Stefano Ghisolfi rocks Red River Gorge

"It simply couldn't have gone better!" This is how Italian climber Stefano Ghisolfi summed up his three week climbing trip to Red River Gorge, USA, together with Enrico Veronese and Lorenzo Luck. Despite poor weather and cold temperatures, Ghisolfi's raid of this beautiful Kentucky crag resulted in five 8c/c+ and one 9a redpoint, plus one 8b+ on-sight. In practice, almost all hard routes in the Gorge....

"The rock is fantastic, pocketed sandstone, beautiful and great for on-sighting since you can clearly see the holds and don't go crazy trying to find them" says Ghisolfi, adding that "sometimes so many are chalked up that it's hard to find the best one." In his brief report published below, the climber from Turin gives an idea of what is needed to achieve results like these: Super Glue on his fingers to stop the bleeding and a swing stopped with his head to make his "best climb ever." And if you add to this that he only just discovered he'd won bronze in the 2014 Combined Results (that takes into account Lead, Speed and Boulder) then it's easy to understand why, as he says, things simply couldn't have gone better!


RED RIVER GORGEOUS by Stefano Ghisolfi

Before leaving, as a joke, I said I wanted to climb all the hard routes at Red River Gorge, but in the end I almost really did do all of them! The only 8c+ that I'd planned on trying but didn't was 24 Karats, as this was wet. After the first three days I'd already sent the hardest route, Southern Smoke direct 9a, then the weather turned bad for a while and we did't climb much. As soon as the sun came out (and our motivation returned) I redpointed Lucifer, Pure Imagination and 50 Words for pump, one day after the next. At that point I thought I'd trashed my skin completely but tried Golden Ticket on the penultimate day, for only half a day since we'd gone to another sector that morning. With bleeding fingers and on my third go I fell from the top, slipping from the traverse left as the holds were wet with my blood. On my fourth attempt I set off without any expectations, I'd put super glue on my fingers to fill the holes and stop the bleeding, but I tore another hole in my little finger! I had to change the traverse sequence as a hold was dirty and stopped the swing with my head. This was my most incredible ascent of all and, as it happens, also the most beautiful route I've climbed so far.

Redpoint
Southern Smoke Direct 9a
Golden Ticket 8c+
Pure Imagination 8c+
Lucifer 8c+
Fifty Words for Pump 8c/+
Southern Smoke 8c/+
Thanatopsis 8b+/c

Onsight
Omaha Beach 8b+
Thug Life 8b
Last of the bohicans 8b
Ultra Perm 8b
Kaleidoscope 8a+
Dirty Smelly Hippie 8a
Paradise Lost 8a
Cut Throat 8a



For more information, photos and videos check out redrivergorgeous.blogspot.it