Jacopo Larcher BATTLING A Frasassi First Ascent | Climbing Daily Ep.1499

Hello and welcome to Climbing Daily and welcome to the heart of the Frassassi area. We're here for the Frassassi Climbing Festival and we've got Jacopo Laccia who's trying one of the brand new routes that's here on a brand new crag called the Walls of Jericho. Now we don't know how hard this route is, possibly 7c, but it's the first time that anyone's really had a go at it so we have no idea what's going to go on today. We've got multiple cameras all over the place trying to film him so we're going to shove him on the wall, see what he thinks of the route and hopefully, fingers crossed, he can send it. Paolo, thank you so much for having us at your new crag. This is sort of your baby because you found it, you bolted it, you've developed it. Tell me a bit about the crag itself and what kind of climbing is available here. Yeah, this is a really nice crag of limestone, the Agua rock, and it has a big potential of probably hard routes and now we have bolted one route and yeah, it seems cool. We have a professional athlete here today which is good. Tell me a bit about the line, that one line that you've bolted, because it's hard to know how hard it's going to be at this stage. Yeah, probably it is difficult to give it a grade but probably it's around 8a and before Jacopo tried it and there are two sections, the first part and in the middle part we have slippery crimpy and yeah, we will see but it is the start so yeah. Cool, well mate, thank you so much for bolting this for us, really appreciate it. Looking forward to seeing him on the route and hopefully sending it. Thank you for coming. Always. Okay, so now I tried it for the first time, just went up once to clean it and have a look where the bolts are. Probably harder than expected, the moves are really cool but it's hard to figure them out because the two bolts are all really sandy and I think I'll just try to do it. Okay, so you've just got down from the route, that first go working out all the moves. It looked a little bit harder than we thought it might be. Is that because the grade's a bit more tricky or just because it's disgustingly dirty because it's a new route? I think it's the second option. I don't think the route is too hard, they just bolted it and they tried the first part and the second part was still really dirty but the moves are really nice, the rock is great, there's just this layer on top that needs to be cleaned and it's good. Now, you're known at the moment for doing super hard trad routes. Is it nice to do something like this where if you fall off, you're not going to hit the ground and die? Does it give you a little bit of a respite from all that terrifying trad climbing? I was really scared here on the second bolt because I think they have to add an extra bolt but it's always nice to just go sport climbing and not thinking too much about falling. You can just focus on climbing and enjoying your day at the crag. You normally climb more because when you try to climb, you need more time because of the gear and because it's mentally tiring. So it's just nice to hang out at the crag with friends and climb. So Jacopo's worked the route now, he's cleaned a bit of that dust off and now it's time to go for that all-important red point attempt. The guys have actually just stuck a second bolt in because the bottom was a little bit unsafe if you fell off the cave section. So they've put that in, should be safer now and it's time for him to go for it. Come on! Jacopo, unlucky with that. It looked like it was going really well. Just talk me through that bottom section because you've got this move, a right hand to a pinch that looks pretty nasty. Is that the first kind of crux section? I think that's the the crux section of the of the route probably. It's really powerful and I was really about to fall there but luckily there is a good rest in the middle so you can shake and then there is a bumpy section to stop and it's still quite dirty so it's hard to see the footholds. I was watching you on the slab because it just was one of those climbs where you kind of looked down, you kept looking down at your feet almost like trying to find the holes. Is it difficult to see? Because although it looks from the ground I think like a slab, it is ever so slightly overhanging. Does that make it a bit difficult to see down? I think it's kind of vertical but the rock has some like little waves let's say so it's hard to see on what you're stepping on and because it's so dirty it's hard to trust your feet. It's one of those things isn't it because it's so cool that new routes are being developed here still because I think of this area and I think of an area that's been climbed a lot and yet we're still finding new bits of rock but then the payoff is that you've got to clean it, you've got to work at it, you've got to put the time in and effort in to make that route worthwhile. Yeah but that's also a cool thing about climbing because most of the time we are just consuming like existing routes we're just having fun of them but we don't see like the work that is behind all that like the work of the first ascensionists so it's really nice sometimes to take the time to to do it by yourself. Awesome well we're going to bail now because the sun's hit the wall properly so if you fancy climbing an 8a possibly 8c possibly 11b I mean who knows what the heck it is we've got no idea come to Versace try out the new route because there's new lines being put in all the time here so if you fancy a bit of a challenge then well it's waiting for you.