sabato 29 novembre 2014

Southern Smoke and the Motherlode

Enrico on Snooker 5.13a (7c+) ©Stefano Ghisolfi
While Enrico and Lorenzo continued to improving on their project Ultraperm and No Redemption, Stefano managed to send his project Southern Smoke Direct 5.14d (9a) in just few tries! The route starts with a hard boulder problem, V13/V14 (8B/+) on the guidebook but maybe easier for Stefano, and after this you have to climb all Southern Smoke 5.14c (8c/+) with a small rest between. Stefano tried it once on tuesday and on wednesday figured out the beta and sent it very fast, once he passed the first boulder he was able to reach the anchor. The next days we moved to Motherlode crag, and impressive cave with very hard and pump routes. The temperature became very cold, it was very hard to climb, the first morning was snowing! But we are motivated and after a good warm up Enrico climbed Snooker 5.13a (7c+) and Bohica 5.13b on his second go, and Stefano climbed Omaha Beach 5.14a (8b+) onsight and Thanatopsis 5.14b (8c) on his second go, very close from flashing it.

Stefano on Omaha Beach 5.14a (8b+) onsight  ©Andrea Cossu

martedì 25 novembre 2014

First two days



Enrico trying the wrong sequence of Ultraperm
 First two days have gone very fast here in Red River, but we had enough time to climb a lot. We decide to go to Bob Marley crag before and smash all the routes there. The weather was surprisingly good, we expected very cold days but it was maybe to warm, summer hasn't ended yet here. First day we figured out that we need a stick to clip the first bolts from the ground, so we ran around the crag to find someone could borrow us a long stick, in other cases we climbed first meters without but was too scary to keep doing. On monday Enrico and Stefano focused on on-sight style, after a quick warm up Enrico did on his first go Blood Bath (5.12c) and Reticent (5.12d) and Stefano onsighted the very classic and hard Ultraperm (5.13d). Lorenzo decided to try another classic, No Redemption (5.13b), a very hard technical slab, this is his project for the next days. The second day we climbed little less, Enrico tried Ultraperm changing method on every ascent, at the end of the day he finally figured out his best beta. 
Stefano on Southern Smoke (5.13c)
Lorenzo on Demon Seed (5.12c)
Stefano succeeded on Southern Smoke (5.14b/c) on his 4th go, and began to try the direct (5.14d). Lorenzo kept trying his project and managed to climb Demon Seed (5.12c). We all three did a super classical route Dogleg where we took nice pictures. So after the end of the second day we have nice projects to climb, No Redemption for Lorenzo, Ultraperm for Enrico and Southern Smoke Direct for Stefano. Keep following us!

mercoledì 19 novembre 2014

WE ARE READY

Stefano Ghisolfi
We are ready! Our trip to Red River Gorge is going to start, next sunday we depart from Rome to Lexington (Kentucky) and then, for 3 weeks, we are going to climb every route of every crag, even if the temperature will be freezing!
Enrico Veronese
Let's present ourselves: we are Stefano, Enrico and Lorenzo, 3 Italian climbers and Andrea, our official photographer and videomaker that will follow us and our climbs during the trip. Our goal will be to climb all the routes in Red River Gorge and film everything to make great videos and take great pictures.
Lorenzo Luck
The weather won't be on our side, temperature will be very cool, but we will warm the crags with our performances, we are not afraid about the glacial cold! Luckily we are supported by Vertics, Camp, E9 and HTC Los Angeles, everything is arranged now, let's begin this journey!