Barbara Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher make first repeats of 'The Gift' in Rätikon

During the month of August, Jacopo Larcher from the South Tyrol, Italy, and his Austrian partner Babsi Zangerl successfully repeated The Gift in the Rätikon, the huge limestone massif that straddles the border between Austria and Switzerland.

The 350m route is graded 8c, spans 7 pitches and mixes traditional protection on the lower sections, with bolted pro on the crux pitches. Larcher’s ascent, on August 12th, marked the first repeat since the route was established by Alex Luger in 2015. Zangerl took an extra day to master the crux pitch and then made the first female ascent on August the 15th, making its

Both climbers led every pitch during their respective ascents, without a fall. All in all, it took them 6 days of work. They’d both previously taken a look at the route in 2021, but only checked the crux pitch and didn’t put any significant effort into trying it, at the time. After her ascent, Zangerl commented:

"This summer, we decided to spend time on a project in the Austrian part of the Rätikon, which is conveniently close to us. We rode our e-bikes for 35 minutes in Turbo-mode through Gauertal to Sporaalpe and then hiked for about an hour to the base of the climb. Our goal was The Gift, a challenging alpine route with seven pitches, first climbed by my brother-in-law, Alex Luger, in 2015. He named it The Gift because Pio Jutz started the route but passed it on to Alex, finding it too difficult for himself to finish.

The climb begins with traditional alpine climbing, with the hardest sections in the upper part of the wall. The crux pitch is graded 8c, and the pitch after is 8a+ with a tricky boulder problem. Those two pitches are the hardest of the climb. Jacopo and I had a first taste of the route 3 years ago, when we climbed up to the crux pitch and then spent some more days on it this season.

On our first day on it this summer, we climbed up to the crux pitch, which was nerve-racking due to the limited protection in the lower part of the route. The crux pitch is a stunning grey overhanging stripe on perfect limestone. It can’t really get any better! A 5-star line, which offers power-endurance climbing with hard, bouldery sequences. It took us the rest of the day to figure out the different betas and brush all the holds, which get very dirty and slippery after the winter, as the grey stripe is often wet.

After a few more days of practice and having checked the last pitches, Jacopo made a successful ascent, leading all the pitches without falling, looking very solid. I had a different solution for the crux compared to Jacopo and definitely more struggle trouble with a long, reachy move. I needed to spend one extra day in the hope of finding an easier solution. Eventually, I found a mirco adjustment that helped a bit to make that crux move a bit less risky.

After one rest day, despite still feeling tired, I decided to give it a try. We started in the morning but we  waited for the sun to ease off, before I started to climb at 1 p.m. I felt nervous when I reached the crux pitch but somehow I managed to save some power for the low percentage crux, reaching the final hold with a big pump. I clipped the anchor and all the pressure fell off my shoulders. I was just happy to have lots of time left and no rush for the last two pitches. Everything came together well and we both stood on top of the wall, which was such a fantastic experience to complete another great project together."