Arco is a quiet, little mountain town of about 15,000 people, surrounded with falesie (crags) of all types. It has a kid park with miniature boulder problems, and is the home of one of the world's tallest outdoor climbing stadiums, home to the venerable Arco Rock Master competition. 

Each year, in early September, the town’s tranquility is broken by a plethora of scrawny pro climbers, such as Patxi Usobiaga and Daniel Andrada, followed by a climbing crowd, here to participate in the event.  Climbers of all ages and nationalities parade up and down the main city Corso (street), and if you are lucky you might end up dining next to David Lama, the 16-year-old Austrian prodigy, or Manolo, the 47-year-old Italian legend. This three-day comp is now in its 20th edition, and this year attracted 3,000 spectators, with a record 49 climbers coming from as far away as Venezuela, Russia, and the United States. 

The Rock Master was created in 1986 to gather all the top-ranked climbers in the world to compete in two main disciplines: onsighting and roped climbing. Later, bouldering and speed climbing were added. The bouldering competition formula is simple, yet a bit cruel: athletes with the worst results are eliminated after every round, so that only the top-scoring ones move on to the next problem. In the speed event, each round knocks-out the slowest runners, and only the climbers with the top four times qualify for the duel contest to fight for the top four spots.  The roped-climbs ranking instead depends on the total meters the athletes in each discipline climb— the farther you climb, the higher you score.  

You won’t find a more friendly spirit than the one these athletes shared on the 60-foot wall here at Arco: a mix of serious competitive action with lots of laughter and reciprocal encouragement, such as  Jorg Verhoeven sharing beta with David Lama in the warm-up rounds.

In that atmosphere, Climbing couldn’t miss joining the most famous European magazines, such as Klettern (Germany), Desnivel (Spain), and Pareti (Italy), to report this amazing event. 

September 1 – the Rock Legends Awards
Everything started on Friday night, when the Rock Legends Awards winners were announced.  Josune Bereziartu, 34, from the Basque country, won the Salewa Rock Award for being the first woman to climb 9a (5.14d), and for pushing grades for women, most recently on-sighting Fuente de Energia (5.13d), in Vadiello, Spain. Angela Eiter, 20, from Austria, won the La Sportiva Award for her victories in the World Championships of 2004 and 2005, for her domination of the World Cup (lead events) in both 2004 and 2005, and for placing first in the Arco Rock Master those same years.