Ready to leave Italy one more time, direction Catalunya, for the traditional X-mas/New Years trip!...
It will be the usual journey with some of the best friends I have, this means lots of climbing in Siurana and Margalef, big dinners and nights out in Cornudella, New Years party, me punting on A Muerte and other stuffs like that... But I'm sure it is going to be MEGA again, like every year!
During the last weeks I spent alot of days going and back from Ticino,Switzerland trying to take advantage of the great conditions...
After a good warm up day sending the "new classic" Walk the Line and trying to get my skin used to the hard granite again, I decided it was time to start working on something harder and more challenging.
I always wanted to try an 8c boulder in the last years but never had the time and the motivation to spend more than a couple of days on the same problem. This year was different, I got psyched for bouldering again, after a couple of years mainly rope climbing.
I knew that if I wanted to have some chances to climb an extreme boulder at this grade I really had to find something on my style that suited me at the perfection. That means a pretty long boulder, resistant, a bit physical and possibly with weird moves!
My choice was a problem climbed last year from Dai Koyamada! Insanity of Grandeur 8c!
This problem is the lower sit start of the famous 8a+ Delusion of Grandeur wich I already climbed a few years ago!
The full line climbs a really crimpy 3mover at the beginning, really friction dependent and tensiony, at about 8a+ for my height and with my beta.
Once you do the first 3moves you get to a not so bad slot and here the easier method to climb the next sequence is to do a 180° spin around and climb through this roof with some really funky beta at about 7c untill you directly get into the harder move of Delusion of Grandeur!
The first day went well and thanks to the precious help of Martin Keller I was able to do all the moves except for the move to get the slot. After a few days of work I finally found a good beta for the bottom since Martin's beta was too morphologic for me and Dai's was too hard...
I found a micro crimp a bit lower and right from the crimp the other two guys used, defenitely worse but closer and very helpful to do a toe release just before the crux move to the slot...
The second part was dialed very well and I managed do the big link from the 3rd move to the top a coupe of times per session.
On my 5th and final day I changed my foot beta again at the last minute, switching the always slipping heel with a more solid toe. Actually harder but more safe and less annoying.
On the send go I climbed without esitations, I had everything under control and without any error I cruised my way to the top!...
Gabriele Moroni, Insanity of Grandeur from rivoli on Vimeo.
It was a very emotional moment and defenitely one of the highlights of my career. This ascent gave me extra motivation to do more bouldering and try to climb more difficult stuffs! This doesn't mean harder graded boulders but also easier things on different (and more difficult for me) styles!
Thanks alot to all the people that supported or helped me during these days under the boulder, Simo,Max,Bazu,Bogli,Dani,Maik,Ali,Martin and many others!
After finishing this project I started trying a new one!
Right now I only had a couple of days on it, basically to climb the standing start version, but I had a great session on the bottom part too and felt very good... Let's see how it goes!
But first it's off to Spain!!...
