Palermo and the miraculous climbing on Monte Gallo. By Eugenio Pinotti

When the plane veers towards Punta Raisi, Monte Gallo becomes the focal point and shamelessly shows its wildest and most beautify aspect: the North Face (also called Nuovo Mondo, New World) that leads to the long ramparts and arete which hosts the climb Ho Sentito Le Sirene Cantare before finishing above Sferracavallo with Monte S. Margherita and the route "Canto del Gallo".

The New World is one of my favorite faces as it echoes the soulful excesses of this city, its opulence and misery, the ancient and modern, chaos and silence. This face really is "miraculous" in that it’s located almost within the city and yet the overriding feeling is that of being in a completely different dimension, in a world where the overlapping horizons are the only protagonists.

The idea was to establish a new climb up the lefthand side of the face, dominated by gray rock and still untouched.Once again my "adventure companions” were Fabrice (aka the Director, the living memory of Palermo rock climbing), Luigi (the King of threads and guardian of trad climbing) and Mauro (the Guru, the Academic, our rope gun).

I particularly love beginnings, the moments when things that have been imagined and carefully studied on a photograph begin to take shape: we spent the first half-day scanning the face to transform onto rock what we’d imagined and realize that it wasn’t feasible due to the steep overhangs and smooth slabs…so we returned to the drawing board and and came up with a new idea that seemed possible.

We returned the next morning to the base of the face, prepared the gear and Mauro got ready to start… business as usual, he climbed a splendid grey slab and when the air began to get a bit thin (as the years pass this tends to get thin earlier and earlier) he placed two ‘bomber’ cliff-hooks.

I’ll let him take over to describe what happened next… “I hauled up the drill and was about to make the first hole. But something very strange happened: a bolt was ​​there already! There it was, exactly who’re I’d have put it, but I didn’t place it, it was already there… I failed to understand, looked up, saw no traces. And set off upwards…

Fantastic rock, the slab that from below seemed difficult was full of pockets and edges. I used the cliff-hook and pulled up the drill. But this is impossible! Once again, just where the drill bit touched the rock there was already a bolt…”

We swung leads and spent three days forging this beautiful route and this "miracle" repeated itself on numerous other occasions: we climbed savoring the joy of climbing a new route, but in truth the gear had already been placed by unknown climbers… Palermo is miraculous!

So what were we, first ascentionists or repeaters? Should we remain anonymous so as to not be responsible for our actions, or should we publish what we’ve done, highlighting our names and surnames? Safety is all about the distance between two pieces of pro, or within us? We used stainless steel but who can say whether in time it’ll become unreliable? Everyone must …

by Eugenio Pinotti


TOPO: Nato due volte, Monte Gallo, Sicily