December 2014

I do not know what continues to push me to search for new lines and new challenges…

Summing it all up, I have just turned 40; I have climbed many lines, reached the grade of 9a, bolted and freed beautiful projects… I could actually be satisfied, fulfilled and happy…

And yet I continue to search, to be in love with this game, still hoping to find that project that pushes me to go further, that line that maybe I will never be able to climb and exactly for the fact that it isn’t a certainty or is nearly impossible motivates me to be better, to push the limits one more time. To be the imperfect that for a moment reaching the perfection at least on that dream line…

And so I came across Perfect Man… with this spirit and desire in mind, even though I really didn’t believe I would find a line like this!

Perfect Man was partially bolted by A. Gallo in 1992 as reported in the guidebook “OltreFinale”.

I had climbed all the hardest lines at the sector, and I became aware of the old abandoned project and I decided to try to bring it back to life…

I was worried that it wasn’t really anything special, also for the fact that the line that overcomes the big roof in the centre of the cave seemed to be very smooth and also quite close to another easier line in the upper part. During the re-bolting of the line, I had to slightly modify the original line following the asperity that my dreams transformed into holds, that one day I would have to hold on to…

It took me a good few days to weave out a possible sequence of movements, I even had to move a bolt to make it possible to clip…

Everyday there was something new to learn…a movement, a new understanding, an equilibrium… and in the meantime that I worked on the sequence, my body assimilated all the data: all the particular things and every bit of information to get better and to make the ascent possible one day… the temperature, the humidity, the type of warm up, the activation, what I ate… in short I thought of everything that could help me get better…

In the spring of 2015, I got really close to sending the line but a series of unexpected hitches pushed my dream further away.

Persistent rain and a line that is anyhow difficult to find dry can really be an obstacle!

Furthermore, more than once I partially broke some holds, including a few crux holds and I had to reweave my solutions starting from scratch every time…

Every time that everything seemed to be set, something unexpected happened and every time that I got close to sending the line, I had to start all over again.

The summer forced me to suspend my attempts and I opened up new summer projects (Time Out, an 8c at the Hangar sector).

In the autumn I got my motivation and courage back and in October I felt I could do it… and so the stressful period started, I often found myself tense and without a free mind… for the first time I felt that I had it in the palm of my hands but something always happened… on the last holds… and so I started again, it felt almost too easy because I knew it so well but I would duly fall!

The winter arrived and the incidence of the sun changes and with the solstice the wall doesn’t get any sun, if not for just a few moments in the day and the cold weather and humidity are the bosses in the lower valley… I started to worsen again…and I almost thought about giving up.

However, in early February, the sun starts to stay high in the sky and the conditions improved… so I decided to try the line again… I fell right at the end of the line on the first day and I realised that nothing had changed, that my arms could still do the last little push that was needed…

Finally, on the 16^th of March, the perfect day arrived… good but not optimum conditions, I climbed just having fun with my partner and a few friends… The first attempts did not go too well and for a moment I thought that I should really give it another try… I rested right up until the sunset and I was still pondering upon whether or not I should try it again…

An unexpected breeze picked up and activated me again and I decided that this would really be my last attempt at this line, maybe this line is meant for the younger guys…

I climbed precisely, maybe a little tired, and I got through the crux and surprisingly I resisted…until the top… at the chain I looked down… Elena was there belaying me, like always… there was no need for words… I did not celebrate, I did not do anything, I just tried to taste the moment, to capture it to relive it in another moment…but that is impossible…

Perfection does not exist, if only for a few moments… and maybe that moment was worth all the effort, many days of failing but of construction of little bits of perfection…

There will probably be some climbers that are able to climb a route of this difficulty in less time but I am truly happy to have found such a beautiful and difficult line. The fact that I even sent it was the perfect finish to what was a beautiful journey… but also tiring and far from easy… for this reason I wanted to respect the original name given to the line, “Perfect Man” by A. Gallo and also for the fact that maybe the route had never even been tried or climbed before, so I renamed it “Perfect Man 2.0”.

If I was stronger and I had sent the line with less difficulty, it would not have been the same… I wouldn’t have had that moment…that perfect moment.

Matteo Gambaro

Ph: Giordano Garosio