New Year, time to get back to Amiata trying to get some sunshine and finish some unfinished business... potential is surely there, good rock too, if you even find a team of psyched people to work with it's basically done!
First goal was climbing a hard project in "Vivo D'Orcia" sector named Mondo Bastardo. I tried it a few times over last spring and this autumn, I was getting really close but always dropped on the last shoulder move when coming from the start. It's a great line on pockets, it can be quite sharp on your skin, but the reward is enough to make you battle and bleed as hard as you can.
I had to get back a couple of times, and make some good training on our super board at Castel del Piano, before finally sticking the last move on the 4th of January... the grade is proposed 8b, and I think it deserves it all. After that I've soon started working on the next hard one, which is just a hundred meters away. This one could be even harder and will be a good project to get back as soon as the snow goes away!
Moving on to a different subject we started opening some new trad lines at Chiesina sector, mainly due to the efforts done by Federico Schlatter who made a heavy gardening job to clean all the rock from vegetation! I have to say hard bouldering and good trad climbing is probably my favorite mix, as it allows you to rest your body after a heavy session and simply enjoy the beauty of climbing with a little bit of mind challenge... I'm really proud we're starting to develop such a place in Italy as well.
Among the lines we gave birth to a special mention goes to "Il Nido del Cinghiale" E3 6a (the bore's nest) and "Un Friend per Amico" E6 6c (a friend as a friend). The last one is quite intense and fairly safe on gear, it has a short bouldery section which will deserve at least 7b sport climbing, with proper gear (not too easy to place though) it becomes a very enjoyable route to test your trad skills.
I'll leave you with this nice video we made of the route, hope it will make you wish to visit Amiata and enjoy this place as we're doing... we'll publish an article on Pareti magazine soon... just in case! Thanks to Federico, Bengio, Tommy and everybody else who shared with us his new year's holiday.
