Among the three films scheduled for Reel Rock 17 is “Burning The Flame”, the story of the free climb of the Nameless Tower in Pakistan by Jacopo Larcher and Barbara “Babsi” Zangerl. We met Barbara to interview her exclusively.
Barbara “Babsi” Zangerl Interview
Hi Barbara, let’s make introductions for those who don’t know you. Where are you from, when and how did you approach climbing?
I started climbing at the age of 14 when my brother took me and my sister to a bouldering gym near home. We loved climbing from the very beginning on. It was more fun as everything else I did before.
After this fist experience we went regularly to the gym and got into a climbing club. Bernd Zangerl (no relation) and Dietmar Sigl showed us rock climbing. That was even better so we have spent most of our free time climbing on rock after this first experience at the boulders in Ticino.
It may seem incredible but you are not a professional mountaineer, in the sense that you have a “normal” job in your daily life. How do you manage to reconcile the two things and why didn’t you abandon your profession as a radiographer to devote yourself fully to the mountains?
Yes, I work part time at the hospital in Bludenz. It is pretty flexible. I do shift work-that is the best way to combine my climbing with the normal work. I don’t really see climbing as my main job. I see it as my passion. And my job in the hospital gives me a great balance to be always motivated for my climbing projects and I also really like the work I do in the hospital. I love to have something not related to climbing in my life. This way I don’t feel pressure in climbing.
But also my partners/sponsors in climbing are the best I could wish for… they support my journey in climbing fully. I never had the pressure to do something I wasn’t fully motivated for.
Switching from boulder to long routes to big walls was a step forced by an injury, but how much has this change given you on a personal level?
At the time when I got injured I was a boulder fanatic and not very psyched for switching my focus in climbing.
But I had to change at least for a while. First I saw rope climbing as a Therapie and later on I saw it as a new challenge a new adventure. Motivation grew and I had to work on myself a lot. It is a different game but at the same way amazing. The mental part of climbing was huge in alpine climbing. I had to overcome inner fear. It is different to fall on a boulder or climbing a hard sequence hundreds of meters over the ground. But I really enjoyed the whole baggage of big wall climbing or trad. Today I love it to switch climbing styles. It is such a great sport and a huge adventure.
You and Jacopo are a couple in everyday life as well as climbing partners. Is there more competition, solidarity, esteem, trust among you…?
I think we are a great team in the mountains and in life.
Climbing is a lot about trusting your partner. When you share the same passion then it is even better because sharing all those experience with your lifetime partner make every experience even better. But in general climbing is a team sport.
We share experiences and we are having a great time together this makes a climb count even more. Of course sometimes there are moments where we don’t agree to each other. For example Jacopo is the well organized person on the wall. He hates when I hang stuff around the haulbag (to be faster). And at our home it is the opposite way. At home I would argument about his stuff being all over the place. 🙂
Who came up with the idea of Eternal Flame and who insisted on going back to it a second time?
It was always a big dream of mine to visit this place one time in my life. I knew this Towers from pictures and stories and was impressed about the beauty of this area. I think for Jacopo it was the same. But it always seemed to be quite far away because we didn’t have much experiences in high altitude climbing.
(Jacopo was in India before to climb a big wall at 5000m altitude.) I hadn’t any experiences in big wall climbing at high altitude. So I did’t know how my body will work up there.
In 2021 we were at the Trango Towers the first time but the weather didn’t allow us to climb on the nameless tower. We saw the area, we had all the logistics done and got a good picture about the whole action. That made it easier for us at the second year. And the motivation was fully on because we spent so much time without climbing at base camp in 2021 that we really wanted to get one single chance to give that objective a proper try. So it was clear that we will go back the year after.
You are the first woman to have free climbed and redpointed the route. Do you think belonging to a genre is a limit?
It is not really important to me that I was the first women to red point eternal flame. It was just a big goal to climb it. The fascination was this incredible rock spire. If you see that tower you just have the feeling that is a dream line.
Doing a first repetition or a second or a first female was not important to me or us. I don’t see being a women is a limit. We can try and climb same as every other person. The key is to enjoy the process and don’t be too focused on succeeding. the journey is the goal. And the experiences and the great memories are important in life. I guess it makes a difference if you put up a new line being the fist one on a line.
That is something very special. But repeating something. I don’t think it makes a huge difference if you are doing the first second or third repetition…or being the first women. It is a positive side effect maybe but nothing important to me.
Eiger, El Cap, Nameless Tower. Having to express a wish in a mountaineering key, what would be next?
oh man there are so many climbs I still want to do and places I want to see. But very high on my list would be Patagonia or Madagascar.
