Transocean, new route on Wenden by Rathmayr and Ruhstaller

Wenden in the news once again. While the Pou brothers were busy repeating Zahir, the experienced Swiss duo Bernd Rathmayr and Reto Ruhstaller completed their Transocean (7b+, 7a+ obl.) up the immaculate Pfaffenhuet on the left-hand side of the Wendenstöcke in Switzerland.

The two mountain guides from Luzern established the route over three days during the summers of 2007 and 2010, forging a winding line ground-up through the sea of limestone between the routes "Voie du frère" and "Patent Ochsner". They inherited the first pitch from the late Kaspar Ochsner, responsible for many of the finest outings on Wenden such as Patent Ochsner, Blau Lagune and Passion to name but three.

Although equipped with bolts, Transocean requires a set of mid sized friends for further protection and the highly technicaly climbing was redpointed by Ruhstaller on 26 August.

Rathmayr and Ruhstaller are responsible for numerous interesting multi-pitches throughout the Swiss Alps, including Deep Blue Sea (7b+, 300m) on the Eiger which was famously soloed, with a BASE parachute, by Dean Potter in August 2008.

For the record, Transocean was named after the drilling company responsible for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill which caused one of the biggest environmental disasters of all times.