27.04.2025

Melloblocco 2025 prize boulders: 3 projects to be freed for women and 3 for men ... who will win the first ascent?

This year's proposal includes no less than three completely new projects, both for the women's and men's boulders.

We have dared to propose at least two passages which we are certain are feasible but which would take years for us to be able to climb, with difficulties of around 8b or more, the fact is that despite our efforts we have only managed to link a few sequences of the entire line.

Other projects have a much lower grade and many climbers could win a First Ascent during the event by linking their name to the event and to Val Masino.

How does a project work for a boulderer today?

In 90% of cases it works like this, with your head bent over the screen of a mobile phone studying the methods of the various videos you find on YouTube or Instagram. Then you get into the action by trying out movements and comparing one beta over another. ‘Did you see in this video instead of putting the heel he used the toe’ ‘I should try that too’ you try until you press the red button on your phone on the kickstand and celebrate your ascent by posting your success on social media, putting another video on the net.

The route of the Melloblocco prize blocks is a complicated work of research and imagination. It wants in some way to break this pattern, this routine, restoring a little mystery and the possibility of putting yourself at stake with a piece of rock relying only on your own imagination or on the advice of the climber next to you at that moment.

Already in previous editions, regular visitors to Val Masino have complimented the choice of route because many of the passages they had never even seen.

It was a stimulus for the route setters themselves to insist in this direction.

There is a lot of curiosity, in the hope of seeing the bar of the general level move year after year.

Who knows how far we can go?

Matteo De Zaiacomo