Aquasolo: Mauro Calibani deep water solo at Finale. By Andrea Gallo
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Andrea Gallo
AQUASOLO by Andrea Gallo
It really wasn't like me to relinquish, for once, one most beautiful routes at the crag, the most obvious one, the hardest of them all. I'd simply have to place a couple of bolts and it would have been mine. Instead I turned on my heels and walked away. I had left the rock as I'd found it, convinced that I'd have to climb it in its crudest form, without a safety net.
I had already bolted a few routes close to Dancing Dalle and on one of these I'd tested myself without a rope, but the bolts I'd placed and the attempts while tied in to the rope had taken away too much of the fear I was yearning for.
Every now and then I spoke to someone about this line, hoping to not arouse too much enthusiasm, and whenever I went to Capo Noli I looked down to check whether it was still as I'd left it. And it always was.
Last summer, while stuck in the middle of a video project, I described this unclimbed route to Mauro and he talked to me about a line that had struck him, at Capo Noli. We were excitedly talking about the very same holds, once again we shared a vision of rocks that don't support consumption and that cool summer evening we both shared the same doubts: too much water for a solo, too little water for a deep water solo... the answer could only be found in a dive at the end. Best avoided.
We filmed live, had just chance to capture the moment. During the abseil the webbing sawed away at his shoulders and removed all thoughts, the small obligatory price for ethics that exist only here, the rest of the price is an option for Mauro. Poised carefully on the iron bar just above water's edge, there was time to think once again, to not do it. But on the first move he found that expression that I've seen before, on other occasions behind the lens: the look of someone who wants to climb is different from someone who doesn't want to fall. And up he went, one chance, the right one.
"The good news is that with the rise in temperatures, sooner or later the sea level will rise here, too". What seems like the title of a film by Wertmüller is in fact the name of this new route, or "non route" should I say, because it hasn't been bolted. It was climbed in August 2014 at Capo Noli's Dancing Dalle sector, Finale Ligure, by Mauro Calibani. About 18 meters high, it's graded 8a. It is located to the right of the route Dancing Dalle when looking out to sea. Needless to say, this route deserves to remain as it is, without bolts. At the top there is a convenient guardrail for those wishing to toprope it... preserve the rock...
DANCING DALLE
Access: From Finale Ligure drive along the Aurelia road towards Savona until past the village of Varigotti Immediately after the Malpasso tunnel (1 km after Varigotti) there is a first parking lot on the left, the sector Dancing Dalle lies below the old Aurelia road that goes around the tunnel.
The routes:
1 - Mister Fish
12 m P1: 5c, S. Baglietto - April 2000
2 - Captain Findus
15 m P1: 6a, S. Baglietto - April 2000
3 - Sabry
15 m P1: 6a+, S. Baglietto - April 2000
4 - Aquafan
15 m P1: 7a+, A. Gallo, L. Cavanna - February 2000. RP Andrea Gallo
5 – Di buono c’è che con l’innalzamento...
18 m P1: 8a, Mauro Calibani – August 2014. RP M. Calibani solo
6 - Dancing Fool
15 m P1: 7b, Bernhard Thum, Thomas Fickert- 1988. RP B. Thum.
7 - Aquaplanning
15 m P1: 7c,
L. Cavanna, Andrea Gallo - February 2000. RP A. Gallo solo
8 - Only Locals
12 m P1: 5c, S. Baglietto - April 2000
9 - Ruggiu de Ma
15 m P1: 5c, S. Baglietto - April 2000
10 - Dancing Dalle
15 m P1: 7a,
Alessandro Grillo - 1982. RP Patrick Berhault. Historic route, the first 7a sport climb at Finale
Info from the guidebook Finale 8.0, published by Ideeverticali Edizioni, www.Ideeverticali.it
- Andrea Gallo recounts Mauro Calibani's deep water solo ascent of "Di buono c’è che con l’innalzamento...
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