Nemuel Feurle repeats Hotel Supramonte in Sardinia

When I started to climb multi-pitches, it didn’t take long until I heard about this iconic line in Sardinia's Gola di Gorropu called Hotel Supramonte. From then on I always had this route in mind, so when Lea Kampf and I traveled to Italy I had this inner, deep motivation to give this steep and beautiful line a try. We knew it could be super cold at this time of year, but nothing could stop us from walking down into the gorge, explore the area and see if it was possible to climb.

After our first day trying, which was the last day of 2023, I barely made it past the crux sequence on pitch three, the first crux pitch. My expectations for sending this line reached the lowest point possible. Ending this day, with "just" climbing the first four pitches of this iconic line led me to the decision that I needed to try it again.

The following days, we went for something different, we spent time at some crags and also climbed an easy multi-pitch right above the stunning sea. Most importantly I spent time visualising and analysing the moves of Hotel Supramonte.

Hugely motivated but without any real expectations we returned and I tried my best, just to see how and if my visualisation worked out. Surprisingly, I climbed the third pitch and so I knew there might be a small chance to climb this iconic line, so I started to fight. Thankfully I managed to send the second crux pitch after a real battle and a super-close and risky move to the final jug.

Now we were faced with the unknown. We'd reached the point we’d already been to a few days back, but from here there were 7 more pitches to the top. Fuelled by the adrenaline and motivation of my previous sends, I tried really hard to redpoint the third crux pitch. Go after go, beta after beta, I finally - just before giving up completely - I reached the anchor on my sixth try. I'd just achieved what I thought was never going to happen, I climbed the three hardest pitches of my dreamline!

It was half-past three and with 2 hours of daylight left, 6 unknown pitches separated us from the top of Hotel Supramonte. We reached the Grand Hotel Supramonte just before five, making the wise decision to end our day by sitting/lying on our ropes, wrapped up in our emergency blanket. As you might imagine, we spent around 14 dark, cold and long hours without much sleep at the five-star Grand Hotel bivouac.

Exhausted, low on sugar (because of the lack of food, since we hadn't planned on spending the night on the wall), but still with a big smile on our faces we climbed the last pitches of Hotel Supramonte. Thankful and with a bunch of unforgettable memories, we'd just experienced another amazing adventure!

by Nemuel Feurle

HOTEL SUPRAMONTE
Since being established in 1998 by Rolando Larcher and Roberto Vigiani from the ground-up, Hotel Supramonte has fast established itself as being one of the most sought-after multi-pitch sport climbs in the world. The list of those who have been successful on this 400m Sardinian 8b testpiece reads like the Who's who of sport climbing, and includes Adam Ondra with the coveted first on-sight in 2008, and Martina Cufar with the first female ascent four years earlier.