Ironwoman posted on January, 2020   Finally I settled an old dept. I clipped the ancor of Ironman, a drytooling route situated in Switzerland and graded D14+. There is no better way I could have finished 2019 and with it the decade in which I dedicated myself so much to the climbing with iceaxes! I tried this route for the first time in March 2012, shortly after the first ascent by Robert Jasper. Back then it was the hardest drytooling route in the world and much harder than the routes I had done but I was immediately interested in trying it. Almost 2 years later, after a few trips to Eptingen and some tries on the route I thought I had it. I made it all the way through the horizontal roof and was shaking out my hands at the last quickdraw before the last, quite easy moves to the ancor, when the hold I was on exploded and I was dangling in the air. It had cost me so much motivation to try a route so close to my absolute limit and more than 4 hours drive from home, that the disappointment was huge. I did not come back to the route for 6 years. This past December, after having climbed harder routes than Ironman in the past years, I finally decided to come back to this old, open bill. I stil had quite some respect, or even fear. The route stil made itself desire quite a bit. It took me 3 more drives to Switzerland until I finally clipped this ancor. Thanks for the lucky belay Nikolay and thank you Marco Servalli for always believing in me, even when I don’t do it. And for the pictures. back