Stefano Ghisolfi manages the first ascent of a difficult route in his home area Eremo di San Paolo, Italy. He cautiously suggests 9b as the difficulty level for The Lonely Mountain.
It all started at the beginning of the year with the drilling of a new route. Stefano Ghisolfi wanted a relatively direct line in the climbing area Eremo di San Paolo set up, assessed a single section as unclimbable at the time. For this reason he added an additional bolt at a point further to the left, creating the Erebor route (9b / +). After the first ascent of erebor Ghisolfi noticed that the direct variant can be climbed and began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"This middle part is difficult and adds some crisp moves to the whole thing, starting with a dynamo from a itty-small bar."
Stefano Ghisolfi
During the project planning, Ghisolfi changed the beta of the individual sequences over and over again and optimized all trains until he got the route The Lonely Mountain the first ascent two days ago.
"Although the route is more difficult than Erebor, I symbolically suggest 9b as the degree of difficulty."
Stefano Ghisolfi
Stefano Ghisolfi is extremely cautious with his assessment. The background to this is the current debate about the evaluation of routes. This year, numerous routes experienced a sometimes significant devaluation. Ghisolfi himself has dealt (here) and plugged in (here). Above all, it was consistent Devaluation of Jakob Schubert a few days ago for discussions in the climbing scene.
That might interest you
- Stefano Ghisolfi downgrades bibliography to 9b +
- Uncut video: Laura Rogora inspecting Erebor (9b / +)
- How are the handles in a 9b + route?
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Credits: Cover picture Sara Grippo