BURSTThere have been several new big rock and alpine routes opened over the past few weeks in the Alps and at other popular ranges, here are just a few.
In Norway, Orlando Addis, Paul Chabot and Simon Prochaska made the first ascent of Once Upon a Time in the West on Tromma on the island of KvalΓΈya. Prochaska said, “…14 pitches of face, flake, dihedral and crack climbing between Norwegian grade 5- and 6+. The route is going through the most prominent feature of the wall, a banana shaped dihedral with a handcrack (four pitches in the dihedral).”
Berni Rivadossi and Giorgio Consiglio, helped by Ale Zaina and Max Faletti, have established Mona Lisa, a new 360-metre 5.12 bolted route on Monte Gallo in Sicily. About it, Rivadossi said, “As always, the climbing is spectacular: a rapid succession of pockets, cracks, crimps and corners on near-flawless white-and-red rock from the bottom all the way to the top. The only exceptions being the first and last pitches, which, being slightly slabby, needed cleaning of vegetation.”
In South America, three Chilean climbers, Vicente Urzua, Maximiliano Arias, and Eduardo Tapia, did a new 400-metre route on Urus, a 5,450-metre peak in Peru. Their new M6 WI3 is named Vuelta Austral. And up the north ridge of Vierge du Flambeau (3,244 m) in the Mont Blanc range, Filip Babicz and Heike Schmitt have made the first ascent of La TΓͺte du Dragon (5.11c, 280 m).
The post New Big Rock and Alpine Routes Opened appeared first on Gripped Magazine.