It was truly a special day and a moment, alongside the first ascentionist Neil Gresham, who was on a very responsible belay. I got scared, I tried hard, my heart was beating, but I made it to the final ledge without testing that massive whipper. More info to come, including a video on the YouTube channel.
On a side note, I would like to explain precisely the style that I used. I watched all the videos available on the internet, but mostly focused on the footage of Neil Gresham. It was Neil who first rappelled down the route, cleaned and chalked it up for me. Then, I rappelled down from the top approximately 8 meters to the right of Lexicon along the route Astra and watched Neil explain to me how to place the gear in the break and the moves in the upper headwall of Lexicon. Then I climbed back up to the top ledge and warmed up on the finger board. I was lowered down by Craig Matheson to the crux of Sixpence E6, looking to the right and ignoring the view towards the holds of Lexicon.
I started just above the break of Lexicon, doing the 3-meter crux of Sixpence and stopping just before I could touch or look into the final slot hold of Lexicon. Then I swung right to finish my warm-up by doing the final moves of Magical Thinking. I did this twice to warm up. After that, I racked up on the top ledge and speed-rappelled down along Lexicon, facing the lake so I would not get any view of holds at all.
After a short moment of concentration, I set off.
Photos by Petr Chodura.
