#11 Dirk Uhlig

Dirk Uhlig and Franken go almost 25 years back, when he was a fairly fresh climber and a student: he had no dosh but he did own a little VW Polo. “I’d pack like 5 friends into the car” and that was the start to many a great weekend.

Nowadays, when Dirk walks in to a crag, he’d think to himself: “man, you’ve been here before and you slept - right there”.

Back in the early 2000s, he’d spend his Frankenjura nights in caves and take the full advantage of the experience, being outdoors all the time, doing night time jumps into outdoor swimming pools - “because you had to wash from time to time after all” - and sitting by the fire with locals. These moments have left a lasting mark on him and he’ll keep coming back to crags with “you were here like a hundred years ago” in the back of his mind.

Originally from Gera, Thüringen, Dirk’s never renounced his home crags. He simply finished them off - before moving away, he climbed most of what was on offer there, learned routesetting, wrote a guidebook, re-equipped some old lines and opened completely new ones. After that, he needed a new testing ground.

The story starts with running.
​Dirk was a long distance runner until his teenage years. He approached it as performance sport, not just a hobby, which brought the whole package: a race almost every weekend, pressure to perform, competitive thinking all the time…

Climbing entered his life by a stroke of luck. Dirk was gifted a basic course at the local wall and didn’t think more of it than an activity to do on the side next to running - until he actually tried it. “I was hooked from day one.” Dirk continued to run but started climbing as well. Eventually he gave up racing and concentrated fully on the new sport. It was completely different than competitive running had been: the pressure to beat others wasn’t there at all. “The rock or climbing wall doesn’t give a damn if you get to the top or not; and if you don’t, you can work on yourself…”

Refining own skills was exactly Dirk’s thing. In about 6 months, he’d ticked off all the routes in his local gym, which started getting boring to him. Soon the creation of routes captured his imagination. He was watching routesetters and thought being the person whose job it is to come up with what moves others do on the wall must be pretty interesting. He decided to give it a go. As a sports student with focus on movement Dirk was really into finding out what his body is capable of and where he can push it. It’s hard to think of another job that would suit him so well. With a box of holds and a drill in his hand, he had the power to come up with moves that may or may not be possible for his body - and for all his future victims, also known as climbing-gym-goers. Dirk started setting at the local wall and didn’t look back.

At the same time he engaged himself into the Thüringen climbing scene. He climbed absolute loads, being also an active member of his local DAV (German Alpine Club). He went as far as writing a guidebook to the crags in his home area and re-equipping a lot of the older routes there. He’s also left his footprint by bolting new lines. Over some 15 years of his climbing career in Thüringen, Dirk claimed about 80% of the existing routes onto his ticklist.

His drive has always been the new and unknown. “To climb everything, that was my credo. If I want to become a good climber, I need to climb in all styles and on all rock types; try every shittiest line so that I can learn something and grow from it.”

Dirk discovered the Frankenjura pretty early. It was the first climbing area he visited apart from his local crags. He enjoyed the different rock and people, he wanted new and Franken was ground for discoveries. It’s a huge area “with a lot of choice if you fancy it; you can never be done with climbing here”. Even if you’re like Dirk, ticking off already redpointed routes in the guidebook to avoid re-climbing them years later and trying to stay away from direct roadside crags, there’s still enough in Franken to last you a lifetime. It’s one of the reasons that have motivated Dirk to move here and, many ticks in the guidebook later, there are still enough routes to keep him occupied.

Dirk’s favourite crags in Franken? For him, they need to be a certain height to impress (size matters!) and decent quality rock. That’s why he feels good at such faces as Hängender Stein, Jungfernriss, the so-called Gössis or Trautner-Gedenkwand.

A little behind the scenes insight: the photos on the left are some early poster tests.
Click here to view the 50RP Posters.

When picking routes, Dirk looks for history and quality. He’ll prioritise lines that have contributed to shaping the area’s climbing scene or that are considered among best in their grade. He likes to approach the crag and first look up at the wall without opening the guidebook, finding a line that he finds cool and of high quality. The person behind the first ascent also matters to him; Dirk likes to check in with his knowledge about their style and historical importance. And there’s always the question: what new things can I experience here, will I have to pull any tricks out the hat?

Dirk’s Franken favourites are: SMS by the Master Milan Sykora, the diverse Polymorphie at Plankenfels, overhanging Härte 10 (another one by Milan) and Equipe Tricolore at Rolandfels.

He isn’t one for doing endless combinations or conquering just any piece of rock by bolting poor quality climbs. “There are too many beautiful climbing areas in the world for that.”

Kastlwand in the Southern Frankenjura is one of these beautiful walls and Dirk’s relationship with Kanal im Rücken (his 50RP route) - a love-hate one. Being a worldwide first, the route bursts with history. The crag lies in a beautiful place: a quiet wooded area with large trees and moss-covered rocks at the base of the tall, smooth wall. The climbing itself is full of character, and really old school; such technical, friction-dependent movement isn’t really in anymore. It requires experience, high levels of body awareness and fairly specific grip strength. “If you were to put one of today’s strong young guns on it, they’d stand less of a chance than on many of Northern Frankenjura’s 8b’s. It’s solved rather with skill than with strength”, Dirk explains.

What Dirk loves about the Southern Frankenjura is its peace. He supposes Kastlwand to get probably around 1% of the traffic that e.g. Weißenstein sees. He enjoys the bird song and whistle of wind in the trees rather that chatter and traffic sounds.

He loves climbing all around the world, on different rock types. “I can’t honestly say Franken’s the best climbing area I’ve been to; but it’s the best limestone pocket climbing area I know.” And it’s home.

The limestone crags aren’t the only thing keeping Dirk in Franken. Ever been to the bouldering gym E4 in Nürnberg? Dirk owns it together with Stefan Ottma. E4 is Dirk’s dream when he started routesetting: to have space for creative expression, somewhere where he can influence every step of the process: the design of the gym, building the walls, setting boulders…
Today E4 is a big success and the go-to gym for many professionals to train at, including national team training camps with visitors from around the globe. The routesetters work in T-shirts with the ingenious "for every solution - a problem".

A master at work. Dirk doing what he does best in his own gym, the E4.
Photos taken on assignment for the E4 bouldering gym. Copyright: imschatten.

He’s been setting for 25 years now, 20 of which internationally: world cups, European championships, world championships, training camps for olympic-level athletes. “The great thing about climbing is you need all muscles in your body and when you use them all in different ways, new moves keep coming out of it; it’s a never-ending field of play.” That’s what has kept such a tight grip over him all these years and it doesn’t seem likely to let go anytime soon!

Thank you, Dirk, for being a part of 50RP!