- Il Dado è tratto !

Giovedì ho approfittato di una delle ultime belle giornate ai Lagoni prima dell' avvento del caldo estivo e delle zanzare per andare a provare questo progettino trad che cavalca uno dei rari tetti della zona. Avevo addocchiato la linea da un paio di anni, mi ero calato per pulirla, ma poi non ero più tornato in quanto all' epoca era ancora al di sopra delle mie capacità e del mio scarso materiale. L'arrampicarla con la corda dall' alto non è stato un gran problema, in fondo si tratta "solo" di un 7b/+ boulder su grossi svasi, però la dimensione e l' affidabilità delle protezioni nelle piccole crepe del tetto ha richiesto una meticolosa fase di test, che ha visto fallire parecchi pretendenti prima di giungere al fatidico Superlight Rock #4, l'unico che sembrava in grado di reggere nella scaglia sul bordo del tetto.

E allora sia... "Il Dado è Tratto" mi son detto, sono partito, ed è così nato il primo vero E7 6c dei Lagoni che si possa fare con la corda senza bisogno di crash per salvarsi le caviglie. A tutti gli aspiranti ripetitori sarò contento di dare consigli, ma tutto il materiale chè può servirvi in fondo è questo...

- An Italian back on Grit

Two weeks have passed since I've come back home, and I think I've seen the double the rain I saw during my five weeks staying in Sheffield... every time I look out of the window I just see dark clouds and big drops, and I soon miss the endless afternoons I spent out in the Peak with a lovely sunshine and a nice breeze.

I have to say I've been quite lucky with weather. It has not been the best to pull hard on sharp boulder problems, (which is what I usually do the rest of the year) but at least it has been nearly always dry, and I could go out and try as many routes I wished, without the nightmare of getting too cold and end up with frozen tips... I'm Italian after all... even if it was too warm to try the hardest routes out there I still had to finish my homeworks and repeat many of the classics lines of the 80's and 90's, and there was nothing better than some sunshine to cheer you up for that. Eventually I could always go down at the Climbing Works to finish myself off if I wanted to!

So back to Sheffield, back to porridge oats, carvery and big tea mugs, back to see old friends, make new ones and climb on this fantastic rock that can give you everything for a moment and just leave you with nothing most of the times. At beginning there were four of us: me, Filippo, Gianluca and Lorenzo (you may better know him as "Nibile"...) but we soon lost a member who went to fight his way out the darkness of The Cave leaving us alone to deal with chilly wind over the exposed gritstone edges.

In fact at the beginning it has been chilly at times, and I already told you of my first experiences of the trip on Careless Torque and The End of Affair (see my previous post). Soon after I started to look at the sharp one, the famous Voyager, a big overhanging prow put up in late 2005 by mr. Ben Moon, which has now become together with The Ace, the symbol of hard gritstone bouldering in the Peak District. I briefly tried the problem a couple of times last year while spotting my friend Dan, but I still had to find a sequence good enough for me.

The problem is the closer you look at the rock the bigger you see the pebbles you have to pinch and squeeze on the prow in order to stay on... the line is great, but it is really painful, and every time you just have a few goes before tearing big holes open in your fingers leaving blood all over the place. Lucky enough, I could soon figure out a good beta, involving a high heel hook an a massive pebble, and having some skin left I was able to send the stand start the next day on a perfect windy afternoon... (everything is easy on a perfect windy afternoon, isn't it?) But it was not over, the goal was to complete the sitstart: it is logical, hard and still unrepeated since that day in 2006 when Ben was captured in this video that already made history.

So I went back to try again one or two days afterwards, and I had a few good goes, almost managing to hold the key sloper near the top, but that was it: my fingers were bleeding and I still had three weeks left to climb in the Peak. I was not in a hurry and I just left, quite confident to be able to climb the whole thing before the end of my trip... but I did not take weather into account. In fact we had a few more good days but the CWIF competition was approaching and I was trying to heal my skin and train a bit for that: I did not want to let the Beastmaker team down because of me, making Ned Feehally and Chris Webb-Parsons angry, as they could have kicked me out of home ;-)

As a result I trained more indoor (say, more than before) but I still went out in the afternoon trying to do my best on some highballs and routes. The first one has been The Promise. Almost next to Voyager is this short balancy route James Pearson put up in 2007. It was originally given E10 7a, as gear is just a poor ballnut #1 placed in a tiny crack at the height of your feet as you are going for the crux. After several repetitions and some safe falls on that piece of gear the grade went down to E7, but when you are up there you're just relying on that, and nothing else can stop you from falling on some nasty rocks seven or eight meters below. So the route can be quite safe if gear holds or quite dangerous if it fails, (and it recently happened) so you'd probably be happier to have all the pads we had that day to save your ass...

After some hesitation to reach the big sloper at the top on my flash try I managed to do it second go, quickly followed by Ned. The fall was not too bad as we managed to build a decent landing, but the climbing is about font 7b+, which is always tricky if you have not tried the moves before, and you really have to commit. It has been for sure a great experience for both of us, and you can see it fully featured, together with some other great lines in the film "Life On Hold" that Nick and Rich from Outcrop Films have been nursing for a couple of years, following the action of Ned, Dan, Mickey, Dave and other great climbers around England.

The day before the CWIF was supposed to be a rest one. My parents and a friend from Parma were visiting for just a few days, and decided to go bouldering at Robin Hood's Stride. Even my friend Rich was off from work and I still had to see that place so... "Why don't we go and try Kaluza Klein? It's a slab, it won't be tiring, and it will be fun!" So we went there: Rich abseiled down, gave a quick brush to the holds and tried the moves a little bit. He soon managed to do everything but he was so stretched on the last big reach that his feet often slipped due to the bad angle they made on rock. I thought: "I'm taller, I will be fine".

I placed a small mat over the big rock at the bottom and I started for the lead. It took me a while to find the balance and smear my feet up the bad footholds, and eventually I was there, ready to commit for the big throw, with no chance to come down but to jump off. So I tried, but I didn't hit the vertical crack high enough, and was now totally out of balance with nothing good to hold on. Funny position: completely incapable to move I desperately try to swap feet and I soon found myself into the air. As the rope caught my weight I was already with my ankles against the pad on the rock: "not too bad... next try!"

The CWIF qualifiers were as funny as tricky as usual and we managed to do well winning the team prize, but the day after I soon started to feel pretty tired from all the climbing I've done and  my skin did not feel any better too. Never mind, you can't always have everything, it was definitely time for some sleep before watching the finals and going for a curry with everybody else. After that weather soon became quite warm and still, but it didn't rain and everything was starting to dry. I went back to try Voyager a couple of times, but in such horrible conditions I really struggled to move even if I was in a good shape. As depressing as it sounds... time has come to put on a harness again !

One of the lines I always wanted to try was Braille Trail, the blank slab featured in Hard Grit where you have to dance with your feet on some tiny pebbles having to rely on three hand placed pegs as a protection. We borrowed from Kathy a special piece of metal she used on the second slot during her ascent of that route (see picture here). The nice door handle she used in the first one was missing, so we went to buy a simple peg before leaving for Burbage south. Rich went down to clean the holds and check gear, and we found that we could actually use a safe ballnut #2 into the first slot, and a small cam into the third one which apparently got way bigger than it used to be... Everything felt quite safe, at least till you get established onto the arete (I slipped while getting there on my first try and did not fall that far), there one more tricky move gets you to easier climbing above, where you can just relax and calmly top it out... I loved it so much I did it twice to take a few pictures.

Next stop has been a quick three days trip up to Cumbria to visit my friend Dan and check out some nice sandstone. On the first day we went to "Queens", a small and peaceful crag lost in the middle of a bleak moor along the Hadrian's Wall. I soon felt at home as the rock is very similar to the one I have in Lagoni  and I had the pleasure to climb Queen Kong a five stars 8a prow Dan opened some years ago (see more pictures on Mark Savage Blog). Next day was a rest one for me, and after all the cold we got the day before it felt quite odd to be by the ocean in St. Bees, where I could enjoy some lovely weather just taking pictures and watching my friends climb these crazy boulders sculptured by water and wind... definitely a must go if you like bouldering by the sea !

The third day we traveled back to Sheffield in order to be present at premiere of Life on Hold, but we decided to stop on the way at Ilkley crag in Yorkshire where I had the dream to check out The New Statesman, an outstanding route John Dunne put up back in 1987. Regarded E8 7a, the route climbs up the right arete of this huge bouder dominating the hill above the town of Ilkley. It looked to me even better than I imagined, probably the most beautiful bit of gritstone I've ever seen, and in ten minutes I was already abseiling while Dan and Kathy were enjoying the boulders spread on the grass at the base. The route is huge and it took me a while to clean it, to roughly figure out the moves on self belay and to decide which gear would fit best into the small sandy crack you find at two thirds height and in the even smaller one near the top.

As I did not have all my gear I just found a poor single cam placement in the first one and wasn't able to fit any additional wire in. The climbing above was just a single 6b move to get to further gear, and having done it twice in a row I was quite confident not to fall there. After all the process was done it got late and wetaher was starting to be cold and humid. I was feeling tired but I knew I could still master the moves if I went past the hard first crux. That could have been the only chance to get the route done, being it far from Sheffield, so I just didn't think twice and I started for the lead. Unfortunately after placing the small cam I got quite cold, and was starting to feel slightly shaky... at that point there was nothing else to do but carry on. As I made a high heel hook trying to reach further up the arete it suddenly slipped without warning, and I fould myself into the air at 10 or 12 meters height. I could hear gear fail, I hit a small mat on a side and I rolled over my back out on the soft grass... not too far from a big rock! I stayed a couple of minutes on the ground before standing up, then we packed everything, and I drove back to Sheffiled with a very stiff neck... I've been very lucky this time.

It took me one day to recover from the fall, and despite some pain in my chest I was soon ready to get up early and fight the heat at Froggatt together with James Blay. We had quite a good time there as he finally sent Renegade Master and I made the first padded ascent of Screaming Dream, an old E7 7a by Mark Leach, which is now a brilliant 8a boulder problem... way ahead of his time back in 1987! Above is a nice video of that morning edited by James.

Time was passing quickly, and spring was definitely on the way. I had just a few days left to to stay in Sheffield and still wanted to go back on The New Statesman, as well as see for the first time Millstone crag and the famous Master's Edge. Luckily my friend Paul Bennett had just finished preparing his thesis and had time to come out and climb with me. The result were two memorable afternoons, with a nice breeze and plenty of sunshine, during which I could feel a small step further in my mind, not just by climbing The New Statesman but also by soloing Edge Lane (E5 5c), and flashing Master's Edge (E7 6c).  Nothing could be better to finish my trip to the Peak this year, and I was happy to celebrate with a good pint with friends before having to drive back to the continent, where I would spend one more week in Fontainebleau with Italian mates, but that's another story, and most of all a very different rock...

I'll leave you with the nice video that Paul edited of the New Statesman, and with the one I made myself with the routes I climbed ground up. It's just average footage from a fixed camera, but at least it captures real action and gives you the feeling of the moment, especially during my fight on Master's Edge, where I could mix some closer shots courtesy of Phil Kelly. Many thanks to everybody who shared his time with me or helped me out. It has been lovely to come back and I think you'll probably have to stand me again next winter... be ready ! ;-)

- Careless Torque and The End of Affair

A week and a half have past since I arrived in Sheffield and weather has been not too bad, at least for an italian point of view, with quite warm temperatures but chilly wind at times, that made rock feel quite grippy.

This time I learnt the lesson and didn't try to go out on rock every day... better have some good skin if you want to try anything hard on gritstone... so I had plenty of time to wander around and take some pictures with my old rangefinder camera... here you can the results I just got back from the lab!

Obviously I did not just wander, and had my goals clearly focused in my mind. First of all was Careless Torque... the legendary 8a boulder problem at Stanage Plantation, set up by Ron Fawcett when I was just two... (1987!). Last year I tried many times, but could just not do the mantle crux at the start... this time, understood how to grab the aréte with my left hand, I've been able to do it five times in a row. Four times still dropping with my fingers touching the very last hold, and then finally finding myself at the top of this huge boulder on my 27th birthday! Best present ever.

Wheather has not always been good and windy, and many days it has just been mild and humid. What better of training on the wooden Beastmaker board at the Climbing Works and then go out to try some of the best classic Grit lines? I had quite some fun at Curbar and Froggatt doing, among other things Ulysses or Bust (E5 6b), The Great Slab (E3 5b), Brown's Eliminate (E2 5b) and on the famous "The End  of Affair" E8 6c.

For the last route I had to come twice, and I'm glad I didn't try it straight on a flash go! First time I went there wind was blowing so hard that made me lose balance on the delicate moves up the arete, and I consequently felt reluctant to lead it... the second time no wind was blowing and everything was quite damp, but my mood was definitely better and I gathered the courage to lead myself up.

I'll leave you with this sunset picture taken with my 1958 camera at the base of the End of Affair... here is also the video, I tried to make it look as old as possible. Hope to have good news for an update soon!

- 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.