24 Mar Gioia, problem of solidity and clarifications
Are resolved the problems of misunderstanding that involved in recent days, the big names in world climbing and Gioia, the bouldering symbol at the highest levels. Misunderstandings that affected on one hand Christian Core, first climber of Gioia, and the site The Burrow File to the other side.
What happened before
Daniel Woods, after the ascent of The Process, which evaluates 8c+, said he wanted to try other blocks of the same difficulties in order to have a better yardstick and to confirm the degree of his block. He decided to return with Dave Graham to Varazze to try Gioia that was already tested by Daniel some time ago. Obviously, given the importance of the line, the wait on the network was very high and everyone expected at any moment the news of a possible repetition.
What happened during
During their attempts, a portion of the rock went down, making a passage 8a+ stand much easier. The next day, Christian, finding the new support that are disclosed without breaking, has placed a portion of the rock damaged, bringing Gioia to its original shape and difficulties. He took this decision after consultation with the other local climbers that working for years to enhance Varazze. This is what he wrote to explain the intervention:
“After Daniel Woods and Dave Graham’s attempts at sending Gioia, today I fixed the new foothold which resulted from the accidental breaking off of a piece of rock in a section of the boulder that had never been used before – section 2 of Gioia.
Now the line is back to its original state, exactly as it was when I first climbed it and when Adam Ondra and Nalle Hukkataival did their repetitions.
The original footholds are always the same; the new one was frail and would have easily broken again.
I never use purpose made glue to fix these kind of issues, it’s not a practice I like.
However, due to its aknowledged importance, Gioia deserved to be restored to its original line so that it could be again equal to every climber who has tried it in the past and will try it in the future”.
What happened after
Hence the controversy which involved Christian Core and The Burrow File. It seems that in a previous article this site has attacked Christian but later denied the incident and report following the irony. Do not ever reread the article in the first version since it has been deleted and modified from the version is below:
“Due to the multiple orders of magnitude more attention The Burrow Files is receiving i have decided to fix some things. First, I misinterpreted Christians professional position. I am informed by someone named Emanuele that i was wrong so i have taken that bit out. Second, I am adding in a dragon.
The most obvious discrepancy between America and Italy is that wealthy Italian people have fucking style. In California, obscene wealth manifests into mansions made of white stucco with lots of windows facing west, and pools, and hot tubs. In Italy it manifests into CASTLES, with underground grotto entry tunnels with wrought iron gates and ivy covered stone walls. Even the peasant class embraces the notion of wizardry, with fantastic scarves and all manner of fur crafted garb. Everyone says Italy is very old world, but i am not fooled by the cobblestone streets. I saw some Italian gentlemen putting that shit in just yesterday. They are just classy as fuck. Oh, and there is rock climbing too.
DWoods, Dave Graham, BearCam Media, Dan Beall and I all made the trip out. BearCam is here to shoot DWoods on Gioia and everyone else is here to climb it. Except for me, I am here to drink and eat. For those less familiar with the area classic let me break it down. Italian strongman Christian Core has pioneered the area of Varazze and put up Gioia which he calls V16. Adam Ondra and Nalle have repeated it. It is on some slick small crimps on an overhanging wall that is held together mostly by glue. That is a toneless statement right there. I don’t really care about glue. Christian went through a great deal of trouble to clean the area and the line and he wanted to preserve it so he glued that problem down tight.
The team got straight to work and resequenced the crux section with a crafty knee-bar. No more falling into that tiny crimp, they just lock in the knee and reach through to it. From the stand start half way the line is something like V13. The crew found a left foot at the right height to make the section feel correct and ran through the top a few times. Dan Beall hasn’t put it all together yet but Dave and Woods have. Well the foot broke, and then there was controversy. To be clear the foot broke because someone’s foot was on it and it crumbled. No one is out here intentionally chipping stuff. We did brush it pretty furiously with a lapas after the break… God forbid. A great darkness came over us at that moment and where darkness grows, bad things will follow. Suddenly a fire drake swooped in from the North. Dan Beall utilized his squirrel powers and quickly uncovered a magic crystal he had stored away for winter. The crystal glowed pale red in the presence of the beast. It rained fire down upon us and at the first encounter with flame the crystal growled with a low and guttural hum. It emitted a spear of red lightning which pierce the sinewy flesh of the dragons wing. It tumbled from the air like leaf, fluttering. We lost sight of it somewhere in a distant hillside. Perhaps it still roams to this day. Christian sent us a text early the next day asking about the chipped foot!? It wasn’t the foot he used and with the “chip” he felt the problem was becoming easier. He demanded that the Americans refrain from using the foot. In fact he went so far as returning the next day to fill the foothold in with glue so that no one could use it…
I don’t care one way or the other about gluing holds for security, but that was a usable foot before it broke and after it broke. I do care that someone filled it in to make their beta the only beta. This isn’t gym climbing, holds aren’t “off” and if they are it is simply an eliminate line. There is nothing controversial about that but chipping rock to make holds better isn’t ok, and neither is filling in holds so people can’t use them. There is a moral stance to take here about modifying boulders and that the one i am taking. The crew has lost interest for the most part. Someone will probably take it down just for good measure though. I think they see an ascent as necessary to fortify a respected opinion. It reasonably more valid to say “I did it your way and i disagree with your actions” than to be limited to what can be misconstrued as a complaint. “You changed the problem and now i can’t do it, and i disagree with your actions,” doesn’t have the same punch.
Other than that it is a bit humid most days. Dave hunts for wizard crystals on his days off. He is super into searching for gems in the forest and I respect him more as a magician every day. The crew is solid. I hope to take an obscene amount of hallucinogens and search out our collective spirit together some time soon. If that doesn’t happen i suppose I will just settle for the massive amount of wine we consume on a daily basis.
Fin."
This is a modified version of the previous article, now no available on the net. What is even readable instead of infoboulder.com where is the press release had been announced the breaking of a support and the decision to fix it and where there’s no mention of chipping
Bad news from Varazze: a new foothold is appeared on Gioia…
During Daniel and Dave’s attempts, it seems that an external part of rock went down. During the brush of this part, a foothold was born in a section where there aren’t before.
To safe the line, an operation to restoration is planned to restore the original conditions as possible. We are sure that both Daniel and Dave, for their climbing and ethical level, will try again using original foothold.
After the publication of the first text on The Burrow File, given the importance of the line, the involvement of Christian Core and the fact that he used glue on Gioia, several sites have edited the question. Among these, one of the portals that have particularly followed the story was 8a.nu, where he explained his point of view nothing less than the same Adam Ondra, with this contribution:
"I would like to put my two cents into the discussion. I would like to add my opinion and facts into the discussion. I have been in contact with Christian about this issue.
“Gioia has 7 hard moves in total (I exclude rather easy top out, but even up there it is possible to fall). First four moves could be like soft 8B+ on its own, stand start has three hard moves which is 8A+ and has many ascents.
Gioa has a couple glued holds. But do not imagine a wall full of sika, but a few reinforced crimps with fluid super glue. I am pretty sure that unless you are told, you would never notice any glue at all. The crimps would probably hold for a certain period of time even without the glue, but in order mantain the state of the problem forever, the glue was used. And I have no problem with that.
The hardest single move is the second move. And this is where Dave or Daniel found a kneebar. Good for them. Nobody has a problem with that. They found something that none of us had seen before. At the same time, I am not the one to judge how much this kneebar helps (if it changes the grade?) as I have never tried it this way. As even Henning typed above, there is absolutely no controversy about this kneebar.
The linking crux of the whole boulder for me was definitely last hard move, i.e. move number 3 on the stand start. It is not very hard as a single move, but it is very spicy in the link from the start, because it is heinously powerful move. Christian used very bad right foot for this move, whereas me and Nalle we both used a smearing foot high left. The stand start has numerous ascents and nothing had ever been broken there. Until a few weeks ago.
Daniel and Dave in this move used a foothold which has not been used before. Just because it was obviosly loose and fragile. Obviously you can blame Christian for insufficient cleaning, but he simply would not bother to clean it. And I would do the same. When climbing on well established route or boulder, I do not use holds or footholds which are sure be broken. And 100+ climbers who did or attemped the stand start did not use this loose foothold.
The loose foothold broke and better foothold appeared underneath. A bit more solid-looking, but still very questionable. A foothold was much better than the one that Christian used and made the last move less powerful. Which is very crucial for Gioia low. Because the foothold still looked like it could break again, Christian decided to tap the foothold with sika. He could not have hammered it down, because another (possibly even better?) foothold could have appeared underneath. Which could happen even if no action was taken by Christian. If I were him, I would probably do the same. It is not chipping, it is not creating an eliminate, it is not harming the aestethics of the line.
It is always hard to decide what to do with loose holds. As long as it is somewhere high in the mountains, where you are expected to climb on crumbly rock, it is not a problem if the route change after every ascent. But on famous boulder problem like Gioia? You have three options. Cover the hold (or hammer it down if possible), reinforce it or leave it as it is and wait until it breaks again (and then possibly again and again?). In all three cases, you are somehow manipulating the rock (even though indirectly in the third case).”
He chose the first option, because he wanted all the climbers in the future to enjoy the Gioia as it used to be. Dave and Daniel should definitely respect what he did. It is his boulder problem and local area. It is not that Christian could not stand the fact that Dave and Daniel were smart enough to find a new beta or found a new foothold. It is what happened in the second move with the kneebar and he is perfectly fine with that. Daniel and Dave used a foothold which has not used before from a reason – because it was loose."
source 8a.nu/infoboulder.com/theburrowfiles.wordpress.com
