Chinese Wall By Toby Dunn

Lolita provides more excellent entertainment at a bargain grade 7 mostly following a crack line with mercifully small quantities of nasty jamming, but lots of general pleasantness. Further up the crag are found predominantly longer routes, covering slabby rock for the bottom 40m or so, before kicking back to vertical, or occasionally grotesquely bulging. This section also has a few fixed ropes for accessing higher project pitches, many of which look extremely impressive. The fixed ropes do also happen to provide exceptionally fine rope swings, as the ground beneath the crag drops away steeply, and a good sixty feet of air can be gained with a bit of a run!

In total the Chinese wall contains about three hundred routes, mostly of exceptionally good quality on solid, sound rock. The equipment is also largely good and thoughtfully placed; we didn't encounter any Spanish style horror clips or comedy 'dog lead' lower offs. However, a task more difficult than any of the routes at the Chinese wall is trying to obtain a topo for it, having been climbing in Germany, where the selective 'Osterreich' guide is widely available we assumed that it, and more detailed guides would be available in Innsbruck. However, despite the city's plethora of climbing stores none of them stock any guides to the climbing on the Chinese wall, or the Osterriech guide. We were assured that this was not usual, and due to a new guide being out relatively soon. However I'd advise grabbing any guide you can find to the place as soon as you get your hands on it, as it would reduce the portion of the day spent bailing off routes, having discovered that that 'jug' is a bit worse than it looks from the ground…
Having said this though, the crag is quite popular with locals, we just went at a weekend and there were plenty of people with wads of photocopied topos to steal a look at. The routes often have names and pitch lengths (but not grades!) painted at the base, which makes things a bit easier.

The Score.
Where:
From Innsbruck drive due West following signs to Leutasch, and then Mittenwald (which is just over the German border) through a few ski resort towns, until you arrive in the small village of Pultbach. There is a car park on the right when the best part of the village has been passed, it's a bit hidden by fir trees from this direction, so keep your eyes peeled (especially as you'll be gawping up at the crag, obvious on the left hand side of the valley). There's a handy map at the parking showing where to go to get to the crag - just follow the obvious track towards it.
When:
We went to the Chinese wall in early July, which is ideal if you happen to like climbing in a pair of shorts and getting a tan, but the holds do get a tad greasy towards the middle of the day, so a little earlier / later in the year would be more suitable if collecting some nice big numbers is your objective. Winter is obviously, given the presence of lots of ski stations at much lower altitudes than the crag going to be a bit chilly…