Mozambique climbing expedition ends with another new route by Mirco Grasso, Samuele Mazzolin

The expedition Verso il Phandambiri has returned recently from Mozambique, where it explored a new area for by climbing Mount Phanda and one of its satellite peaks. After the easiest route to the summit was established by Maurizio Giordani, Nancy Paoletto, Manrico Dell’Agnola, and Antonella Giacomini, the team comprised of Mirco Grasso and Samuele Mazzolini concluded the expedition in style with a line on Phanda Filho, one of the satellite formations. The pair had previously established a hard route on the east face of Mount Phanda, O caminho dos cogumelos. Grasso provides the details of the latest creation.

TEMPLO DOS MACACOS
The day we took the kids from Dzembe climbing, I couldn’t take my eyes off a section of the wall, steep and almost fluorescent, right above the slab we had bolted. We weren’t on Mount Phanda, but on its small neighbouring peak, which the locals call “Montagha Filho”.

You know how it is on these kinds of trips — you always feel that subtle pressure of coming home with something in the bag — because, after all, it’s great to achieve a goal.

In our case, during our first ten days at base camp we'd managed to leave our mark on Phandambiri, by climbing a beautiful, long slab route, never too difficult, following the most logical line of weakness. Ee still had time for another project: and so our new game began.

After the "base" and the first two pitches on incredible rock without too many unknowns, I launched myself onto a slightly overhanging wall with few features, some too delicate to hold a person’s weight, especially mine! If just one small hold had failed, the project would have ended right there, and that would have been fine too!

It was beautiful: I climbed slowly, always without resorting to aid; at every bolt I placed, I cleaned everything with care and tried all other possible beta combinations. It took me two days to complete that pitch: in reality, two short days,, since the wall stayed in the sun until 3 PM, and with the heat, on those small holds and smears, it would have been simply been impossible to climb in the sun.

Over the next two days, Samu completed the last two pitches, and the day before heading back to civilization, thanks to a light breeze that arrived at the right moment, I managed to free the crux pitch of the route which, together with everything else, allowed us to put the cherry on top of this new Mozambican gem.

We named the route Templo dos Macacos because of the many macaques that accompanied us every day on the wall.

- Mirco Grasso