Italian Frees 4-Pitch 5.14+

The Italian Maurizio “Manolo” Zanolla has free-climbed a four-pitch line in the Dolomites with a crux at the top that he estimates between 5.14b and 5.14d. Manolo bolted the line from ground-up in June and then worked to free it all summer. He told the Italian website www.planetmountain.com that the difficulty of the first three pitches is approximately 5.12d, 5.12c, and 5.13d (with obligatory 5.12 climbing), and that the fourth is “somewhere in the region of 8c and 9a [5.14b to 5.14d],” with mandatory 5.13 climbing between well-spaced bolts. No spring chicken at age 48, Manolo named the climb Solo per Vecchi Guerrieri (roughly “Only for Old Warriors”).

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