The Swiss climber Nils Favre - most known for the ascent of hard boulders - did an ascent of the trad route Darbellay (8a) at the Petit Clocher above Martigny.
For Nils It was only the fifth trad route of his career. Nevertheless, he did choose a difficult multi-pitched tour: Darbellay with difficulties up to 8a.
“When I first tried the route by leading, I was fucking shit. I didn't know if my placements were good or not. To make matters worse, you can only place small Camalots. When you start climbing, you quickly have a lot of air under your feet. At some point, of course, I fell into the rope and gained confidence in the material and the placements. "
Nils Favre on his trading experience in the Darbellay route
Nils often had to access the route by himself
Nils Favre not only had to struggle with the route, but also had trouble finding climbing partners. Often, Nils did climb the tower without a climbing partner to check out the route and placement of the gear on top rope. For this he had the climb on top of Petit Clocher rope solo (see video above).
All in: Nils removes pitons
Nils has decided to place all the gear while doing the redpoint ascent and skipping the two pitons in the crux section. In the event of a fall, this would have meant, that he falls 15 meter. Fortunately, this did not happen. Nils climbed all lengths without a fall and got the redpoint ascent of Darbellay (8a, 5SL) at Petit Clocher.
“I removed the two hooks that previous rope teams used and used when climbing through. It's trad people! "
Nils Favre
Nils during one of his attempts in DArbellay (8a)
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Credits: Cover picture Julia Cassou