Gaetan Raymond repeats A Line Above The Sky in the Dolomites

On Sunday 21 February French climber Gaetan Raymond bagged the first repeat of A Line Above The Sky, the 50m outing at the dry-tooling crag Tomorrow's World below Marmolada in the Italian Dolomites. The total dry route breaches the gigantic roof and had been freed by Britain’s Tom Ballard at the end of January, who provisionally graded it D15, indicating it might well be the hardest dry-tooling route in the world.

Raymond travelled from his habitual crag Usine close to Grenoble specifically to the Fedaia pass with this route in mind and, quite remarkably, managed to repeat it on only his second attempt. The Frenchman told planetmountain.com " On my first try I fell two moves before the belay! My tool slipped, I was so unlucky... I then sent the next day. As to the grade, it’s difficult to say because this route is so long that it's mainly endurance with only 3 or 4 D12 long moves. But bearing in mind its length, a full 50m roof, D15 could be confirmed."

Raymond, who attempted the route together with Italy’s Angelika Rainer, climbed it without using Yaniros, i.e. Dry-Tooling Style. A full article examining this technique will be published on planetmountain.com next week.


05/02/2016 - Tom Ballard claims world's first D15 dry tooling climb in the Dolomites
British climber Tom Ballard has freed A Line Above the Sky at Tomorrow's World, Dolomites. If the D15 grade is confirmed, this climb weighs in as the hardest drytooling route in the world.