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Lena Marie Müller Sends Prinzip Hoffnung 5.14R Trad

She is the fourth woman to climb the trad testpiece and it's her hardest climb to date

German crusher Lena Marie Müller has climbed Prinzip Hoffnung 5.14R trad at Bürser Platte, Austria, first sent in 2009 by Beat Kammerlander.

Müller, a 28-year-old PhD climate change student at Innsbruck University, first tried the technical route less than two months ago. She sent it earlier this week after her climbing partner Johannes Ingrisch got a redpoint.

Müller is now the fourth woman to repeat the classic hard line after Barbara Zangerl in 2014, Nadine Wallner in 2019 and Madeleine Cope in 2019. This is Müller’s most difficult grade to date, with her hardest sport climb being 5.13c.

After her send, Müller said: Prinzip Hoffnung was a route I always had in mind but never really dared to dream about. When I finally started trying it six weeks ago I immediately fell in love with it and realized it was the perfect route for me: The first part is a crack, which is followed by some tiny holds and footholds, on gear that is scarce but (as I hoped) enough for me to try my best on the route. The name of the route says it all: you have to hope that everything stays in place – the gear and the feet on the footholds.

Living in Innsbruck, we decided from the beginning to take the train in order to climb it with a footprint as low as possible. In the end we saved around 2,000 km. I even thought about aiming for a ‘greenpoint’ but we had to take the car as soon as we brought crashpads for the lower part of the route.

Of course, taking the train takes way longer and after freezing the whole day you rather want to jump in the warm car whenever you’re done, but at the same time it allows time to work/or sleep, and it was totally worth it.

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