Barbara Zangerl & Jacopo Larcher free Rätikon's 'Next Generation'

On Friday the 20th of June 2025, Barbara Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher made the first free ascent of Next Generation, an open project in the Austrian section of the Rätikon massif. Located on the west face of Zwölferkopf, the six-pitch outing was established by Christian Fritz, Pio Jutz, Klaus Müller and Christof Thaler in 2018. The original team was, unfortunately, unable to free-climb the 8b+ crux-pitch, leaving the project open.

Zangerl and Larcher spent one day looking at the route in 2022, before returning early last week for a proper attempt. After one day of working the cruxes, the pair completed the first redpoint ascent last Friday, grading the individual pitches as follows: 7a, 8a+, 8b+, 7b+, 7c+, 6c.

After the successful ascent, Zangerl commented: "This line is probably the closest mini big wall to our home—but still, it’s way up in the mountains. The approach from our flat to the base takes around three hours, which makes for a pretty demanding day.

The climbing is simply amazing on this perfect limestone wall. The route was first climbed in 2018 by Pio Jutz—a true pioneer of alpine climbing in Austria. He established all the lines on this wall. But Next Generation was still waiting for its first redpoint ascent. We first checked out the route back in 2022, but never returned—until this week. With the temperatures rising in the valleys, we felt like it was the perfect time to head back up and give it another go.

After the long hike, we spent some time on the wall figuring out the beta for the two crux pitches. Both of us managed to send the first hard pitch, and Jacopo also successfully climbed the crux pitch. I had one fall at the crux, but it felt very promising to me too. Eventually we ran out of time and had to bail. But the cherry on top of an almost perfect day was flying back down to the valley in just a few minutes with our paragliders.

After that, we knew it could work — we just needed to come back and give it a proper try. Two days later, we hiked all the way up again and climbed the whole line free. Both of us led the three hardest pitches, and in the evening we stood on top of Zwöferkopf. Such a cool summit, looking down at where we started that same morning. We really enjoyed this kind of big day out. Huge thanks to Pio Jutz for this incredible line!"