Payday

Wuuhaaa... what an evening yesterday!! After about 8 days of running and fighting against “Second life, 8A+” in Chironico, I was finally able to finish it. A sheer relief. :)

the beauty... for me it's definitely one of the nicest lines in Chironico.

Ever since about the third day I was able to climb the whole line until the last few moves. But it hasn't really changed at the following days. Day for day I messed up an ascent because of a lack of endurance. I climbed all parts easily… but to climb the whole thing in one go was just not possible. Either I was simply not fresh enough… or I made some unnecessary mistakes… or whatever. On two days I climbed to the very last move… and dropped. I almost went crazy on it. ;)

Anyway… it’s history now and I’m very happy with this ascent. Even if I had to put more time into it than firstly expected.

the harder than expected last moves of "Second life, 8A+"...

Now Ticino is definitely over for this season. At least for me. I will be back in autumn… after the summer heat in gone. But for the next weeks and months there are better locations to stay.

But the evening was not over with this success. Because of the fact, that I finished Second life quite fast this day and I had no other open projects at Chironico, I went back home… BUT with a short stop at the Schöllenen-valley. I know… it’s quite crazy to visit two different areas at one evening… but I had still some open business there and some power left to give it a try. ;)

After my ascent of “Dulcifer sit down, 8B” in the Schöllenen-valley last autumn, I started to work on this unnamed line about 3 meters to the left of Dulcifer at the same evening. It’s a nice line too. From a quite easy sitstart to a really tricky middle part with a long shoulder-move to super slopy crimp and as a spicy finish a scary mantel-topout on about 5 meters height. I found already some good beta last year… but was not able to finish it that evening. In the end I never went back to it last year, because of other ideas at other locations.

Some days ago I gave it another try after I drove into the rain, when I went down to Chironico. This evening I found some even better beta and was just not able to finish it, because of a totally we topout.

on this evening it was just not possible to top it out...

And yesterday now the third go. It took me just two tries to climb up to the mantle. Wow… I really haven’t expected it. But up there I saw, that there are absolutely NO holds up there to put your body over the mantle. And it’s a crazy mantle… very “slabby”… and also the height didn’t gave me any confidence. ;)

I was close to the decision to let it be and climb back down… but that was definitely not the way to go. So I grabbed the grass up there… checked if it is save to pull on it… grabbed the grass with my other hand too and pushed my body on the slab. Phuuuuu….!!! My heart was running like a THRILLED BUCK. What a crazy topout it is…!!! Not hard… but scaaaary. Especially with no spotter at the ground.

The grading is a black box for me… but I’m anyhow not able to grade anything at the moment. It can be everything between 7C and 8A. No idea…

But to get an idea I took a try on the standstart of Dulcifer. This line (the standstart) got an ascent some days ago and got the grad 8A. Sure… I knowed the line and the moves already because of my ascent of the whole line last year. But I really just wanted to give it a try to get an idea for the grading of the other line I just did.

Also on Dulcifer I needed just three tries to climb it again. I’m not sure if it really deserves an 8A… at the moment many things are feeling just too easy. It rather felt like 7C+… and it was about the same difficulty as the unnamed line before, probably a notch harder. So also this one will be about 7C or 7C+ I think.

Nice evening… hopefully I'll get more of them in the future… ;)