Rogora and Zangerl get F9a+ and F9a second ascents

• Wednesday 14th April 2021

Laura Rogora and Babsi Zangerl have notched more impressive redpoints; both getting second ascents of recently added routes.

Laura Rogora, the 19-year old Italian climber, has just made the second ascent of Stefano Ghisolfi’s recently added Terapia d'urto (F9a+) in the cave at Pararo, Arco. As we reported when Ghisolfi made the first ascent (here), Terapia d'urto is a link-up taking in the hardest sections of both L’Arciere (F8c) and Goosfraba (F8c+). Rogora repeated Goosfraba (F8c+) in March and her second ascent of Terapia d'urto is her third F9a+ having climbed Pure Dreaming and The Bow last year as well as repeating the Ali Hulk Extension Start (F9b) in Rodellar in July.

Clearly, Rogora has picked up this year where she left off in 2020 and is climbing very well indeed. In total, she is now said to have climbed 19 routes between F8c+/9a and F9b making her the strongest, outdoor female climbers ever. 2020 was also a remarkable year for the young Italian indoors given she qualified for the Tokyo Games later in August.

Babsi Zangerl has also been busy working on a second ascent, in her case, the second ascent of Sprengstoff (F9a). “It is probably my hardest and one of the best single pitches I have climbed” Zangerl said after she'd redpointed the Jacopo Larcher route.

Whilst Zangerl’s first impressions of Sprengstoff weren’t encouraging: “At first I thought this line is beyond of reach for me.” she persevered and slowly unlocked the puzzle.

Then Zangerl fell off very high on the route which added yet another hurdle to overcome: “Falling off after the last draw—was nerve-wracking. I always thought I would never fall at this point high up at the end of the line. This was unexpected and added an extra mental challenge to me. The resting- breaks in between tries needed to be way longer, as usual, to get power back and the chance to fall right after the first draw was part of the game and made the progress even more delicate. Pure power endurance until the very top-> no mistakes allowed.”

It’s Zangerl’s second F9a. Remarkably, Sprengstoff was originally bolted over 25 years ago by Beat Kammerlander. It remained an open project until Larcher made the first ascent last November.