- Fed 2 & Peak District

Soon after I sent my project at Monte Amiata in Italy we had three weeks of snow and cold weather, not too bad if all you want to do is just staying home training and planning next trip to the Peak District...

One evening, while I was searching for some old lenses to use on my small Sony camera I came into an old russian rangefinder camera, a "Fed 2" of 1958 that can use some of the lenses I already own... as I never shot a single roll of film in my life I thought it would have been nice to give it a try, especially to capture the vast Peak landscapes with my 12mm wide angle, which can only act as a 17mm on digital. No exposimeter and a mechanical spring shutter means that there's no need of batteries, the problem is that in this kind of camera you can't see what the lens is actually capturing, nor focus neither actual picture frame. You just have to rely on the rangefinder, a device that makes you see two images matching, at the distance the lens should be focused on, but looking through that you will get an idea of what you will be capturing using a standard 50mm lens... use a different lens, and you have to imagine what the picture will look like.
Hidden inside wardrobe I found an old film roll, out of date from 2003, loaded it into the camera (quite new to this operation), and tried to take a few test shots, checking exposure with my digital camera... when I had it back from the lab the result was this:

The poor camera was still working but seemed not to be able to focus at infinity, and not further than 60 centimeters with the 12mm wide angle... it seemed like lens mount on the camera was too distant from film plane, making it act as a sort of extension tube... no way to get  decent picture out of it with the wide angle... if I wanted to bring it to Stanage I would have had to make my best to fix it.

So I started carefully to measure flange distance and I found it to be 30.1 millimeters from film plane... it should exactly be 28.8 millimeters for lenses to work correctly, argh! that's why I was getting that results...

The only option left was to manually sand paper the metal lens mount ring off !!! After some efforts i got it down to the right thickness, reassembled the camera, and moved forward to re-calibrate the rangefinder mechanism. A hard work, but after shooting a second film roll to test, I finally got these results:

Everything seemed perfect! Now I was able to focus at any distance and rangefinder was quite reliable even to focus the f1.4 lens! I'm pretty happy I gave life back to this 1958 vintage camera, now I will try to do my best to freeze with it some moments of my journey to the Peak. Don't expect great things... at least these pictures will be added value for my memories. Greetings from Sheffield by the way...

- Amiata Boulder video

Hi, two weeks have past now since I got back from Amiata and I've been working night and day to edit this video... it has been a hard work, the end of two months of climbing, cleaning, shooting and now... editing. It seems that I've been quite lucky with weather as now everything is under snow!

So if you're stuck home and cannot move try to warm up this winter with this short movie about sunny Tuscany. I've put two months of life on it, hope you will enjoy.

If you prefer the Youtube version you can find it here, and if you want to plan a visit there don't forget to check out the map I've made on Google.

- Winter in Amiata - Part 2

E' fatta. Giovedì 19 gennaio sono riuscito finalmente a salire in cima al mio progetto. Sensazione strana dopo che si è stati due mesi a provare e riprovare quei pochi movimenti, compiendo sempre gli stessi riti preparatori e riaprendosi inesorabilmente gli stessi buchi nelle dita... ma come al solito non mollo e i blocchi li prendo per sfinimento, questa volta proprio nell' ultima giornata utile prima di dover tornare a casa, dove mi sarei voluto prendere una bella pausa per non diventare matto, o quantomeno non compromettere ulteriormente il mio stato di salute mentale...

Quasi due mesi quest' anno e un paio di settimane lo scorso inverno... saranno circa 30 giorni di tentativi effettivi, su questa roccia tanto bella quanto abrasiva e differente dai miei amati svasi di Ceriola o Fontainebleau. Per quanto mi riguarda non ho mai salito nulla che mi abbia richiesto tanti sforzi, ma si sa, l'arrampicata è bella perchè è varia, e a volte per esplorare il proprio limite è anche bello cimentarsi sulle cose che più ti respingono, in più ho avuto il piacere di poterlo fare in un posto che mi ha ripagato con la sua bellezza di ogni giornata sprecata in inutili tentativi (magari pure con il metodo sbagliato).

Ora trovo difficile dare un grado a questo blocco, anche perchè la sua difficoltà è tutta concentrata in uno strano lancio in cui conta molto riuscire a spingere bene sui piedi, ed in cui misure ed allungo possono fare la differenza. Per me è stata una bella sfida, e potrei proporre per "l'Ultimo dei Moicani" 8b+, nonostante mi sia risultato molto più difficile di ogni altro blocco che ho salito di quel grado. Sono convinto che non si tratti propriamente del mio stile di arrampicata, ed invito quindi a provarlo a chiunque abbia voglia di cimentarsi, esprimendo seriamente le sue opinioni riguardo alla difficoltà. Anzi spero proprio che si venga all' Amiata per visitare i suoi mille paesi, per assaggiare i buoni prodotti locali, vedere le sue strane rocce, e provare le linee che più colpiscano la fantasia, non certo per tornare a casa con una serie di nomi e gradi annotati su un taccuino.

Questo è quello che ho fatto in fondo in questi due mesi invernali, ho vissuto questo angolo di Toscana, scattato fotografie, fatto nuove amicizie e dato libero sfogo alla mia voglia di arrampicare, aprendo un paio di facili vie trad e cercando in lungo e in largo nuovi sassi su cui poter giocare in futuro. La passione si nutre tanto di sforzi e sacrifici, quanto di gioco, scoperta e fantasia. Non è forse un caso che sono riuscito a chiudere il mio progetto proprio pochi giorni dopo aver trovato l'area che ho visto tante volte nei miei sogni, e in cui ho già individuato la nuova linea, il nuovo progetto che temo e spero mi saprà dare altrettanto filo da torcere come L'Ultimo dei Moicani.

Sto lavorando ora al video che saprà raccontare molto meglio delle mie parole i blocchi del monte Amiata, l'Ultimo dei Moicani e questa esperienza. Per ora vi faccio vedere il video che avevo montato l'anno scorso prima ancora di aver chiuso il boulder, quando ancora non avevo idea dell' odiessea in cui si sarebbe trasformato.

Un saluto a tutti quelli che mi hanno fatto compagnia e che mi hanno sopportato in questo inverno Senese-Amiatino.

It's done. The 19th of January I've finally managed to climb my project. Strange feeling after you've been trying the same few moves for about two months, having the same warm up rituals, and reopening the same holes in your fingers... but as usual I don't give up and the boulders seem to get tired before me. This time happened on the very last day before going back home, where I was planning to get some rest to escape from mental madness...

Almost two months this winter and a couple of weeks the last... it should be more or less 30 days of effective work on this strange kind of rock, as beautiful as sharp, and way different from my beloved slopers of Ceriola and Fontainebleau. I feel I have never climbed something that asked me so much effort before. Climbing is beautiful because it can vary a lot, and sometimes to explore your limits you have to try hard on the things that most reject you. I've had the pleasure to do that in a place that refunded me with its beauty of every single day of useless efforts.

Now I find it hard to grade this boulder, even more because its difficulty concentrates in a strange dynamic move where it matters how well you can push on your feet, and where measures and reach can really make the difference. To me it has been a real challange, and I will suggest 8b+ for "l'Ultimo dei Moicani", even if I found it much harder of anything else I've done with that grade. I'm sure it's not my kind of climbing and I invite everyone who will like to try to honestly express his opinion about the difficulty. Even better, I hope people will come to Amiata to visit its thousand villages, taste good local products, see its strange rocks and climb the lines that most will hit their imagination. Not just to come back home with a list of names and grades on their logbook.

That's in the end what I've done during this two months: I've lived this part of Tuscany, taken pictures, made new friends and let my will of climbing free, opening a couple of nice and easy trad routes and wandering around to find new rocks where to play in future. Passion feeds of efforts and sacrifice as much as of fun, discovery and fantasy. It is no coincidence that I've been able to send my project just a few days later I found the spot that I've always dreamt of, and where I've already identified the new line, the new project that I fear and hope will give me a hard time as much as L'Ultimo dei Moicani did.

Open Amiata Boulder in a new window

I am now working on the video that will tell better than my words the boulders around monte Amiata, L'Ultimo dei Moicani and this whole experience. At the moment you can watch old footage I've quickly edited last year before actually sending the project, when I still didn't imagine the odyssey it would have become....

- Winter in Amiata - Part 1

Dicembre, tempo di freddo, umido e neve... ma il tempo sembra essersi fermato ad Ottobre qui in Toscana e le giornate sono quasi sempre calde ed assolate. Ho fatto spesso avanti-indietro da Parma alla mia casa di Siena per venire a provare un progetto che già credevo di poter fare l'anno scorso ma che si è rivelato ben più duro del previsto, e che ora con queste temperature surreali si sta letteralmente prendendo gioco di me, lasciandomi sempre a bocca asciutta da ormai piu di un mese...

Poco male, tanto io non mollo così facilmente e quando faceva troppo caldo, ho colto l'occasione di girare il più possibile per i castagneti e i faggeti del monte Amiata in cerca di qualche altro progetto interessante. Fortunatamente ho potuto contare sulla guida di Giulio, che fra i castagni vive e lavora da sempre, e di Bengio che da un paio di anni si è spostato da Firenze su questo monte, e oltre che a pulire e liberare parecchi blocchi e vie, ha aperto con la sua ragazza Manuela un bellissimo locale nel centro di Santa Fiora, "Il Club dell' Olmo", dove è possibile bere un buon bicchiere di vino, mangiare qualche piatto tipico, o semplicemente riprendersi dalle fatiche dell' arrampicata immergendosi nell' atmosfera calda e accogliente di questi paesi.

Così, spostandosi a diverse altitudini in base alla meteo, per ora ho ripetuto parecchi fra i passaggi più belli della zona e sono riuscito a liberare alcuni progetti fra cui spiccano "Il Gioco della Bottiglia" 8a al settore di Case Marchi, e "Achille" una bellissima palla strapiombante di 8a+ nel settore della vetta (oltre 1500mt) dove comunque siamo riusciti a scalare qualche giorno in maglietta nonostante le sporadiche nevicate.

Durante il capodanno anche i fidi amici Vicentini sono venuti a farmi visita, portando con la loro carica stimoli sempre nuovi per cercare e pulire sassi su questa strana roccia vulcanica. Stiamo quindi lavorando per voi (ma anche un po' per noi lo ammetto... ;-)) e al piu presto il mio amico Bengio renderà disponibile una piccola guida dei blocchi e delle vie perchè possiate venire a scoprire questa parte di Toscana.

- Autumn on the rocks

After the end of competition's season it's time to get back on rock trying to enjoy and develop some less known areas in Italy such as Val Daone or Monte Amiata but even to make a quick trip to Fontainebleau and Belgium... let's see what happened.

First focus has been in Val Daone, where I had a couple of nice projects to be climbed before annual closure of the road during winter period. The first and easier one was "Big Bamboo sitstart", which consists of a hard and physical start to an old problem on this blank and slopey arete just next to "l'Avenir..." at Dos Dei Aser sector...

The problem gave me more trouble than I first thought and it took me 4 days to complete it, so I didn't worry to give it 8a+ and wait for future repeaters' opinions. The other project consists of slightly overhanging granite shield, crossed by a tiny finger crack where I struggle to make my fat fingers go inside... I tried many and many times always falling on the last dynamic move to a slopey crimp, which I was able to hold just one or two times trying the single move. Nothing to do, the project is still there and I will have to wait spring for the road to open again... temperature are dropping a bit, time to move on to Fontainebleau!

Unfortunately in Font weather was still quite warm but I had the pleasure to climb a few good lines I had never tried before (thing that is getting harder as years pass), like Vague Patatras, 7c+ at Saint Germain or Art and Nature, 7c+/8a at Cuvier Est, but I had to move to Belgium soon where I had the pleasure to take part in Bleau Open Bouldering Sensations 2011 (see the beautiful pictures of Stef D'hoore) a really fun competition at the bouldering gym "Bleau" of Ghent.

After 4 hours of qualifications on these round shaped boulders I made my way to the finals where I still had to fight hard to take (as usual ahahha!) the second place after Mr. Glairon Mondet... pretty happy in the end and really fun climbing. Now destroyed was time to relax, visit city center and drink a good beer before going back to Fontainebleau.

Back in the forest I was joined by my friend Kakko and we spent another week there. Weather has been quite good at first but soon became quite humid and foggy and had to give up the idea of completing "The Big Island" where I dropped almost at the mantle last year... anyway I have been able to climb two stunning problems which has been in my dreams for a while: the first one is a powerful rounded arete called "Bleu Sacré", a hard 8a+/8b opened in 2010 by Antoine Vandeputte, and the second one is the legendary "Merveille", a high and technique 8a+ opened back in 1991 by mr. Le Ménestrel...

...old school vs new school, huge slopers vs sharp "grats". Luckily I got some good beta for last move from my friend Ned, and was able to send it second time I passed the crux in the middle... probably the best boulder I have ever climbed, nothing that any 8c out of a dump cave will ever give you... (and it's a pleasure to hear that Adam Ondra just went flashed it! Too many beautiful boulders just don't receive the right attention because their grade is not "hardcore").

Then shut down by the fog all we could do was hiking through wet boulders, picking up mushrooms, buying some local cheese at the market of Milly la Foret, going last time to our favourite pub "La Tete des Trains" in Tousson... good bye Fontainebleau. At the moment I'm writing from my small house in  Siena, exploring never stops and at Monte Amiata is full of new rocks to be climbed and new stories to be told... I'm just getting too much pictures and videos,  no time is left after climbing, but I will try to give a video update soon.

Greetings from Tuscany.

- Picture Galleries and PhotoStore

Finalmente dopo tanto lavoro notturno tutto sembra funzionare... ho raccolto e catalogato un po' dei miei scatti preferiti raccolti negli anni, suddividendoli per temi, e ho anche creato qualche raccolta relativa ai miei viaggi di arrampicata in giro per il mondo. Il tutto da sfogliare e gustare a schermo intero. Se vi piaceranno, avrete la possibilità di acquistarli ad un prezzo simbolico sul PhotoStore, per poterne stampare ingrandimenti, creare locandine per eventi o manifestazioni oppure semplicemente salvarli come sfondo del computer.

Finally after late night working sessions everything seems to work... I gathered some of the my best pictures and arranged them by themes, I've also made  some collections about my climbing trips around the globe. Everything to be browsed and enjoyed in full screen. If you like them, you'll have the opportunity to buy them for a symbolic price on the PhotoStore, to make prints, posters, or just use them as desktop wallpaper.

Intanto le gare proseguono con i soliti risultati: secondo in Coppa Italia Boulder 2011, secondo al campionato Italiano Boulder 2011, sembra che sia proprio affezionato a quel numero 2... in effetti la media aritmetica delle mie posizioni in gara negli ultimi 5 anni è qualcosa come ‎2,66666666666667.

In fondo posso anche ritenermi soddisfatto, dopo tanto tempo sarà giunta l'ora di darci un taglio e dedicarsi a tempo pieno alla roccia? Mi sa di si... quindi aspettatevi a breve un bel resoconto da Fontainebleau!

- Rocklands 2011 - Part 2: Back Home

Back home... hard to get back to normal life when you've been climbing and staying into the wild with friends for 58 days, and even worse if you return from bone dry African winter and find yourself in the middle of a boiling September here in Italy!

Time runs quickly when you are on a trip, and when I try to look back at our experience everything tends to mix together, giving quite a messy and cheerful sensation, made of people, sceneries and smells from a far and previously unknown country.

Red, red was color of land and rock, green were bushes and plants and deep blue were the skies above us. Almost sunny every day, sometimes quite warm, but always dry with some little breeze. Shorts periods if rain here and there made you realize even more how good weather was and let your body have some rest from climbing and hiking, in order to restart fresh and focused  the day after.

Climbers came from all over the world and everywhere you went you could meet people sharing with you the enthusiasm of being exactly on the trip they always dreamt to be.  Moving around you could hear a strange language made of English, German, Afrikaans and yes, also a hint of Italian.

We stayed well,  every day we woke up, we had a satisfying breakfast  and then we went out with our old cars to explore as much as we could of the area, trying to find out and repeat all the most beautiful problems among that endless amount of rock we had in front of our eyes. Evenings just came too quickly and many times we were obliged  to stop just to go in town to do shopping before closing time.

The place itself is vast and amazing, with a hint of wilderness but at the same time really friendly and peaceful. I tried to record our best memories with pictures and videos and now I'll let them speak, hoping they'll give you inspiration for planning next trip.

There is also something else I want to talk about. Rocklands is for sure one of the best climbing destinations I've ever been and for sure one of the most famous, but I have to say it also shows some limits. First of all when you get there you can really feel how poorly black people live comparing to white men. Even if they're usually smiling at you it is hard not to think you're just there for climbing and having fun, when you see such poverty around and you're frequently asked for food or money... of course you can't help everybody and you end up living your holiday, I just hope all this tourism will help to promote the development of the region under every aspects.

Another strange fact is that despite all the amount of rock you can see around, just a small portion is actually good for climbing. Sometimes it is either holdless or too juggy, but most of the times it is just loose and bad rock. You may have to walk quite a lot between these before reaching a good sector, but the hike is always nice and when you finally get there you're always impressed by the quality of the climbing.

The style is quite crimpy and it's full of overhangs with strange holds, so climbing tends to be quite basic and powerful, at the expense of balance and technique, but sometimes it also offers tall brilliant aretes and even a few slopey gems you can find here and there... be careful that this sandstone can be really hard and "glassy" and slopers may have a really bad friction! Anyway the variety of holds and shapes is fantastic and I found it second only to Fontainebleau under that aspect. (Yes "Le Coeur" is still unbeatable).

Reading the guidebook I found that first sectors were developed starting from 1994 and since then many strong climbers came to search for projects in the climbing mecca, starting from Fred Nicole, Klem Loskot or Bernd Zangerl... nowadays it seems that most of the beautiful lines gathered around the main climbing sectors have been already climbed, and if you want to find your own project, one that really stands out, you have to walk further and further... maybe even 50 minutes uphill like did Nalle for "Livin Large", but I can say it was definitely worth it! Much more possibilities are left for short routes, which can be found here and there on the faces of the tallest boulders, many of them would be perfect as hard and scary trad projects. We tried a couple of amazing lines but found them too hard or demanding in time to be worked and so we preferred just to keep on bouldering and explore all the sectors around for this first trip.

There was just a thing which I found quite odd about the climbing there and this were  GRADES. This summer I wasn't sure in the best shape of my life but during this trip I would have climbed 34 problems above 7c according to the guidebook, of which eight 8a+'s an 8b and three 8b+'s... by far the best I did in my climbing career, especially comparing it to last winter in the Peak District where in two months I was just able to climb 11 problems above 7c including just two 8b's. Not to mention that many grades had already been revised in the guidebook! So what happened? Are the big stakes you could find in Clanwilliam especially good for climbing performances? Or it is just the whole system that has to be revised? Is it possible to have a common grading scale all over the world?

I'm not referring here to first ascentionists, as it is always hard, and maybe impossible to give a correct grade when you climb on your own and have to discover every single trick, but more to the climbing community itself which seems to be always happy to record the given grade, without bothering to think as much as they do when they climb in their home crags here in Europe for example, where grades seems to stabilize quite soon around a common "standard". The problem I think is that we want to succeed, and to do so we need to climb numbers. How any times have you heard: "I climbed an 8a+" and only after the name of what have actually been climbed? Like if it was less important? Well to me is still a big difference to hear: "I climbed Nutsa in Rocklands" or "I climbed la Merveille in Fontainebleu", after both names there's written 8a+ in guidebooks, but if I saw climbing Nutsa almost twice everyday I still have to climb or see anybody climbing that thing in Fontainebleau, and you can't tell me it is just because it's rubbish...

Anyway here is a list of what I climbed during the trip, with the official "guidebook grade" and the one I thought was appropriate. Again it is always hard to be rational... especially when you climb so many days in a row, but when you feel 7 grades out of 10 wrong there should be definitely something odd going on.

Tomorrow I will be Gone	7c	7b+
Bacs pour Nini	7c	7c
Kingdom in the Sky	7c	7b
Cedar Spine	7c	7b
Caroline	7c+	7c
Il etait une fois	7c+	7c
Black Mango Chutney	7c+	7c
Macho King	7c+	7c+
Pinotage Sit	7c+	7b+
The Shark	7c+	7c+ soft
White Mazda Clan	7c+	7b+
Stretched and Pressed	7c+	7b+
Stargate	7c+	7c
Barracuda	8a	7c+
Gliding Through the Waves like Dolphins	8a	8a
Out of Balance	8a	7c+
Pendragon	8a	8a soft
Royksoop	8a	8a soft
Herbie	8a	7c
Double D Bras and Shiraz	8a	7c
Witness the Sickness	8a	8a
Solar Power	8a	7c+
Nutsa	8a+	7c+
Green Mamba	8a+	8a
Shosholoza	8a+	8a soft
Black Shadow	8a+	8a+
Barracuda sitstart	8a+	8a+ soft
Armed Response	8a+	8a+
The Amphitheater	8a+	7c+
30's the new 20	8a+	8a
Fragile Steps	8b	8a+
Mooiste Meisie	8b+	8b
Derailed	8b+	8b hard
Madiba	8b+	8b

I'll leave you with this nice little video my friend Marco edited, which I think captures really well our  African experience, with its people, its landscapes and its climbing. This winter I hope to go back to Fontainebleau and Peak District, to keep on climbing truly inspiring lines as I could do here in Rocklands. My 8a.nu ranking will suffer a little bit but I'll try not to bother much. ;-)