The Austrian Christof Rauch sends an ascent of the extreme classic par excellence „Dreamtime“ in the Swiss bouldering crag „Cresciano“. It is actually surprising that Christof took on this boulder only late. Christof had a hard time for a long time and was, also currently again, often plagued by injuries. He still has problems with his left elbow and can’t do a one-arm pull-up with his left arm. Yes who can do that ;-). But now he manages the boulder after four sessions this season. All in all, he came up with maybe ~9 sessions after he started trying a few years ago.

„Worldclass! Hard 8B+ or low-end 8C, who cares, it‘s Dreamtime! Can‘t describe how satisfying it was to top this Fred Nicole masterpiece after it became kind of a mindgame! It‘s always hard if you know you can do it but somehow you keep struggling with conditions, skin and bad days. The pressure I put on myself is gone! Onto the next!“

Considered the world’s first 8C boulder, Fred Nicole’s boulder is located in the Swiss bouldering area of Cresciano, near Riviera.

The 20-pull boulder runs through a roughly 45-degree overhang of a boulder, first as a traverse from right to left, then climbing out about halfway up the wall. Key move is a jump to the ledge at the top of the overhang. In addition, there is an easier standing start variation in difficulty 8A/8A+ that starts directly at the key hold.

Frederic Nicole first ascented the boulder for the first time on October 28, 2000, and graded it 8C on the Fontainebleau scale.

In 2004, the boulder’s holds were enlarged by an unknown person, thus changing the boulder irretrievably. and the boulder was subsequently downgraded to 8B+ by most repeaters. In the fall of 2009, one of the holds broke off again, so the boulder is again graded 8B+/C.

Photo: (c) Julia Rechenmacher