James Pearson repeats Shikantaza at Valle dell’Orco

• Wednesday 2nd October 2024

James Pearson has successfully made the first repeat of the bold trad climb Shikantaza (around E9 or F8a R/X) in Valle dell’Orco, Italy. James’ ascent was made during the weekend of the Valle dell’Orco Climbing Festival, which James was attending to support his sponsors Wild Country and La Sportiva.

This ascent comes almost exactly three years after the route was established by Jacopo Larcher, in Autumn 2021. At the time, Jacopo described Shikantaza as a “…short and very British route.” The spicy trad route is on a large boulder at the base of Sergent.

Jacobo said after his first ascent: “The route is located on a big boulder at the base of Sergent; it starts following a sloper rail on a prow until a good flake, where you place some micro cams before setting off for the crux section. After a few moves you reach a good crimp, on which I decided to place a cliff as protection; the placement looks good, but the hold is a loose flake, which would probably break if you take a big fall. I tensioned (on lead) the hook with some cord to a lower cam to stop it from falling off accidentally.

The next section involves some technical moves and small crimps and ends with some insecure moves to a big flake, where you can finally place some more gear before the easier top-out. The climbing is definitely not so hard, F8a-ish, but the combination of insecure moves and a possible ground fall make it spicy! I personally really liked the shape of the block and the line, that’s why I absolutely wanted to climb it; I couldn’t have wished for a better end to my trip to Orco! I never had the chance to meet Adriano, but this one is an obvious tribute to him and his vision! I decided to call it Shikantaza (aka. The Tromba project).”

Fast forward there years and James commented after his ascent: “I remember seeing the news of Jacopo doing this route and chatting to him about it, afterwards. When we ended up in Orco earlier this year, I definitely had it on my mind to go and try it, but because we ran out of time and I focussed on climbing 29 Dots (click here for news on that repeat) I ended up not trying it on that trip. However, Shikantaza had been in the back of my mind as something to try the next time I was here.

Obviously, coming to Orco for the festival this autumn was the perfect opportunity. It was a busy weekend, between looking after the kids and doing presentations/workshops for sponsors, but because the route is so short and a very quick walk-in from the car, it seemed like a realistic objective. The route is super accessible, easy to set up a rope on and to work on my own. Due to it being so busy this weekend, finding a belayer was also not going to be a problem.

I arrived in the Valley really late on Thursday night and by first thing on Friday morning, I had already managed to get on the route to figure out the moves and scope out the gear. I managed to link the moves together and do it relatively quickly on a top rope. Even so, I was still a little apprehensive about trying it on the lead, as a fall could have pretty nasty consequences. It feels very much like a grit route, where it’s really, really short but there’s only a small section which is particularly dangerous. However, you can very quickly do one move too many and go from feeling very safe, to suddenly realising that if you make a mistake you’re going to hit the floor.

I went back later in the weekend, with my friend Talo Martin, tried it once more on a top rope and decided to give it a go. The gear on the route is small ‘micro Friends’ in a pretty good but slightly hollow flake, which I think would hold. Unfortunately, that gear is a little too low to protect the crux moves, so it’s also possible to place a sky-hook on a higher, and somewhat more sketchy, flake. This one would most likely not hold a fall, but I placed it anyway, just in case it might.

I really appreciate the fact that this route wasn’t bolted (even if it would have been totally acceptable to do so) and that Adriano Trombetta and Jacopo Larcher had the vision to pursue it as a trad line. It’s pretty cool to see a bit of the ‘British’ trad-spirit filtering into other places around the world!”  

Watch a video of James' ascent below: