Simon Lorenzi gets fourth ascent of Alphane (Font 9A)
- Tuesday 20th December 2022
Belgian climber Simon Lorenzi, has returned to Switzerland and made the fourth ascent of Alphane (Font 9A).
Following hot on the heels of Aidan Roberts and Will Bosi’s second and third ascent respectively of Alphane, Belgian bouldering specialist Simon Lorenzi has just made the fourth ascent. Lorenzi, who previously did the first ascent of Soudain seul (Font 9A) in Fontainebleau, first tried Alphane earlier in the summer. Despite the hot conditions he managed to link Alphane in two halves over just five sessions. After his visit Lorenzi described Alphane saying, “The line and moves are amazing. šIt's an incredible mix of strength, tension and technicity! I've found the style quite unique and complex since most of the difficulty comes from keeping your feet on the wall and pull enough in it to optimize the hand holds."
Lorenzi returned to Switzerland after the end of the competition season to pick up where he left off. Unlike the first ascent of Soudain seul which took him some 26 sessions, Alphane came together relatively quickly. Reporting his ascent on his Instagram page Lorenzi said this about his fourth ascent, “My second of the grade, what an emotional roller coaster it has been! Congrats @dave_graham_ for the vision and @shawnraboutou for unlocking the line last year.”
The speed of Lorenzi’s ascent of Alphane, together with Will Bosi’s comments that his own bloc Honey Badger felt harder, is likely to fuel the speculation amongst some that Alphane might not be Font 9A. However, until the blocs see more ascents and a consensus is formed about the grades, Lorenzi becomes the second boulderer after Shawn Raboutou to climb more than a single Font 9A. It should be noted that Lorenzi has been on form this summer making fast ascent of other hard blocs as well. For example, in September of this year he made a super-fast ascent of Foundation Edge (Font 8C) at Fionnay, Valais in Switzerland sending that bloc on his third attempt within a 1:30hr session!