#10 Werner Thon

"I only open a route when I stand underneath it and think 'wow'". Werner Thon has always been more interested in the quality of his routes rather than quantity. His lines are among those that keep earning a "wow" from the next generations of Frankenjura climbers.

Werner started climbing as a child, a passion inherited from his father, who'd take him to the crag already as a youngster. The way it was back then, he first learned to mix free and aid climbing, which he practised for the first few years. As a teen he completed Weg der Arbeit at Klinge, with big boots, a sling ladder and all the aid gear. It was graded as V a2 - not bad for a kid! He'd return to this line in 1992 to climb it free and rename it Space Invader: one of his earliest and personally most meaningful first ascents.

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