Los teóricos apuntan al último cuarto de siglo XIX para situar el nacimiento de la escalada en roca como disciplina propia separada del alpinismo. Después de unos años en que varios pioneros fueron poniendo sus bases estructurales, principalmente en Inglaterra, Alemania oriental y Dolomitas, en la década de 1910 irrumpió la figura de Paul Preuss (1886-1913), que destacó por dotar de alma y valores a esta práctica incipiente.
His influence was so great at the dawn of the climb - and still still being although many of the young climbers or even his name - that those who have felt admired by him could almost be considered as acolytes of a kind of prophet.George Mallory (English mountaineer in Everest in 19two4) said that "no one will be equal to Preuss".Reinhold Messner was so impressed that he built his museum project from the Python Hammer of Preuss, wrote two books about him and instituted a foundation in his name.
Paul Preuss was born on the shores of Lake Autralssee, in a mountain town in Austria.His father, music teacher, used to take long walks along the mountain and capture of botanical species, one of his passions.At six years old, Paul Preuss ill.When he recovered, he began to exercise and outputs to the mountain to strengthen.
His father died when he was ten years old, but Paul Preuss continued with his mountaineers, either in the company of his sisters, friends or many times alone.It is also said that I trained at home, dominated on vessels placed inverted on top of a closet.He studied biology at the University of Vienna and in 1911 he was a doctorate from the University of Munich, where he obtained a job as a teacher.
In parallel to his studies, he was developing his career career.With two1 years he carried out his first important ascent, the Pichl via to the north face of the Planspitze in only Integral.That was at the beginning of 1908 and, until his death in 1913, he accumulated about 1.two00 ascents, 300 of them made in only integral and first ascents.And not only registered rock climbing, but also a first rise in snow and ice routes was pointed out.He was even a notable specialist climbing buildings, like the famous propyers of the Königsplatz de Munich when he could not go to the mountain.
It is worth taking into account that he carried out his climbing activity by wearing nail boots rudimentary.Even so, in only integral roads raised in Vº grade, a difficulty very close to the maximum limit reached at the time.Silvretta, Wilder Kaiser, Dolomitas, Mont Blanc ... Massizos and Sierras throughout the Alps were land paid for the adventures of Preuss.
The year 1911 from the perspective of climbing is, without a doubt, the year of Paul Preuss.In summer, he made the second ascent of the west face of Totenkirchl, at Wilder Kaiser.Considered one of the hardest routes of the Alps, he dispatched her in two and a half hours in only integral.
The following weeks and months were very rich in remarkable climbs.Among them, the first repetitions of Angelo Dibona's roads in the Croz Dell’altissimo (Dolomitas) and the northwest edge of the Grossen Ödstein (Alpes de Ennstal).In both cases, he pointed out that to achieve this he had not used any of the pythons left in the first ascent and appealed to the inspiring figures of Georg Winkler and Emil Zsigmondy.
That was the time when pythons and carabiners began to be used in lascalada.Initially, they were exclusively for rappels, but they soon entered into play also in progression.
Those reflections crystallized in an essay by Paul Preuss against the use of "artificial aids" in climbing.The publication generated an important dust in the world of climbing, which was baptized as "the controversy of the pythons".In conclusion of it, Paul Preuss ended up establishing in December 1911 his six principles for a pure climb, probably his deepest legacy to the world of climbing:
1.It is not enough to be at the level of the climbs that one carries out, but you have to be at a higher level.
two.The degree of difficulty that a climber is capable of safeing with security and full confidence, must represent the maximum limit of what you try to climb.
3.Consequently, the justification for the use of artificial aids will exist only under the threat of imminent danger.
4.The python is an emergency aid and not the basis of an escalation.
5.The rope is allowed as a rescue means, but never as a half to make ascension possible.
6.The security principle is one of the most important.But not the subject correction of one's insecurity achieved through assistantificial.But primary security, in which every climber should be based on the correct estimate of their capacities in relation to desires.
Paul Preuss se convirtió en un afamado conferenciante en 191two y 1913.In fact, it was the precursor of the current professionals of climbing and mountaineering, giving talks about their adventures that gathered a notable audience in concert rooms of Austria, Italy and Germany and provided important income.One of his biographers points out that he had scheduled more than 50 conferences for the year he died.
Su muerte se produjo a causa de un accidente de escalada el 3 de octubre de 1913, cuando intentaba realizar la primera ascensión de la arista norte del Mandlkogel (two.two79 m, en el macizo del Dachstein, Austria) en solo integral.300 meters rushed in a fall that the precise legend that did not occur climbing but to unbalance when he tried to collect a razor that had fallen during a stop.
Decades after his death, Paul Preuss remains a figure present in the imaginary of the climbing.The Piccolissima Lavardo (Dolomitas) top is also known as Torre Preuss, where the preuss fissure can be scaled.There is also a preuss chimney on the southeast face of Punta Grohmann (Dolomitas) and a Munich street bears his name.
