I always like to do some training cycles to maintain a high level, and I learned that if I want to do multiple disciplines, I have to give my body some time to get in shape for whatever I’m motivated for or what my goal is. In the end, it makes me a much more varied and better climber. For now, I’m back in the gym trying to build some fitness for some lead climbing projects.