Lucie Hrozová dials Digital Crack on Mont Blanc

Lucie Hrozová from the Czech Republic has repeated Digital Crack, the legendary route on the spectacular Grande Gendarme dell'Arête des Cosmiques in the Mont Blanc massif, freed by Thierry Renault and Alain Ghersen. Located at 3800m, for many years tthe route famous for being the highest 8a/+ in Europe and while harder climbs at altitude have been established, this climb above the Cosmiques Arête still remains an enticing testpiece.

The 30-year-old ice climbing specialist sent planetmountain the following report "I chose this route because it’s a legendary climb and when I first saw photos of I immediately said to myself that sooner or later I’d really like to climb it. When I saw the video of Edu Marin on it, I decided to come and we organised a trip to Chamonix and I surprised myself in sending it quicker than I had expected.

The first two attempts on day 1 felt very bad. The weather here was very cold and I struggled even putting my frozen feet into my climbing shoes, not to mention my fingers when I tried the route. I also felt the effects of the altitude, I had a headache and gasped for breath. So my first impression was that the climb was desperate and I actually thought I wouldn’t send it as I didn’t have much time before going back home to work.

For this route you need a bit of luck with the weather, because the holds are very small it’s hard to find the right balance between cool temperatures for good friction but not too cold that your fingers freeze.. And of course, being up in the mountains, sometime the holds are plastered in snow or ice or completely wet.

I am definitely still an ice climber at heart but after the three surgeries recently I can no longer train as hard as I used to. But I hope that my shoulder will improve in the future and allow me to hang on my ice tools once again. In the meantime I’ll climb without them on the rocks ;-)"