Michele Caminati, hard boulders at Burbage in England

At Burbage North on England's gritstone Michele Caminati has sent the boulder problems The Voyager 8B, The Promise (7B+) and the route Three Blind Mice E7 6c.

Michele Caminati's “gritstone raid” is on a roll and the Italian seems to be stopped only by poor British weather. The other day the boulderer from Parma managed to send The Promise, the short and intense route established in 2007 by James Pearson at Burbage North.

"I sent The Promise with Ned Feehally" Caminati told planetmountain "We had lots of crash pads, on my first flash attempt I fell of the crux at the top, and the landing was really good. I then sent it second go. With crashpads it's a superb 7B+ highball, with a rope it's reckoned to be E7 now, the pro is at foot height, if it holds then the route is safe, but there's always the risk that it won't hold..."

For the record, The Promise came after Caminati's recent repeat of The Voyager, an 8B boulder problem established in 2005 by Ben Moon at Burbage North. A year later Moon added a sit-down start and Caminati has obviously set his sights on this 8B+ which remains unrepeated since the first ascent in 2006. Conditions yesterday though weren't good enough so the Italian had to “make do”with the nearby slab – truly delicate – of Three Blind Mice E7 6c, established by Dave Pegg in 1994. Let's hope the wind picks up!


James Peason The Promise Burbage