Stefano Ghisolfi makes excellent Erto debut

Although it’s hard to believe, Stefano Ghisolfi has only recently paid his first visit to Erto, one of the undisputed cradles of Italian sport climbing. Ever since the early 1980’s the overhangs above the Vajont dam have been an integral part of the history of sport, climbed by the likes of Mauro Corona, the Erto Zoo Boys Sandro Neri, Icio Dall'Omo and Gigi da Pozzo, Luca Zardini and many others. Many of the world’s best have visited this crag, including Austria’s Gerhard Hörhager whose first ascent of Sogni di Gloria - Dreams of Glory - in 1987 was hailed as one of the hardest sport climbs in the world.

More than 30 years have passed since those moments and obviously the crag has kept in step with the times: in 1992, for example, Luca Giupponi made the world’s first 8b flash on Ritorno di Ringo, and increasingly difficult climbs have been added such as Big Mother and La Linea dei Sogni by Luca Zardini, and The Last Way freed by Zardini and then, after a hold break, climbed by Luca Giupponi. And of course there’s the 8c+ /9a La Grande Linea dei Sogni, freed in 2009 by Adam Ondra.

Stefano Ghisolfi visited this Italian sport climbing mecca two days ago, understandably for a man of his calibre, onsighted Tucson 8a, Bricolage 8a +, Super Pole Position 8a+ and Jurassic Climb 8b+ before sending the bouldery Ombre Atomiche second go. In short, he had a superb debut afternoon. Who knows what he might have done had he not, that morning and all the previous day, trained in the gym with the Italian Climbing Team…

TOPO: climbing at Erto

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