Chironico and Cresciano bouldering update

With low temperatures bouldering hearts skip a beat, and the places where it all seems to be happening at the moment are Cresciano and Chironico in Switzerland's Canton Ticino, visited recently by Dai Koyamada from Japan, Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic, Paul Robinson and Carlo Traversi from the USA and the Italians, Michele Caminati and Nicolo Ceria.

In particular, attention has been focused on a handful of testing problems, such as "Big Paw" Fb8C (repeated by Koyamada, Ondra and Robinson), "From The Dirt Grows the Flowers" Fb8C (repeated by Ondra and Robinson) and Fred Nicole's "Dreamtime" which after the broken hold now seems to have settled down into a hard Fb8B+ for Robinson, too.

"The Dagger" Fb8B+ has been repeated by Traversi and Caminati, who last Saturday managed to send this, his nth Fb8B+. The road towards the nigh impossible 8C seems set and we hope it'll be a mere question of time and finding the right problem.

The same holds true for Nicolò Ceria, the young rising star of Italian bouldering, who this season has made a real leap in standards, sending two Fb8B at Chironico and Cresciano (Boogalagga and La Proue), while in November he repeated La Danse de Balrog, the world's first Fb8B established by, yes, that man again Fred Nicole. For the record, that was back in 1992 and Nicolò was just a twinkle in his father's eye!