Summit book
A summit book can be found on many mountain peaks, especially in the Alps and on some climbing rocks . The summit book fulfills the function of a guest book for the respective mountain or rock. Usually it is kept in a weatherproof case. On the Alpine peaks, a tin box with a rainproof lid is often attached to the summit cross , in which the summit book is located. On via ferrata is called by analogy, from the climbing book in climbing walls from wall book (see also hut book ).
overview
A summit book is usually a simple notebook in which every summiteer can immortalize himself. In some summit books, the routes and any new first ascents are recorded. Most of the entries in summit books refer to the date of the ascent, the weather and the mood of the climbers during the ascent. But you can also find humorous entries, poems or drawings in summit books.
When a summit book is full, a new one is deposited. Usually this is done by a person responsible for the respective mountain club or the landlord of the closest mountain or accommodation hut, or a private person. In some cases, exact entries about the route, time and destination can be useful for mountain rescue and lifesaving for those in mountain difficulties. At exposed places in the alpine areas, the hut and chapel books also serve this purpose.
There are summit books on climbing peaks in Saxon and Bohemian Switzerland , in the Zittau and Lusatian Mountains , in the Ore Mountains , in the Harz Mountains and in the southern Palatinate , all of which are provided with a summit book for entries by climbers . The Saxon Switzerland summit books, for example, are looked after by the Saxon Mountaineering Association, which keeps summit books in its archive dating back to the 1920s. With the exception of a humorous saying for the first of the year , i.e. the first ascent of the summit in a new year, entries there that go beyond the date, name and route are frowned upon among climbers. Before 1989 climbers used the summit books for critical and mostly anonymous entries about the situation in the GDR . This even led the Stasi to deal with the summit books. An example of such a saying is:
“From the Baltic Sea to Saxony - no mountain can cope with us. From east to west - we cannot test that "
Physical summit books and their containers are not without controversy and are sometimes stolen or destroyed. In the 1920s there were extensive deletions of summit books in Saxon Switzerland in the dispute over the social orientation of mountaineering between the bourgeois Saxon Mountaineering Association and the United Climbing Department (VKA) of the Friends of Nature, which originated from the labor movement . The reasons for the distances were that summit books would spoil the untouched nature, but they did not meet with undivided approval within the VKA either.
In the course of the spread of mobile smartphones, there are now virtual alternatives that provide evidence of the location using a GPS chip in smartphones and only allow entries on site. GPS devices with the appropriate firmware can also be used for this purpose. The theft problem can be avoided with such a digital summit book, and entries are also possible on snow peaks that do not have any physical summit books. The principle is similar to geocaching , whereby the caches do not have to be placed.
Palatinate Forest
The sandstone cliffs of the Palatinate Forest have been climbed since 1903 when the brothers Karl and Oskar Mugler were the first to climb the Rödelstein near Vorderweidenthal . In 1904 Friedrich and Karl Jung climbed the Fladenstein near Bundenthal and the Jungturm near Annweiler for the first time. From the beginning it was customary for the first climbers to set up a cairn on the summit and leave a note with their name in a cigar box or metal box. Later, the cairn became a permanently installed cassette with a book in which the climbers wrote their stories and z. B. entered drawings of the routes. Ornate drawings, climbing photos and stickers adorned the summit books.
The summit books were systematically expanded by the Association of Palatinate Climbers founded in 1919. The founding of the association was documented in the Asselstein summit book, which has been kept since 1904 . Theo and Fritz Mann, who headed the association from 1926 to 1937, collected money for 30 books and cases. By 1923 all 80 free-standing towers in the southern Palatinate had been climbed. The rock faces of the massifs were later conquered. Of the total of more than 500 routes, 214 were provided with summit books in 2019 for the hundredth anniversary of the association. Problems arose from 1975 to 1985 with the "Palatinate hook dispute" between traditionalists who climbed without aids and sport climbers who wanted to climb the hook as safely as possible. In that time, rings were cut from the routes and summit books were stolen, smeared and singed. The dispute was later settled and now the mutually respected “guidelines for gentle climbing in the Palatinate Forest Nature Park ” apply . No handles or kicks may be knocked into the rocks and the use of bolts is regulated by mutual agreement. Rocks where protected birds breed are closed during the breeding season. The association keeps a summit book archive with several hundred historical and filled summit books, some of which are presented as a gallery on the Internet. In the anniversary year 2019, 24 summit books were kept by Asselstein, which covered the period from 1904 to 2011.
literature
- Claudia Paganini: Close to Heaven .... Of summit crosses and summit sayings. 2nd Edition. Berenkamp, Innsbruck 2007, ISBN 978-3-85093-149-6 .
- Gerd Uhlig, Joachim Schindler: Summit Books & Bergsprüche . Self-published by Joachim Schindler, Dresden 2003, OCLC 76633447 . (History of the Saxon summit books and collection of sayings from summit books)
Web links
- The digital summit book archive of the Palatinate Climbers Association
- Direct link to a gallery of some historically or artistically outstanding summit books
- Guidelines for gentle climbing in the Palatinate Forest Nature Park
Individual evidence
- ↑ Summit book sayings from Saxon Switzerland. accessed on March 16, 2013.
- ↑ SBB News: Info from KTA: Summit book theft with threatening letter, from January 15, 2014 ( Memento from March 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Collective of authors: Festschrift 100 Years of the Saxon Mountaineering Association. Dresden 2011.
- ^ Barbara Weinhold: A Trotskyist mountaineering group from Dresden in the resistance against fascism. ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Neuer ISP Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89900-110-9 , p. 19 f.
- ↑ e.g. report by the stone man of the first to climb the border tower. Found in the summit book gallery of the Association of Palatinate Climbers. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
- ↑ Maria Huber, huz: Dance with the devil. To the point: How the first books came to the summit. In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 190, August 17, 2019. (The headline alludes to an artistic drawing printed in the newspaper in the summit book of the Teufelstisch rock .)
- ↑ List of the summit books in the archive, accessed on August 20, 2019.
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