Gabriele Moroni sends Siurana's La Rambla (9a+)

There are no two ways about it, sooner or later all the world's best travel to Siurana in Spain to lay their hands on La Rambla, one of the world's benchmark 9a+. The latest who couldn't resist this calling is Gabriele Moroni, the 36-year-old from Italy who managed to clip the chains on Friday 23 February.

Although Moroni described the line as "a lifelong dream", and had visited the crag regularly for the past 15 years, apart from a quick attempt in 2010 he had never seriously considered trying the route. Things changed at the end of 2022 and with Luca Bana he made some promising first attempts. This January he returned with Cesare Grosso, but the weather was not on their side. Sensing he was close, he returned for a mini-trip in February and, despite sub-optimal conditions, he succeeded in the redpoint.

For the record, a few hours later Moroni belayed Jorge Díaz-Rullo on his successful repeat of the 9b Sleeping Lion. Who knows whether, having already sent this grade once before (Erebor at Arco in December 2023), Moroni might now consider investing time in this new testpiece...

La Rambla, Siurana
First ascent: Alexander Huber, 1994, to a pocket at 3/4 height
Extension: Ramón Julián Puigblanque 2003, extension to the top of the crag
2006 - Edu Marín Garcia, Spain
2006 - Chris Sharma, USA
2007 - Andreas Bindhammer, Germany
2007 - Patxi Usobiaga, Spain
2008 - Adam Ondra, Czech Republic, aged 15
2011 - Enzo Oddo, France
2013 - Sachi Amma, Japan
2013 - Felix Neumärker, Germany
2013 - Sangwon Son, South Korea
2013 - Alexander Megos, Germany, second attempt
2014 - Daniel Jung, Germany
2015 - Jonathan Siegrist, USA
2017 - Matty Hong, USA
2017 - Margo Hayes, USA, first female 9a+
2017 - Stefano Ghisolfi, Italy
2017 - Jacopo Larcher, Italy
2017 - Klemen Bečan, Slovenia
2017 - Sébastian Bouin, France
2018 - Tomás Ravanal, Chile
2018 - Jon Cardwell, USA
2019 - Piotr Schab, Poland
2019 - Dave Graham, USA
2019 - Gonzalo Larrocha, Spain
2019 - Cédric Lachat, Switzerland
2021 - Jorge Díaz-Rullo, ESP
2022 - Chaehyun Seo, ROK
2023 - Michaela Kiersch, USA
2023 - Sébastien Berthe, BEL
2023 - Marco Zanone, ITA
2024 - Gabriele Moroni, ITA