Wolfgang Güllich: Climbing Quote of the Week

Before there was Chris Sharma, there was Wolfgang Güllich. Wolfgang, like Sharma now, redefined the boundaries of rock climbing, pushing grades into the atmospheric realms with his ascent of Action Directe in 1991at Waldkopf in Germany’s Frankenjura area. Action Directe, the world’s first route graded 9a or 5.14d, even still has seen few ascents. It’s hard to know what Wolfgang Güllich, born in 1960, would have accomplished if his life had not been cut short by a car accident in 1992.

Güllich loved climbing and traveling to new areas. He began climbing on the sandstone cliffs at Germany’s Südpfalz region and by the early 1980s began regularly climbing in the United States, which was still the world’s center for hard free climbing. On his first US trip in 1982, Wolfgang knocked off the coveted 2nd ascent of Grand Illusion (5.13c) near Lake Tahoe, the 2nd ascent of Equinox (5.12d) at Joshua Tree, and Cosmic Debris (5.13a) in Yosemite.

On a 1986 trip to Yosemite Valley, Güllich’s goal was to make a free-solo ascent, that is one without the safety of a rope, of Separate Reality (5.12a), an airy crack climb out a horizontal 20-foot roof perched hundreds of feet above the cliff-base. On an October morning, after already climbing the route several times, Wolfgang felt ready to solo it. He grabbed his friend, photographer Heinz Zak, and headed down the Valley to the route. He effortlessly climbed the route, then sat in the sun on the cliff-top above. He then realized, he later wrote, “It is the thought of death that teaches us to value life.”

The following quote, written by Güllich in 1987, is recounted in the book Wolfgang Güllich: A Life in the Vertical by Tilman Hepp and published in 1994 after his death. It is about Wolfgang’s mental and physical preparation to climb Separate Reality.

"There are only a few more moves left to the obvious holds where the roof starts and the world turns horizontal; these holds are the last position of safety. Then I will move into the ‘other reality.’ Separate Reality free solo—out onto the edge of the roof and over it—is what I want to do! The crippling fear that made my every move freeze at the very thought and left my hands damp with sweat is gone.

“Finally I have all the information I can get about the route. I know every detail, know how much strength it is going to require…. I have already done the route with a rope several times without mistake. But having to do everything perfectly can cause you to freeze up, to obstruct the precision of your climbing, to prevent you moving economically. What would that mean? Maybe somewhere out there on the roof the vicious circle of panic would start and you would be left to shrivel up with your hands locked in the crack.”

Photo above: Wolfgang Gullich free-soloing "Separate Reality" in Yosemite Valley in 1986.
Photograph courtesy Heinz Zak/Bersteiger Magazine

Watch a video of Wolfgang Güllich climbing Separate Reality.