The German climber David Firnenburg sends the first repetition of Fred Nicole „L ‚isola che non c‘ è“ (Neverland) (9a). The route of the Swiss „Bouldermachine“ is more of a Boulder and corresponds to the Boulder „Witness the Fitness“ in Arkansas (United States). Fred didn’t give it a grade, just said it lies somewhere around the 9th french grade.David would graded the route 9a. He works since 2016 in the route, consisting of from a Startboulder (8A) a roof truss in the seventh Bouldergrad and to tghe finish a boulder in the grade 8A +.

„Today David invested a lot of work into it.  Starting to try it without success in 2016, coming back for a couple of days in 2017, again without a happy end, and now finally sending it this season after another 3 days of trying his best. Maybe in total 8 days of work and over 15 tries (we didn’t count). It’s a huge feeling of relief and inner peace standing in front of this line finally finished and thinking back to a great process of contest with a piece of rock.

Fred didn’t give it a grade, just said it lies somewhere around the 9th french grade. David proposes 9a for a powerful Fb 8A boulder (so called “Cavernicole”) at the start, a Fb 7th graded traverse into a horizontal rest on a mini jug with heel-toe cam followed by a long and powerful Fb 8A+ boulder with spectacular swing and feet forward sequence at the very end. You sit start on crash pads and finish with a rope approx. 10 meters above the ground. But hey  to all strong climbers out there! Why not coming to Amden to give this masterpiece a try?

Thank you for the invaluable support and backing my beloved brother Ruben and @andrea_kuemin“

(c) Lars Scharl