The Retrieval

After my failure at "Reykyavik low" and the upcoming snow at the Sustenpass, we had to watch out for new stuff out there in the boulderworld. My first intention was to revert to Murgtal to revive some projects up there. However the rain and wet conditions at Murgtal constrained us to go down to Ticino and pick up a new project down there.

For both of us it was fastly clear, which sector - or better said - which boulder we want to choose for that evening. Aldo was still very interested in an ascent of "Souvenir, 8A", which I did two years ago. My goal was "Blochx Addiction, 8A", which I already tried last winter but almost went despearate on it because of my disability to hold the hard swing.
This day it was quite a short story. After some warmups and some tries to get into the specific moves, I started to try it resolute. Firstly I was still not able to hold the swing for a few tries, but afterwards I retarded it at some goes and at the third time I climbed through the boulder.

body position before the swing...

My feeling is, that the "Blochx Addiciton" is a quite hard boulder for 8A. Sure, the grade is appropriate... but on the upper side. The fact, that the boulder has not many repetitions seems to confirm my impression.
The moves are very specific and powerful on relatively slopy holds for a "roof-climb" with such long moves... and also the few bad footholds are not helping much.

Anyway... now I can go for the harder topout-version called "Pure Addiction, 8A+". Who knows... if I'm lucky, I could be able to finish it up today evening. Let's see what happens... ;)


cheers