ACTION DIRECTE is done!!!...

Hey guys how is it going?...

I'm just back from the Frankenjura a beautiful climbing area in the heart of Germany! Here is where everything started and where free climbing was born! Have you ever heard about ROTPUNKT?! Or REDPOINT? On these rocks the local climbers(Mr.Kurt Albert above all) were use to paint a red dot on every route they were able to climb with no falls!...
This area is also famous for its limestone crags and towers, its pockets and for sure for the late Wolfgang Güllich, the only myth in the climbing world!
Well my mission for this trip was to finally finish his most famous and hardest route... Fist 9a in the world and the benchmark for the grade... the legendary ACTION DIRECTE!...

Almost everybody knows the history about this route... Milan Sykora was a real visionary and bolted this line in the 80's since Güllich climbed it in the september of 1991 after a few years of working on the route and some specific training and exercises to get stronger fingers using campus board and finger board!...
My history with this route is a bit different...
I've always heard about this mythological route and his style and I've always been syked to try it since I was a kid! I dreamed about this route for years until the 2004 when I had the chance to go to the Frankenjura on a trip with some friends! Unluckily I was injured at an ankle and I could't climb properly but I fell in love with the place!...
I remember that the first time I saw Action Directe was when Cristian Brenna and Jolly Lamberti were trying it. Jolly could do the fist jump quite easily but he had some problems from the pinch. For Cristian was the opposite, he couldn't do the jump but he could do all the moves after that!...
From that day my dream became bigger and bigger and I could imagine myself climb on that route in the future!

I came back to the Frankenjura a couple of years later for a week trip. I climbed some hard and historical routes and one day I wanted to go to see how Action Directe was... Just to have an idea on how hard it was...
Well I couldn't do any of the moves!! I understood that if I wanted to have a chance to try it again first I had to get stronger and become a better climber!
The real epic started in the summer of 2008. During the previous years I made all the historical steps in the Frankenjura... I climbed Ghettoblaster in the 8b range I climbed Burn for you in the 8c and I climbed Shangri la at 8c+...
Next step was natural... 9a... and the first 9a is called Action Directe!
I tried again with no expectations but this time was so different! I could climb well on it. I did the jump and the moves after the pinch... I couldn't believe it. I was so syked that I decided to give a go and at my second try I climbed it with only one fall in the middle!! So crazy!

photo Bernardo Gimenez!
It was becoming possible and not in a long time... unfortunately I was thinking wrong!
That same evening I started to feel that my left middle finger was not ok after pulling alot on the small pockets and the day after I couldn't bend the finger. I was suffering my first(and last so far) injury!
Luckily it was nothing too serious and after a week of stop I started climbing again. That same day I started training as well. I had planned a trip to Germany in october and I wanted to arrive well preparated with stronger fingers and great shape!
Well october came and I was again under my project. I started to work on the moves again and I was feeling so strong. During the three days we stayed I had some very good attempts... A couple of times I fell at the very last sequence! Damn...
I came back to the Frankenjura ten days later for a short weekend thinking It would have been the last time... I was wrong again! I started to feel a big pressure in my head because I could climb well the first part but I kept falling at the same weird move to get a mono after the pinch!... Yes I was starting to suffer of a mental block!

Another time at the end of october I joined Patxi Usobiaga to try the route with him for a few days... At the end Patxi climbed it and I got back to Italy empty handed another time.

photo Bernardo Gimenez!

It was over for that year. It was getting too cold and I was too broke for another trip to Germany!

photo Bernardo Gimenez!
Last year I didn't have the chance to try AD alot. I went there only one weekend in may in between World Cup Comps but my shape for the route was not the best, plus it was warm and full of mosquitos! The same was in october... bad shape no time and really bad conditions!
This year everything was different! I trained hard to get in shape for this trip in fact I did some specific works to get my tendons stronger and mostly I had more days to try the route, not the short weekend like usual. My motivation was so high!
I was so syked to have a revenge!
Fist day back on the route was okey... I reworked the moves, did the sequences a few times but I couldn't give a proper go due to one very humid hold.
Second day was a bit weird. In the morning during the warmup I didn't feel so good, a bit tired and not so reactive...
This day AD was in perfect conditions and the weather too so I gave a first serious attempt but I climbed a bit nervous and not in the right mood.
So I rested a bit more and I understood I was getting in the right state of mind. I was feeling relaxed and peaceful! A great feeling!

photo Bernardo Gimenez!
I started again for the second go of the day and I climbed the first part very well
with no mistakes. I hold the pinch perfectly and I was ready to get the mono... I fell alot on this move because I couldn't center the mono. Once I stuck the mono I got in a strange mind sensation. I felt like I was in trance and I climbed without feeling the fatigue!!... It's the first time I felt something like this and I'm glad it happened during the victorious attempt!!!...
I finally climbed my dream route ACTION DIRECTE! To be honest I'm so happy to have climbed it now and not in 2008 because now I can taste this flavour more deeply!!! I'm very proud to be in the story of climbing now togheter with all the best climbers in the world!!...
Thanks everybody for all the support but especially to the guys who supported me personally and mentally in this beautiful story:
Paolo,Simo,Jacopo,Franz,Malpe,Baistra,Gaia,Cecco,Silvio,Stecca,Ale,Flami,Marzio,Cristian,Pellet,Niki,Miki,Rudy,Wolfgang and all the others I forgot to name!!...

Gabri