Last fall Andrej Grmovšek had an idea for a new route on the steep wall of Križevnik. The rock there is perfect and I was game to try; besides, Andrej's father-in-law had just been there and lost his shirt en route to the bivy, so we thought we'd pick that up along our way.

Once at the base of the wall, we discussed the chosen line. In one part it looked so steep and smooth that it was hard to say if it is even possible to climb it. We decided to try anyhow. That first day we climbed three pitches and in the third, overcame the part that appeared the hardest. As we later discovered however, what we really needed was two more days to finish!

Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to free the new route. The most difficult pitch we estimated as at least 8b, a real challenge for us. So although we couldn't make it, the attempt was great motivation for winter training. And we found the father-in-law's shirt.

In May, we returned for another try. After some cleaning and finding holds, the crux was getting easier and easier. Eventually, with some painful jamming, the hardest pitch wasn't harder than 8a, or maybe 8a+ for shorter people. On 17th of June, we hit all the pitches first go, both leading the hardest one. We were really happy that we had found such a nice natural line with hard and exposed climbing.

Rajč is a 250m long route and although there are bolts, it's far from being a sport route. One needs a good set of cams to repeat it. We named the route Rajč, after Andrej's father-in-law, who is no longer with us.