New 1000m F8b in Arco, Italy

Monte Brento – 1400 m roadside crag – Placche Zebrate lower section© Gavin Taylor, May 2005

Jorg Verhoeven and David Lama have climbed a new 1000m free route close to Arco, Italy.The route Brento Centro, tackles the huge limestone wall of Monte Brento in the Sarca Valley close to Arco, Italy. It first climbs te lower slabs (400m) then tackles the very overhanging and suspect section in the upper left of the above photo.Monte Brento is a famous spot for base jumping, as the wall is 1000m high and very overhanging near the top.Commenting on his website, Jorg Verhoeven said:”Finally! After 11 days of work Fuzzy and me finished the biggest project I've ever started. While the week before we still had big problems with the bouldery last pitches, this tuesday we could free climb every one of the 30 pitches.”The pair placed around 70 bolts on the route and encountered very loose rock.Jorg has written a full account in English on his blog, of which this is an extract:”Brento centro takes a line trough the huge overhanging west face of Mt Brento , and is the first free climbed line. It has well over 1000 climbing meters, and difficulties up till 8b.In total we spent 11 days working on it, and managed to make a team ascent in one day, in over 13 hrs of climbing.The rock is very fragile, so care has to be taken on several passages, to not rip off the only holds there are…Although the grade of 7c has to be climbed obligatory, the whole route is equipped with 6 or 8mm bolts, varying in age (first tries of the start dihedrals in the late '70).”You can see more photos of the route on David Lama's Website and Jorg Verhoeven's blog. Diesen Artikel inkl. Bilder auf UKClimbing.com anschauen

QuelleUKClimbing