Watch Auer’s Scary and Cringeworthy Rappel

Hansjorg Auer is one of the Europe’s top all-round alpine and big wall climbers. He spends a lot of time soloing big routes, sometimes rock climbing, sometimes ice/mixed climbing.

In this video, he needs to down-climb a winter route he was trying to solo. Around half-way through the video, he slings a tiny frozen stone and rappels off of it.

“Climbed my first summit of a 3,000-metre peak by fair means in 1990,” said Auer. “I put on climbing shoes 1996 and started my carreer as a professional climber in 2009 when I quit teaching kids at secondary school.” He received the Paul Preuss prize in 2016. Enjoy!

When you're climbing solo, you realize that you got off the route but there is no option anymore to climb up or down?! By the way you have no gear except a thin rope, one ice screw, your harness, a belay device and you need your crampons and ice axes to finish the climb. Challenging! #neverstopexploring #team_edelrid @thenorthface @thenorthfaceuk @oetztal.official @team_edelrid @lasportivagram @totemcams

A post shared by Hansjörg Auer (@hansjoergauer) on Mar 1, 2018 at 8:23am PST